If the Obama Administration is, in effect, acting as an agent of Venezuela (and Iran) in Honduras, such a foreign policy could be described not only as anti-American but potentially treasonous, considering that the outcome could be the loss of another country in Latin America to the Chavez brand of communism.
It is time for some investigative reporting into the nature of the Chavez-Obama axis.
THE CHAVEZ-OBAMA U.N. PLOT AGAINST HONDURAS
By Cliff Kincaid
July 25, 2009
NewsWithViews.com
The United Nations on Thursday begins a debate over a new U.N. military doctrine called the “Responsibility to Protect,” which would authorize the world organization to be used as cover to intervene in the sovereign affairs of a nation state, supposedly to protect the people of a country against their own government. The first target could be anti-communist Honduras.
The “Responsibility to Protect,” also known as RtoP or R2P, is mostly the work of the World Federalist Movement, a group dedicated to world government by strengthening the United Nations system. It is the major force behind the “International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect.”
R2P was sold as something to be exercised against regimes practicing genocide against their own people. But the new doctrine is so vague and subject to political manipulation that one can speculate it could be used to justify some form of U.N. intervention in Honduras on the pretext that the people there are somehow being victimized by a popular military-backed regime. In fact, some Hondurans are telling this columnist that they are fearful that U.N. “blue helmets” are right now being prepared to invade their country.
It is difficult to dismiss these concerns as baseless rumors, considering what will be happening at the U.N. The key U.N. official orchestrating the debate, General Assembly President and Lenin Peace Prize recipient Miguel D’Escoto, is the same figure who recently managed passage of a U.N. resolution supporting the return to Honduras of Manuel Zelaya, who was removed by the military on the orders of the Honduran Supreme Court and Congress. Zelaya is a lackey of Venezuelan communist ruler Hugo Chavez, who is using his oil money to buy and influence governments throughout Latin America.
In an ominous development, blogger Jason Poblete, an astute observer of Latin American affairs with excellent sources, reports that “The Obama Administration is considering a United Nations Security Council Resolution against the constitutional government of Honduras.” If true, anticipated U.N. sanctions against Honduras could be followed by the world organization being used as cover for outside forces to invade Honduras and reinstate Zelaya.
The new government in Honduras replaced Zalaya because he was trying to set himself up as president-for-life, Chavez-style. All of this was found to be in violation of Honduran law and the Constitution. Despite what officials of the Obama Administration said in trying to orchestrate media coverage of this crisis, it was not a military coup in any sense. The military doesn’t run Honduras today. In fact, the new president, appointed by Congress, is from Zelaya’s own political party. Zelaya was dismissed because of the simple fact that he tried to violate the law and the Constitution.
Zelaya flew from Costa Rica, where he was deported, to U.N. headquarters in New York, where D’Escoto, who is also a Communist Catholic Priest from Nicaragua, greeted him as a comrade. Since the crisis began and the U.N. voted to have him reinstated, the Obama Administration has been trying to figure out a way to get him back into power. Costa Rican President Oscar Arias recently hosted some negotiations to try to resolve the dispute but they appear to be going nowhere.
The U.N. may be the logical next step, if Zelaya’s allies in the region don’t act precipitously on their own and intervene. Chavez has already threatened to invade Honduras to put Zelaya back in power.
Interestingly, according to one report, when Zelaya tried to return to Honduras by plane and was turned away, his supporters began chanting “We want blue helmets!”—a reference to U.N. peacekeepers. This could be the scenario we see developing, using the “Responsibility to Protect” or something similar as justification for U.N. economic and military intervention.
R2P is usually offered as a possible remedy in the case of Darfur, a region of Sudan where people are being massacred by the Islamic regime. But this was never realistic. President Obama promised but has failed to do anything about this. The real source of the problem in Darfur is the communist regime in China, which directly finances the Sudanese regime through oil purchases. Obama won’t confront China because he needs Chinese help to finance his tax, spend and debt policies.
With Arab and Muslim governments also unwilling to confront the problem directly, the burden of responding to Darfur falls on the incompetent and corrupt U.N., which is always anxious to expand its scope and power. The “Responsibility to Protect,” which was actually approved by the U.N. General Assembly in 2005, when the Bush Administration was in power, is supposed to be the answer. The debate unfolding in the U.N. is over how to implement this doctrine and under what circumstances. What can be certainly be expected are calls for more money for the U.N. to finance more military power, perhaps even a standing World Army that includes more U.N. “blue helmet” peacekeepers.
