Our Special Brand of “Democracy” in Iraq

by Scott Creighton

499 potential candidates have been striken from the ballots for the upcoming March 7th ”elections” in Iraq. Why? Because they were alledged to have ties to the now defunct and illegal Baath Party. You see, the Baath Party was primarily a socialist political organization and having them around in positions of power wouldn’t be helpful to those who intended to impose a vast neoliberal restructuring of the Iraqi economy in the wake of our illegal invasion and occupation. So basically, they made being a “socialist’ illegal in Iraq and they are removing certain candidates from the election rolls who’s fiscal ideology isn’t in line with that of the neoliberal globalists here in America.

Come March 7th, the people of Iraq will be allowed to chose between one corrupt neoliberal globalist politician or the other corrupt neoliberal globalist politician. Kinda like the choice given to the people of Honduras after the illegal coup got their populist president out of the way (supported by the Obama administration in at least 10 clear ways)and kinda like the choice we had here in America back in November of 2008.

Honduran coup regime launches brutal crackdown

by Bill Van Auken, WSWS

In an attempt to suppress the growing popular resistance to the regime installed just over a month ago by the June 28 coup that overthrew Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, police and troops carried out a brutal crackdown against demonstrations in the capital of Tegucigalpa Thursday.

… Among those arrested was Carlos Reyes, the president of the Honduran beverage workers union and an independent candidate for president. After he submitted to arrest, Reyes, who is 70 years old and diabetic, was beaten badly by the security forces suffering a broken arm and a head wound.

[read the rest, here]

A Chance for Real Democracy in Honduras

by Kevin Coleman, ICH

Honduras is changing. In 1981, Ronald Reagan imposed democracy from the outside, yielding a constitution that minimized the participation of the citizenry in the decisions of their government and a process that repressed and decapitated the social movements—led by workers, peasants, and students—who sought to have their voices heard. Nearly three decades later, as President Manuel Zelaya made marginal steps toward reform, by raising the minimum wage from about $0.50/hour to about $1.20/hour and attempting to create a mechanism for the people’s participation in their government, the previously fragmented Honduran elite united to overthrow him.

That same elite and a deeply colonized Honduran middle class thought that the United States and other conservative members of the international community would embrace this undemocratic step. That was their first miscalculation. Their second misstep was to assume that the historically acquiescent Honduran people would shut up and accept the dictates of their social and economic superiors. The complete opposite has turned out to be true.

Human Rights report reveals brutal repression in Honduras

by Rafael Azul, WSWS

In negotiations held over the weekend, deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya agreed to a proposal by Costa Rican President Óscar Arias that, as a price for his returning to office, accept a government of “unity and national reconciliation” that would essentially make him a powerless puppet of the very forces that overthrew him and him sent into exile.

Ex-Clinton aides advising Honduran coup regime

by Bill Van Auken, WSWS

Ever since the military abducted President Manuel Zelaya at gunpoint on June 28 and expelled him from the country, the Obama administration has cast itself as a steadfast defender of “democracy” in Honduras.

The real nature of that defense has become somewhat clearer with the news that key former aides to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have surfaced as top advisers to the illegal regime led by Roberto Micheletti, which was installed by the coup.

Honduras: US-backed mediation legitimizes military coup

by Bill Van Auken, WSWS

The talks convened in the Costa Rican capital San José on Thursday with the purported aim of resolving the political crisis unleashed by the June 28 coup in neighboring Honduras, are shaping up as a farce. The apparent object of this fraudulent exercise is to legitimize the military overthrow of the elected president of Honduras and realize the aims of Washington and the predominant sections of the right-wing Honduran oligarchy.

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, who last month was seized by troops, bundled onto an airplane and flown to San José and exile, returned to the Costa Rican capital Wednesday and was the first to hold talks the next day with the US-designated mediator, Costa Rican President Óscar Arias.

He was followed by Roberto Micheletti, head of the government installed by the coup, whom Costa Rican authorities referred to as the “acting president,” a description that disconcerted Zelaya and his supporters, who have denounced the former head of the parliament as a criminal who illegally usurped power.

Before the talks, Arias stressed that he would treat both men equally as presidents.

[read the rest, here]

Honduras: What’s Black and White and Gets the Red Out?

