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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: average joe who wrote (325738)	9/23/2009 4:02:18 PM
From: Tom Clarke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793846

Stirring Up Chaos Inside Honduras IBD Posted 09/22/2009 07:00 PM ET Americas: Ex-president Manuel Zelaya has returned to Honduras and with him the unrest Hondurans feared. It raises questions about the aims of the foreign actors who smuggled him in. Someone is trying to create chaos. The deposed president's appearance in Tegucigalpa occurred just as Honduras' outlook had brightened. After months of humiliating isolation, Panama had announced that it would accept the results of Honduras' November presidential election, moving to bring the crisis over Zelaya's constitutional removal to a close. Four other countries reportedly would follow. It wasn't to last. Zelaya suddenly turned up at the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, saying unnamed "amigos" helped him sneak into the country. Instead of turning himself in to face justice for trying to usurp power, he used Brazil's embassy walls as a perch to whip up a violent leftist mob of 3,000, vowing to "punish" opponents. Waving a Che Guevara banner, Zelaya's supporters burned tires, sprayed graffiti, smashed shop windows and set a bus and police car on fire Monday and Tuesday before police broke it up. It was a sorry spectacle to see Brazil permit its embassy to be used as a revolutionary command center, even as Honduran police protected it. The irresponsible act now raises the prospect of instability across Honduras, the very trouble Honduran authorities had tried to avoid as they exiled Zelaya in June rather than jail him. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Zelaya's return raised the prospect of a peaceful Honduras solution. It did nothing of the sort. Instead, it's a particularly crude foreign intervention into another country's internal affairs that will reduce the chances of any peaceful solution to what shouldn't be a crisis at all. For starters, it won't get Zelaya reseated as president. Millions of Hondurans have stood by their constitutionally appointed president, Roberto Micheletti, who has honorably executed his duties in the most difficult of circumstances — insulted by world leaders, his country's aid cut off, his associates' visas pulled. Amid all this abuse, he still commands support from average Hondurans. It was this very leadership that led to the drop-off in global sanctions against Honduras that IBD described Sept. 8. By ensuring normality, other nations sought to make peace and move on. But someone wanted to halt that progress by bringing Zelaya back. All evidence points to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who first announced the return and, as Zelaya's closest ally, once saw Honduras as part of his "Bolivarian" empire. More important than just a vote in the U.N., Honduras was useful to him as a shipping route for Colombia's FARC drug traffickers, key Chavez allies. Venezuelan journalist Nelson Bocaranda reports that former Venezuelan Interior Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin arranged for Zelaya to be spirited back in a car trunk, with Nicaraguan help. If so, it wouldn't be surprising. As one of three Venezuelan officials designated drug "kingpins" in an official Treasury Department report, and thus subject to arrest, he would likely have knowledge of smuggling routes into Honduras from his associates. That's a heck of a guy for Zelaya to owe a favor to. It would be appalling for the U.S. to want Zelaya's rule restored in light of that. Brazil's supporting role is also a disgrace. Aiding Chavez with this embassy stunt to let Zelaya foment violence in the streets of Tegucigalpa is both irresponsible and illegal under international law. For Brazil, it's a knock on its global prestige and credibility. There are only two valid reasons for Brazil to shelter Zelaya. One is to turn him over to Honduran authorities. The other is to give him asylum in Brazil. But to give him protection to try to overthrow the current, lawfully constituted government is naked foreign intervention — precisely the kind Brazil rails against elsewhere. Then there is the role of the U.S. Although the U.S. has done nothing directly to foment instability, the White House's vow to not accept the results of the November election seems to have emboldened foreign actors to commit this destabilizing stunt. The U.S. made a good-faith effort to negotiate a solution through Costa Rica, but the talks stalled after Costa Rican President Oscar Arias tried to dictate terms. He was almost as ham-fisted as the Organization of American States, whose secretary-general, Jose Miguel Insulza, tried to bully Micheletti into resigning, without success. In this stalemate, an opening was created for nations with no interests in the region or in Honduras' welfare other than an interest in cutting the U.S. down a peg. In bringing back Zelaya, these nations bring back instability and reduce the odds of a government friendly to the U.S. ever taking hold, let alone a stable one. Ambitious Brazil and malevolent Chavez would spurn the rule of law and replace it with the supremacy of a strongman — who in fact would be their pawn. The U.S. should not support this charade. investors.com