Honduras-The CIA Never Quits by Gary Sudborough

by Gary Sudborough
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
29 June 2009

Just after I had written three articles about the alleged voter fraud, street demonstrations and violence in Iran being a classic example of a CIA destabilization operation because of Iran’s oil, and even more importantly its strategic location, there is a coup in Honduras, which certainly suggests another CIA operation. Two of the leaders of the Honduran coup are School of the Americas graduates. The School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia has trained some of the most brutal dictators and death squad leaders in Latin America. Two of those who immediately come to mind are the former brutal dictator of Guatemala, Rios Montt, and the Salvadoran death squad leader, Roberto d’Aubuisson, who was responsible for the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador. The names of these Honduran SOA graduates are General Vasquez and General Suazo, the first from the army and the latter from the air force. President Zelaya, the victim of the coup, was flown to Costa Rica and the ambassadors from Cuba and Venezuela were arrested. It is very reminiscent of the time when President Aristide of Haiti was arrested by US forces and flown to the Central African Republic. President Aristide was trying to raise the wages of the sweatshop workers employed by American corporations in Haiti, and this situation simply could not be tolerated. President Zelaya, being a leftist, was probably trying to do something for the poor in Honduras, also.

The history of US involvement in Honduras in very interesting. The United Fruit Company set up many banana plantations there. There were US military interventions in Honduras in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924, and 1925. These were the so-called Banana Wars and occurred in other countries in the region, as well. There was a massacre of banana workers working for the United Fruit Company in Colombia in 1928, during which the Colombian military machine-gunned an unknown number of people. In fact, marine Major General Smedley Butler mentions his military operations in Honduras in his famous speech where he refers to himself as having been a “high class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers.”

The next very memorable period in Honduran history is when John Negroponte was ambassador to that country from 1981 to 1985. He supervised the construction of the El Aguacate air base where Honduran and Argentinean graduates of the School of the Americas trained the Contras in torture and other methods of counterinsurgency warfare, so that they could conduct their illegal and immoral war against Nicaragua. This base was also a torture and detention center in itself. In 2001 the base was dug up and found to contain the bodies of 185 people including two Americans. John Negroponte, also, collaborated with Battalion 316, which was a Honduran death squad responsible for the disappearances and deaths of hundreds of people. John Negroponte was later made ambassador to Iraq in 2004 and afterward held a cabinet level post, newly created by then President George W. Bush called Director of National Intelligence. One can only wonder what havoc Ambassador John Negroponte created in Iraq. All the deadly bombings and religious violence between Sunnis and Shias have his fingerprints all over them. Divide and Conquer!

I don’t know how this present coup will turn out. The United States has condemned the coup, but that is obviously just rhetoric. Hugo Chavez and other Latin American leftist Presidents like Evo Morales have condemned the coup, as well. Hugo Chavez has even threatened military action if the Venezuelan embassy in Honduras is threatened, but this is just rhetoric, also, because he can’t confront the military might of the United States, which would probably intervene for the present thugs in Honduras. I know there won’t be any twittering out of Honduras, like there was in Iran, and there will be no hourly coverage on the news media of any demonstrations by the Honduran people. Given the fact that Zelaya is a leftist since he is still alive luckily, this is a coup that is undoubtedly favored by United States, and the corporate media would like to send it down the memory hole as fast as possible, while keeping demonstrations in Iran in prime time news coverage.

see

Coup in Honduras: Military Ousts President Manuel Zelaya, Supporters Defy Curfew and Take to the Streets

Honduras: Indigenous people condemn plot

Protest – Tues – London-http://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/06/433385.html

North American Imperialism and the Extreme Right are Behind Coup in Honduras: Chavez

Obama’s First Coup D’etat by Eva Golinger

Military Coup in Honduras + Father Roy: Inside the School of Assassins

Military Coup Honduras Zelaya

Iran-Election-Protests-Green Revolution

from the archives:

Bill Moyers: The Secret Government (must-see video; 1987)