The Honduran Coup’s Ugly Aftermath

[Judi Lynn]

9. Soto Cano/Palmerola, hot topic between the US/Zelaya. The US won, of course,

thanks to the convenient coup at just the right moment:


July 22, 2009
Zelaya, Negroponte and the Controversy at Soto Cano

The Coup and the U.S. Airbase in Honduras

by NIKOLAS KOZLOFF

The mainstream media has once again dropped the ball on a key aspect of the ongoing story in Honduras: the U.S. airbase at Soto Cano, also known as Palmerola. Prior to the recent military coup d’etat President Manuel Zelaya declared that he would turn the base into a civilian airport, a move opposed by the former U.S. ambassador. What’s more Zelaya intended to carry out his project with Venezuelan financing.

For years prior to the coup the Honduran authorities had discussed the possibility of converting Palmerola into a civilian facility. Officials fretted that Toncontín, Tegucigalpa’s international airport, was too small and incapable of handling large commercial aircraft. An aging facility dating to 1948, Toncontín has a short runway and primitive navigation equipment. The facility is surrounded by hills which makes it one of the world’s more dangerous international airports.

Palmerola by contrast has the best runway in the country at 8,850 feet long and 165 feet wide. The airport was built more recently in the mid-1980s at a reported cost of $30 million and was used by the United States for supplying the Contras during America’s proxy war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua as well as conducting counter-insurgency operations in El Salvador. At the height of the Contra war the U.S. had more than 5,000 soldiers stationed at Palmerola. Known as the Contras’ “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” the base housed Green Berets as well as CIA operatives advising the Nicaraguan rebels.

More recently there have been some 500-to-600 U.S. troops on hand at the facility which serves as a Honduran air force base as well as a flight-training center. With the exit of U.S. bases from Panama in 1999, Palmerola became one of the few usable airfields available to the U.S. on Latin American soil. The base is located approximately 30 miles north of the capital Tegucigalpa.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/07/22/the-coup-and-the-u-s-airbase-in-honduras/

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The Latin America mistake

Memo to Secretary Kerry: Stop funding the bad guys in Honduras.

February 12, 2013|By Dana Frank

The United States is expanding its military presence in Honduras on a spectacular scale. The Associated Press reported this month in an investigative article that Washington in 2011 authorized $1.3 billion for U.S. military electronics in Honduras. This is happening while the post-coup regime of Honduran President Porfirio Lobo is more out of control than ever, especially since the Honduran Congress staged a "technical coup" in December.

But as the Obama administration deepens its partnership with Honduras, ostensibly to fight the drug war, Democrats in Congress are increasingly rebelling. Here's a message, then, for new Secretary of State John Kerry: Recast U.S. policy in Honduras and the murderous drug war that justifies it.

In the last few years, the U.S. has been ramping up its military operations throughout Latin America in what the Associated Press called "the most expensive initiative in Latin America since the Cold War." The buildup has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $20 billion since 2002, for troops, ships, clandestine bases, radar, military and police training and other expenses.

U.S. military expenditures for Honduras in particular have gone up every year since 2009, when a military coup deposed democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. At $67.4 million, 2012 Defense Department contracts for Honduras are triple those of 10 years ago. The U.S. spent $25 million last year to make the U.S. barracks at the Soto Cano air base permanent, and $89 million to keep 600 U.S. troops based there. U.S. direct aid to the Honduran military and police continues to climb as well.

More:
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/12/opinion/la-oe-frank-honduras-drug-war-20130212

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A Tale of Two Elections: Iran and Hondura

Michael Corcoran

. . .

The near monolithic consistency with which U.S. media outlets heralded the “peaceful” and “fair” election dramatically conflicts with the many reports of voter intimidation, violent repression, and the large boycott of opponents of the coup who did not even run a candidate. Amnesty International released several reports of voter intimidation and other such problems.10 The vast majority of foreign governments, as well as virtually every election-monitoring agency in the world, refused to accept the results of the election.11 Video footage plainly showing state violence against protesters demanding the return of their democratically elected leader were circulated widely on the Internet.12

“Since Zelaya was overthrown by the military in June, 4,000 [Hondurans] have been arrested, hundreds beaten and hospitalised and dozens charged with sedition,” noted Calvin Tucker in the U.K. Guardian. “Yet more have been kidnapped, raped, tortured, ‘disappeared’ and assassinated.”13 Those relying solely on U.S. mainstream media outlets, however, would likely have no idea how brazenly corrupt the election was.

Further, media outlets like Bloomberg reported the Honduran Supreme Electoral Tribunal’s grossly exaggerated turnout numbers of about 61%. The correct number, it would later be revealed, would turn out to be below 50%.14 But by the time the truth came out, these false numbers had already been used to justify recognition of the sham elections by some nations, including the United States. The “turnout appears to have exceeded that of the last presidential election,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement. “This shows that given the opportunity to express themselves, the Honduran people have viewed the election as an important part of the solution to the political crisis in their country.”15

Few media outlets provided any of the crucial context for understanding the coup and its aftermath. Few noted that the Honduran military that carried out the coup is funded and trained by the United States. Nor did many outlets report that during the coup, the plane carrying the kidnapped Zelaya—still in his pajamas—landed and refueled at Soto Cano, a military base shared by the United States and Honduras.16 While the media did report on the occasional condemnations of the coup made by U.S. leaders, it downplayed the U.S. decisions to treat the coup authorities as legitimate political actors, to continue providing them with the flow of substantial aid, and to refuse to use its significant diplomatic muscle to assure Zelaya’s return to power.17 Moreover, according to a report by the Institute for Southern Studies, General Romeo Vásquez, a leader of the Honduran armed forces and a political opponent of Zelaya, was trained at the School of the Americas (now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation)—the Georgia-based military school well-known for training Latin American authorities who have been charged with various human rights abuses.18 But despite these clear connections between the United States and the coup government, the media continued to report as if the United States were not enabling it and its many abuses.

https://nacla.org/article/tale-two-elections-iran-and-honduras

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June 11, 2012 Issue

Honduras: Which Side Is the US On?

In the name of fighting drugs, the Obama administration has allied itself with a corrupt coup regime.

By

Dana Frank

. . .

 What’s driving the administration’s aggressive policy? The United States has long regarded Honduras, its most captive client state in Latin America, as strategically important. As in the 1980s, when Honduras served as the US base for the contra war against Nicaragua, the country is the regional hub for US military operations in Central America. It received more than $50 million in Pentagon contracts last year, including $24 million to make the barracks at the Soto Cano Air Base permanent for the first time since 1954. Soto Cano has great strategic significance as the only US air base between the United States and South America. Sixty-two percent of all Defense Department funds for Central America in 2011 went to Honduras.

More:
http://www.thenation.com/article/honduras-which-side-us/