Diplomatic Briefing
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Newsline: US diplomat heads to Honduras to help fight crime
The United States says it is sending a former ambassador to help advise Honduras on tackling violent crime. Honduras has the highest homicide rate in the world, and crime there recently led the US government to withdraw Peace Corps volunteers from the country. The US Embassy says it is dispatching Oliver P Garza to advise President Porfirio Lobo on developing a national security strategy aimed at protecting citizens, assuring human rights, fighting drugs and attracting more international aid. Garza was formerly ambassador to Nicaragua. He arrived Tuesday in Tegucigalpa.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/US-diplomat-heads-to-Honduras-to-help-fight-crime_10735054
Commentary: US Embassy Linked to Brutal Businessman in Honduras
Since 2009, beneath the radar of the international media, the coup government ruling Honduras has been collaborating with wealthy landowners in a violent crackdown on small farmers struggling for land rights in theAguánValleyin the northeastern region of the country. More than forty-six campesinos have been killed or disappeared. Human rights groups charge that many of the killings have been perpetrated by the private army of security guards employed by Miguel Facussé, a biofuels magnate. Facussé’s guards work closely with the Honduran military and police, which receive generous funding from the United States to fight the war on drugs in the region. New Wikileaks cables now reveal that the US embassy in Honduras—and therefore the State Department—has known since 2004 that Miguel Facussé is a cocaine importer. US “drug war” funds and training, in other words, are being used to support a known drug trafficker’s war against campesinos. Miguel Facussé Barjum, in the embassy’s words, is “the wealthiest, most powerful businessman in the country,” one of the country’s “political heavyweights.” Facussé’s nephew, Carlos Flores Facussé, served as president of Honduras from 1998 to 2002. Miguel Facussé’s Dinant corporation is a major producer of palm oil, snack foods, and other agricultural products. He was one of the key supporters of the military coup that deposed democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya on June 28, 2009. Miguel Facussé’s power base lies in the lower Aguán Valley, where campesinos originally settled in the 1970s as part of an agrarian reform strategy by the Honduran government, which encouraged hundreds of successful campesino cooperatives and collectives in the region. Beginning in 1992, though, new neoliberal governments began promoting the transfer of their lands to wealthy elites, who were quick to take advantage of state support to intimidate and coerce campesinos into selling, and in some cases to acquire land through outright fraud. Facussé, the biggest beneficiary by far of these state policies, now claims at least 22,000 acres in the lower Aguán, at least one-fifth of the entire area, much of which he has planted in African palms for an expanding biofuel empire. Campesino living standards in the region, meanwhile, have eroded dramatically. In December 2009 thousands of organized campesinos began staging collective recuperations of lands in the lower Aguán that they argue were stolen from them, or else legally promised to them by the government through previous agreements or edicts. The campesinos’ efforts have been met with swift and brutal retaliation. According to Committee of Families of the Detained and Disappeared of Honduras (COFADEH), the independent, highly respected human rights group, at least forty-four have been killed, at least sixteen this past summer alone. Many of these killings and related attacks have been attributed to Miguel Facussé’s private security guards, as well those of his associates. Known locally as sicarios or hired assassins, they wear either plainclothes or Grupo Dinant uniforms and are reported to number between 200 and 300. Facussé himself admits that on November 15, 2010, his guards shot and killed five campesinos from the MUCA at the El Tumbador community. Now cables released by Wikileaks suddenly shed light on the US military and State Department’s role in the Aguán Valley conflict and in Honduras more broadly. A March 19, 2004, cable from the US embassy in Tegucigalpa, entitled “Drug Plane Burned on Prominent Honduran’s Property,” reports that “a known drug trafficking flight with a 1,000 kilo cocaine shipment from Colombia…successfully landed March 14 on the private property of Miguel Facusse.” According to the cable’s author, Ambassador Larry Palmer, sources informed police that “its cargo was off-loaded onto a convoy of vehicles that was guarded by about 30 heavily armed men.” One source “claimed that Facusse was present on the property at the time of the incident.” Other cables released by Wikileaks establish that embassy officials met with Miguel Facussé in June 2006 and on September 7, 2009, ten weeks into the coup, when the embassy had lunch with Facussé and Rafael Callejas, another of the coup government’s powerful backers. A new US ambassador, Lisa Kusbiske, arrived in Honduras this August. She is an expert on biofuels—the center of Miguel Facussé’s African palm empire. How does this all add up, then? First, the US embassy met at least twice with a known, prominent drug trafficker. Second, it was aware that he was a backer of the coup and met with him as it was playing out, as if he were merely a “prominent businessman.” Third, most importantly, the United States is funding and training Honduran military and police that are conducting joint operations with the security guards of a known drug trafficker, to violently repress a campesino movement on behalf of Facusse’s dubious claims to vast swathes of the Aguán Valley, in order to support his African palm biofuels empire. Current Honduran President Porfirio Lobo was in Washington, DC, the first week in October, trumpeting his commitment to defending human rights and fighting drug wars—with President Obama’s full blessing. In reality, both are providing cover and support for a war against impoverished campesinos, to promote the economic interests of Honduras’ richest and most powerful man.
