U.S. Goes All “Netanyahu” On Honduras
William A. Jacobson
Legal Insurrection
4/1/2010
…As noted in numerous posts here, the U.S. tried to force the return to power of Chavista and wannabe President-for-Life Manuel Zelaya. Only through the resoluteness of the Honduran people and government were Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama kept from achieving Zelaya’s return.
I thought that it was over, as far at the U.S. was concerned, when it was reported that Clinton was seeking to convince other Latin American nations, which had followed the U.S. lead in refusing to recognize the government of Honduras, to reverse course.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal a few days ago, the tenacity of the Obama administration’s vendetta against Honduras was driven by the fact that Republicans had sided with those who removed Zelaya at the behest of the Honduran Supreme Court. (The Obama administration denies this, per the article.)
Four months after a presidential election, reports from Honduras suggest the Obama administration remains obsessed with repairing its foreign-policy image by regaining the upper hand. The display of raw colonialist hubris is so pronounced that locals now refer to U.S. ambassador Hugo Llorens as “the proconsul.”
Washington’s bullying is two-pronged. First is a maniacal determination to punish those involved in removing Mr. Zelaya. Second is an attempt to force Honduras to allow Mr. Zelaya, who now lives in the Dominican Republic, to return without facing any repercussions for the illegal actions that provoked his removal. Both goals are damaging the bilateral relationship, polarizing the nation and raising the risk of a resurgence of political violence.
Read the whole thing at Legal Insurrection.