(The Coup that Wasn’t – coup supporting newspaper in Honduras airbrushes blood from photo…)

by Al Giordano, The Field

Airbrushed Version/Real Version

CubaDebate has an illuminating find regarding the coverage of the crisis in Honduras by the pro-coup newspaper, La Prensa.

The now-iconic photograph of the late 19-year-old Isis Obed Murillo, being carried by his friends to seek medical help moments after his shooting by gunmen during Sunday’s demonstrations in Tegucigalpa, was also published by the Honduran daily… Except that La Prensa chose to airbrush the young man’s blood out of the photo.

A Coup is Not a Coup. A Not-Coup is a Coup.

by Keven Coleman, History News Network

On Sunday June 28th, the Honduran military kidnapped their president, Manuel “Mel” Zelaya, and flew him to Costa Rica in his pajamas. In doing so, the military enforced an unconstitutional and undemocratic transfer of power from the Honduran left to the right. The international community immediately and unanimously condemned the coup d’état. Meanwhile, there is ongoing censorship of the press and several laws protecting Hondurans’ basic civil liberties have been indefinitely suspended by the coup government. In light of these basic facts, there are at least three historical problems that both activists and policymakers must address.

The Honduran coup: A warning to the working class

by Bill Van Auken, WSWS

Since the June 28 coup by the most right-wing sections of the ruling elite, backed by the US-trained military, Honduran workers have waged an implacable struggle against the imposition of an illegitimate and repressive regime.

Over 60,000 Honduran teachers have carried out an indefinite strike since June 29, the day after the elected president, Manuel Zelaya, was seized at gunpoint by the military and bundled onto a plane that flew him out of the country. Schools remain shut nationwide, with students and parents supporting the action. Other sections of the Honduran working class have joined in this struggle, threatening to escalate it through the erection of barricades on the nation’s highways.

Honduran troops kill anti-coup demonstrators at Tegucigalpa airport

by Barry Grey, WSWS

Honduran troops on Sunday fired on anti-coup demonstrators outside the airport in the capital, Tegucigalpa, killing at least two and wounding many more. Thousands had converged on the heavily guarded airport to show support for deposed President Manuel Zelaya, who flew from Washington DC earlier in the day in a bid to return to Honduras and reclaim power.

… The (Obama) administration has refused even to formally declare Zelaya’s ouster at gunpoint a coup, claiming it is studying the situation.

… There is evidence that the Obama administration was intimately involved in pre-coup plans to oust Zelaya, … The official said, “There was talk of how they might remove the president from office, how he could be arrested, on whose authority they could do that.”

[read the rest, here]

President Zelaya is set to return to Honduras Today

by Scott Creighton

and just for some more background on Micheletti’s Cabinet selections:

Meet Enrique Ortez, the man given the job of Chancellor of Honduras (basically foreign minister) by the usurper Micheletti… “But he went for more by defining President Barack Obama of The United States as “that little black man who doesn’t know anything“.  IKN

[read after the break for a running account from Sunday, of the events as they happened.]

Honduran Coup: Target Left?

by Roger Burbach, CounterPunch

The coup against Manuel Zelaya of Honduras represents a last ditch effort by Honduras’ entrenched economic and political interests to stave off the advance of the new left governments that have taken hold in Latin America over the past decade. As Zelaya proclaimed after being forcibly dumped in Costa Rica: “This is a vicious plot planned by elites. The elites only want to keep the country isolated and in extreme poverty.”

CNN video shows Honduran troops shooting protesters’ bus tires

“As part of its media strategy to claim public support, the coup regime of Honduras is impeding coup opponents from assembling to demonstrate against the coup. Here, CNN captures coup soldiers shooting out the bus tires 120 km from Tegucigalpa to deter arrival of protesters to the capital.”

read more at TruthDig, here.

Honduras under siege

“Bertha Oliva: Coup leaders are reviving despotism of the 80s in bid to crush participatory democracy.”

Coup “President” Installs Nephew as “Mayor” of Honduras’ Second City

by Al Giordano, NarcoNews

The Oligarch Diaspora shouts, again and again, in its flailing attempt to convince the Honduran people and the world that its coup d’etat was somehow legitimate, “we want democracy!”

Well, here’s a powerful example of the kind of “democracy” they apparently want.