Everybody knows, of course, that the doctrine will not be used against China, a member of the U.N. Security Council. Nobody expects a U.N. force to liberate Tibet. Neither will a U.N. force be deployed to protect Georgia from Russia. Instead, it will be used against small countries, possibly Honduras, where there is a U.N. “consensus” and the Obama Administration could vote and work with China and Russia.
D’Escoto, or as he is called, “Father D’Escoto,” will preside over the U.N. debate, which is expected to run into Friday. Pope Benedict XVI endorsed the “Responsibility to Protect” in an April 2008 speech before the U.N. but has been unclear about how it should be implemented. He has called for dialogue in Honduras.
On the ground in Honduras, an overwhelmingly Catholic Central American country, the Catholic Church has backed the ouster of Zelaya because of the realistic fear that he was a front man for Chavez. In a statement, the Catholic bishops of Honduras declared that Zelaya had been removed from office on the basis of a valid court order.
But not all of the Catholic elements in the country are opposing Zalaya’s return. The Jesuit-run Radio Progreso has been acting as a mouthpiece for Zalaya and his supporters and is the source of the recent report that Zelaya intends to invade the country in cahoots with something called the Peaceful Resistance Front. The Catholic Church in Honduras fears that Zelaya could spark a bloodbath. Such a spectacle could provide the cover for U.N. intervention.
With Obama’s plans to seize the health care and energy sectors a focus of public attention, few in Congress are taking a hard look at the prospect of violence in Honduras. However, Senator Jim DeMint and several other senators have protested the Obama policy. DeMint also introduced an amendment to the defense authorization bill to require the Director of National Intelligence to present a “full report” on the roles played by Chavez and the leaders of Nicaragua and Cuba in facilitating the crisis in Honduras.
What is also needed is for the Congress—and the media—to start investigating the Obama Administration’s role in all of this. On July 13, the State Department spokesman confirmed that Chavez had called Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon to “discuss the current situation in Honduras and the ongoing negotiations mediated by Costa Rica’s President Oscar Arias.” The confirmation followed news of Chavez boasting about the telephone call on Venezuelan state TV.
This tends to confirm what former Marxist SDS radical Tom Hayden, leader of “Progressives for Obama,” has written about the Obama-Chavez relationship. Based on his own inside sources of information, Hayden said that he thinks Obama and Chavez are working together on Honduras and have an “understanding,” which he even describes as “collaboration.” The call Chavez made to Shannon suggests that Chavez is calling the shots.
Ultimately, according to a very detailed report by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, part of the Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center, this would benefit Iran, a terrorist state developing nuclear weapons which is developing a vast network throughout Latin America. A recent report from the organization examines the deep Iranian connections to Venezuela as well as Bolivia.
If the Obama Administration is, in effect, acting as an agent of Venezuela (and Iran) in Honduras, such a foreign policy could be described not only as anti-American but potentially treasonous, considering that the outcome could be the loss of another country in Latin America to the Chavez brand of communism.
It is time for some investigative reporting into the nature of the Chavez-Obama axis.
© 2009 Cliff Kincaid - All Rights Reserved
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Cliff Kincaid, a veteran journalist and media critic, Cliff concentrated in journalism and communications at the University of Toledo, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Cliff has written or co-authored nine books on media and cultural affairs and foreign policy issues. One of Cliff's books, "Global Bondage: The UN Plan to Rule the World" is still awailable.
Cliff has appeared on Hannity & Colmes, The O’Reilly Factor, Crossfire and has been published in the Washington Post, Washington Times, Chronicles, Human Events and Insight.
Web Site: www.AIM.org
E-Mail: cliff.kincaid@aim.org
This article would have been much more interesting in the 1980s when people really believed that communism was a threat to the world. Now all one has to do is take a look at the labels on clothes and a majority of other products around you, and you will see that the US really doesn’t care about communist regimes. If we did, why would we have such good relations with an oppressive and extremely powerful communist nation such as China? I really thought the US was over the "Red Scare".
ReplyDeleteAs far as Honduras, remember that Zelaya was overthrown in a military coup. Congress did not vote to remove him. Just because he was replaced by his vice-president of the same political party does not mean that this interim president’s ill-gotten power is justified. At least Zelaya was elected. Also, Zelaya's term extension was to be proposed to the Honduran people through a democratic referendum voted on by everyone. In fact, his removal has been one of the biggest threats to democracy Latin America has seen in quite a while. Shall we accuse New York City’s mayor Bloomberg of Chavez-style communist dictatorship for his recent referendum for extending his term limits? Should we call on the military to have him removed so he can hide out somewhere on the New York/New Jersey border? No, the people voted for it, and he won...democratically. And what better way to amend a constitution (which are amendable, in case we’ve forgotten) than to have your citizens vote on it?
