On November 19, 2009, the Americas Society/Council of the Americas hosted an on-the-record conversation about the political crisis in Honduras, focusing on the upcoming national elections and the impact of a decision by the Honduran Congress to delay the vote on reinstating ousted President Manuel Zelaya. The event was hosted at the Brookings Institution.
Each of the speakers agreed that international policy, and U.S. policy in particular, on the Honduran crisis has been shaky thus far. But panelists differed on how the situation could have been better addressed. John Maisto saw a failure on the part of the United States and the Organization of American States (OAS) in issuing an ultimatum to suspend Honduras’ membership from the OAS. The Fletcher School’s Lawrence Harrison disagreed with the strong sanctions imposed by Washington and opined that Zelaya should have accepted his exile. He disagreed with the U.S. position that Zelaya should be returned to power through the end of his term. However, AS/COA’s Christopher Sabatini voiced strong support of Zelaya’s reinstatement prior to national elections in order to support democratic values not only in Honduras, but across Latin America. He characterized the failure to return Zelaya to his post as a very negative precedent for the region. Moreover, he stated that the United States should have done more to condemn Zelaya’s actions instead of focusing its criticism on Micheletti and his supporters. Continue Article Here.
3 responses so far ↓
1 gonow // Nov 20, 2009 at 10:01 am
just an other one of those meetings where one or two people know the facts ……….and the rest are talking about something they don’t know anything about they just like to hear them self speak go do your home work before you open your mouth …….you might not sound so dum than….don’t hear any thing from hillary about honduras anymore …the least she should do is say she did no know the facts …..she does not have to admit that they all worked very hard to distord the facts ….thank haven they did not sucseed………..
2 Axel Reyes Bogran // Nov 20, 2009 at 1:31 pm
From what I read on this article I can interpret that almost everybody there is in agreement that what the country of Honduras did in regard to Zelaya was originally correct, and even though I disagree with Mr. Sabatini’s opinion that Zelaya should be reinstated, I am relieved to see that thinking people are abandoning the original posture generated as a consquence to the knee jerk reaction to the USA’s current administration position on what hapenned there.
Must of the comments I read and hear on the circumstances that caused the ousting of
ex-president Zelaya and the subsequent attacks on my country were basically a consequence of two very simple reasons:
1). President Obama has very “Leftist” inclinations, so as a normal reaction (for him) he did not want to accept the ousting of a puppet of that famous South American dictator, Chavez
2). Most of the (false) information that was passed along to Washington came from the assigned ambassador to Honduras, Llorens, so it got a bit confusing for a while but it could have been easier going for Honduras if Obama had not been so intent on helping Hugo Chavez.
3 masonford // Nov 21, 2009 at 3:24 pm
My comment is the below paste copy of an e-mail I sent.
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Flag this message[ No Subject ]Friday, November 20, 2009 9:33 AMFrom: “MASON FORD” Add sender to ContactsTo: nmiqgovima@state.nm.us, mark.alexander@shu.edu, mark.denbeaux@shu.edu, info@cei.org, AndersenM@ndu.edu, Webmaster@sec.senate.gov, brinkley@foreign-matters.com, chdsWebmaster@ndu.edu, webmaster@cfr.org, coha@coha.org, “Larry Ragonese” , “Paul Mulshine” , “Robert Braun” , tmoran@starledger.com… moreFw: Re:Fw:
Friday, November 20, 2009 9:25 AMFrom: “MASON FORD” masonford@verizon.net Hard copies: President Obama/Chief of Staff Emanuel, Senators Kerry, DeMint, Lugar and Menendez, and Congressman Berman.
— On Fri, 11/20/09, MASON FORD wrote:
From: MASON FORD
Subject: Re:Fw:
To: ” BLOOMBERG/ NEWSROOM:JOSHUA GOODMAN”
Date: Friday, November 20, 2009, 9:21 AM
There is no list. At some considerable effort I specifically forwarded to you only copies of substantial material I submitted showing that the Latin press published the fact that the President of Brazil, as the spokesperson for all Latin countries at Summit V, defined it as a total failure because it failed to address the Cuban embargo, a commercial/economic issue that the Americas “can no longer live with”, and that the failure was based in the policies of Jose Insulza, Thomas Shannon and Arturo Valenzuela per their flawed congressional testimony, which also is based in purely political issues and not economic/commercial ones, where they see no threat to us.
I also listed the horrendous results since the Summit. These results are now expanded by such as the Presidents of Brazil and France personally negotiating the purchase of fighter aircraft, Venezuela buying Russia tanks to confront our military build-up in Colombia and who knows what else – Uzis and other weapons for Zelaya’s followers and imported support in Honduras?
End result – Insulza, Shannon and Valenzuela have taken us out of not only the commercial/industrial game in Latin America but the political one as well as ALBA strengthens every day in spite of no real credibility for Hugo Chavez.
I really thought you would be interested as a broadly knowledgeable involved party. Sorry, this is my last, with copies forwarded elsewhere to my copy recipients, who apparently don’t “get it” either.
Mason Ford
— On Thu, 11/19/09, JOSHUA GOODMAN, BLOOMBERG/ NEWSROOM: wrote:
From: JOSHUA GOODMAN, BLOOMBERG/ NEWSROOM:
Subject: Re:Fw:
To: masonford@verizon.net
Date: Thursday, November 19, 2009, 12:13 PM
Hi Mason,
Can you please take me off this list. I’m getting bombarded here with emails from you.
Thanks, Josh
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I do not believe that Manuel Zelaya or Hugo Chavez or the ALBA socialist alliance want Mr. Zelaya returned to power. What they want are civil wars in the Andes and Central America. This is a long story based on my comprehensive analysis of the Latin press coverage of Summit V and the congressional testimony of Jose Insulza, Thomas Shannon and Arturo Valenzuela.
I have major writeups of published facts if anyone has interest.