The Honduras of Obama

What is Obama waiting for to push to reestablish democracy in Honduras?

As you well know, on June 28, Honduran soldiers kidnapped democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya and flew him into exile in Costa Rica. The first coup d’etat in Central America in more than 25 years was led by military trained in the United States.

The General Romeo Vásquez, who led the coup, was trained in the U. S. Army’s School of the Americas (SOA), renamed in 2000 the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. The SOA has trained more than 60,000 soldiers from Latinoamérica, many of whom have returned home and committed human rights abuses, torture, extrajudicial executions and massacres. The assassins of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, six Jesuit priest, their housekeeper and her daughter were trained over there.

Zelaya's sin was to plan a referendum to ask the people if they agree to remake the Constitution. The Gorillas say that a new Constitution would allow Zelaya to remain in the power beyond his term, becoming a “Hugo Chávez -style dictator”. But why they weren’t capable to feat Zelaya in the referendum?

Obama has been very ambiguous about this coup. He has refused to call it by its name, because if he does that, the United States will be obligate to cut any assistant to that country. The United States hasn’t withdrawn the U. S. ambassador from Honduras, as most American countries did. Well, Hillary Clinton ordered Oscar Arias, president of Costa Rica to call Zelaya and the Gorillas for negotiation. But that is more to gain time for the gorillas to remain in power, than that to force them to leave the presidency.

I think Obama can do more to obligate the gorillas leave the power in Honduras. Just a few things:

-He must order to withdraw the U.S. ambassador from Honduras.
-He can cut all military, financial and commercial assistant to the “new” government.
-He must support the efforts of United Nations and the Organization of American States to reestablish Zelaya in presidency instead of playing the Oscar Arias card.

The United States has the chance to exorcize the ghost of past U. S. foreign policy in Latin America. Obama must support the democratic institutions of Honduras, undoing the coup.

I hope Obama will honor his word when he said: “We always want to stand with democracy.”