This article paints Zelaya as a rogue politician who wants to implement “Chavez-style communism”. Fortunately, the word “communism” does not strike the same fear in people’s hearts as it has done in the past when it was thrown around quite often for the wrong reasons. Reagan hasn’t been president in quite a while. If you want to scare people, call Zelaya a terrorist. However, that would be impossible to do in Zelaya’s case because he’s taken a peaceful and passive approach to protesting his illegal removal.
While I agree that Chavez is far from a good defender of democracy and freedom, whether you want to believe it or not, he has been democratically elected to his terms. I personally do not like the guy myself, but let us not forget that his referendum for ending term limits (not limitless terms, but the ability to be repeatedly democratically re-elected) was voted down by Venezuelan citizens. Chavez, though reluctantly, accepted this defeat. And just because Obama happens to have the same stance as Chavez on the situation in Honduras, it does not make him one step closer to a communist dictator. It makes him a defender of democracy. To call it "treason" is just wishful thinking that we could go back to the days of McCarthyism, El Savador, Guatamala, Pinochet’s Chile, and the Iran-Contra scandal and use the word “communism” as an excuse to threaten the sovereignty of other nations and democracy itself.
John Dunleavy
Guayaquil, Ecuador
Your post is full of factual errors.
ReplyDelete...it has become clear that [Zelaya's] arrest was both lawful and a necessary precaution against violence. Mr. Zelaya was trying to use mob rule to undermine Honduras's institutions in much the same way that Mr. Chávez has done in Venezuela. But as Washington lawyer Miguel Estrada pointed out in the Los Angeles Times on July 10, Mr. Zelaya's actions were expressly forbidden by the Honduran constitution.
"Article 239," Mr. Estrada noted, "specifically states that any president who so much as proposes the permissibility of reelection 'shall cease forthwith' in his duties, and Article 4 provides that any 'infraction' of the succession rules constitutes treason." Congress had little choice but to take its next step. It convened "immediately after Zelaya's arrest," Mr. Estrada wrote, "condemning his illegal conduct, and overwhelmingly voting (122-6) to remove him from office."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124804541071763577.html
Current President Micheletti says in the WSJ: Let’s review some fundamental facts that cannot be disputed:
• The Supreme Court, by a 15-0 vote, found that Mr. Zelaya had acted illegally by proceeding with an unconstitutional “referendum,” and it ordered the Armed Forces to arrest him. The military executed the arrest order of the Supreme Court because it was the appropriate agency to do so under Honduran law.
• Eight of the 15 votes on the Supreme Court were cast by members of Mr. Zelaya’s own Liberal Party. Strange that the pro-Zelaya propagandists who talk about the rule of law forget to mention the unanimous Supreme Court decision with a majority from Mr. Zelaya’s own party. Thus, Mr. Zelaya’s arrest was at the instigation of Honduran’s constitutional and civilian authorities—not the military.
• The Honduran Congress voted overwhelmingly in support of removing Mr. Zelaya. The vote included a majority of members of Mr. Zelaya’s Liberal Party.
• Independent government and religious leaders and institutions—including the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, the Administrative Law Tribunal, the independent Human Rights Ombudsman, four-out-of-five political parties, the two major presidential candidates of the Liberal and National Parties, and Honduras’s Catholic Cardinal—all agreed that Mr. Zelaya had acted illegally.
• The constitution expressly states in Article 239 that any president who seeks to amend the constitution and extend his term is automatically disqualified and is no longer president. There is no express provision for an impeachment process in the Honduran constitution. But the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision affirmed that Mr. Zelaya was attempting to extend his term with his illegal referendum. Thus, at the time of his arrest he was no longer—as a matter of law, as far as the Supreme Court was concerned—president of Honduras.
• Days before his arrest, Mr. Zelaya had his chief of staff illegally withdraw millions of dollars in cash from the Central Bank of Honduras.
• A day or so before his arrest, Mr. Zelaya led a violent mob to overrun an Air Force base to seize referendum ballots that had been shipped into Honduras by Hugo Chávez’s Venezuelan government.
• I succeeded Mr. Zelaya under the Honduran constitution’s order of succession (our vice president had resigned before all of this began so that he could run for president). This is and has always been an entirely civilian government. The military was ordered by an entirely civilian Supreme Court to arrest Mr. Zelaya. His removal was ordered by an entirely civilian and elected Congress. To suggest that Mr. Zelaya was ousted by means of a military coup is demonstrably false.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204886304574311083177158174.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
You should watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da9etL5uqy8