http://www.thenation.com/article/164120/wikileaks-honduras-us-linked-brutal-businessman
US embassy cables: Ousted Honduran prez denies acting on behalf of US
Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya says a leaked diplomatic document wrongly implies that he acted on behalf of the U.S. during negotiations on lifting Cuba’s suspension from the Organization of American States. The June 2009 U.S. Embassy memo released by the WikiLeaks website says Zelaya pushed the ALBA bloc of leftist Latin American countries to accept a proposal that Cuba’s return be linked to democratic reform. It says Zelaya “successfully pressured ALBA to accept our text.” Zelaya condemned the implication that he was pushing the U.S. agenda, insisting in a statement Monday that his negotiations were “a totally Honduran initiative.” Zelaya was ousted in a June 28, 2009 coup and lives in the Dominican Republic.
http://world.foxnews.mobi/quickPage.html?page=26264&external=709033.proteus.fma
Newsline: Zelaya leaves Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa
Ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya left the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa where he had been holed up for months after being removed from office. Zelaya, who had been ousted and forced into exile in Costa Rica on June 28, secretly returned to Honduras on September 21. At the time, he sought refuge in the Brazilian Embassy and had not left the compound since. President Porfirio Lobo, who was inaugurated Wednesday, issued a safe conduct order for Zelaya to be able to leave for the Dominican Republic.
Newsline: US Diplomat Back In Honduras Seeking To Heal Rifts
U.S. State Department diplomat Craig Kelly returned to Honduras on Tuesday to make his fourth attempt in five months to reunite leaders in this bitterly divided nation. U.S. Embassy spokesman Michael Stevens said Kelly “came to make intensive effort to achieve a breakthrough agreement” during a two-day visit. Kelly met with ousted President Manuel Zelaya at the Brazilian Embassy, where he has been living since sneaking back into Honduras in late September. Kelly also plans to meet with interim President Roberto Micheletti, who took power after Zelaya was ousted in June and is to cede his position in three weeks, and with the winner of the country’s Nov. 29 presidential election, Porfirio Lobo.
http://wap.cbsnews.com/site?sid=cbsnews&pid=sections.detail&catId=TOP&storyId=6060512
Newsline: 200 Gather To Cheer Honduras’ Ousted President
About 200 people gathered outside the Brazilian Embassy to show support for ousted President Manuel Zelaya inside while they celebrated New Year’s Eve with food and music. Supporters of the deposed leader, who has been in the embassy since late September, began arriving at dusk Thursday and were allowed on one of the streets next to the compound, which is blockaded by Honduran troops. Zelaya, who was ousted in a June 28 coup and sent into exile, sneaked back into the country and took refuge in the embassy as he mounted a failed effort to prevent an election to choose his successor.
http://wap.cbsnews.com/site?sid=cbsnews&pid=sections.detail&catId=TOP&storyId=6043635
Newsline: Honduras’ Zelaya stuck in embassy for Christmas
Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya will spend Christmas with his family stuck inside the soldier-ringed Brazilian Embassy where he has been holed up for months after being toppled in a June coup. The more than 100 troops surrounding the diplomatic compound in Tegucigalpa will allow Zelaya’s relatives to bring him a Christmas meal of traditional dishes from his native Olancho province, where he made his name as a logger and rancher. The de facto government appointed after the coup and the military strictly control who and what is allowed inside the embassy sheltering Zelaya, his wife and a diminishing band of supporters. No Christmas tree, decorations or festive lights have been brought in to brighten their spirits for the holiday season.
http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE5BL4P420091222
Newsline: US envoy visits Zelaya at Brazilian embassy
US Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens visited deposed President Manuel Zelaya as part of a bid to find a solution to the political crisis. Zelaya has been holed up at the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, where he returned in September after a brief exile following his June 28 military-backed ouster. “Hugo Llorens came to the embassy and told Zelaya he would travel to the United States for Christmas. Steps to resolve the crisis will follow,” Zelaya advisor Rasel Tome said. Washington backed an agreement in the Honduran crisis that called for Zelaya to be reinstated before the November 29 vote. The pact was not honored, but US support for Zelaya has cooled, with the United States now insisting his reinstatement is an internal matter.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g4JIyx1GG3tCmT-lSpzatIR6ZTfA
Newsline: Ousted Honduran Leader Yet to Leave Brazilian Embassy
The ousted president of Honduras said Thursday that the government would permit him to leave the country only if he signed a letter dropping his demand to be reinstated. The ousted leader, Manuel Zelaya, had planned to leave his refuge in the Brazilian Embassy on Wednesday night to fly to Mexico, but the trip was aborted after he refused to go into exile on the government’s terms, which included dropping his insistence on being reinstated. Mr. Zelaya said he wanted the right to campaign from abroad for his return to power. Brazil’s foreign minister, Celso Amorim, said that it was unacceptable to impose conditions on Mr. Zelaya’s departure, and he blamed the United States for being too tolerant of the de facto government. Hondurans chose a new president, Porfirio Lobo, in an election on Nov. 29, but many countries, including Brazil, have not recognized the vote.
Newsline: Honduras’ Zelaya to stay in Brazil embassy
Honduras’ deposed President Manuel Zelaya said on Sunday that he would stay in the Brazilian embassy in the Honduran capital for as long as Brasilia allowed him to and that he would be willing to talk to the new president-elect. Leftist Zelaya, who was ousted by the army in a coup on June 28, slipped back into Honduras in September and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, from where he has been demanding his reinstatement. The United States and Brazil have been pushing for Zelaya’s return to power but his fate remains uncertain after the Honduran Congress voted on Wednesday not to allow him to finish his term that ends in January.
