Bolivia’s Morales accuses Washington of encouraging “failed coup in Ecuador”, posted by Bolivia Rising on Monday, October 04, 2010

http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2010/10/bolivias-morales-accuses-washington-of.html

Bolivia’s Morales accuses Washington of encouraging “failed coup in Ecuador”
Bolivian president Evo Morales said that during the current decade United States intervened in four attempted coups against democratic governments in Latin America, but was only able to win in Honduras.

“Since 2002 there have been four coup attempts, in 2002 in Venezuela, in 2008 in Bolivia, Honduras in 2009 and now in Ecuador, but of the four attempts in three of them the peoples of Latin America defeated the US imperialism”, said Morales in a Sunday interview with the government financed media.

For this circumstance “I’m happy, very much encouraged because in this decade from 2002 to 2010 the peoples of Latin America on three occasions have defeated the dictatorships prepared by the administration of (George) Bush before and currently by (Barak) Obama”, underlined the Bolivian president.

Morales said he was disappointed because in Honduras “there’s a president born out of a coup” and announced that in the coming regional leaders’ summits “wherever this gentleman Porfirio Lobo is present, obviously I will not be present”.

Honduras former president Manuel Zelaya was ousted last year by a civilian coup, implemented by the military, who then called elections in November 2009 when Lobo was the winner.

Morales revealed that the coup occurred when Honduras had decided to become a member of ALBA, the regional trade and development mechanism which is contrary to the US sponsored Free Trade of the Americas Association, FTAA.

ALBA stands for Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas and is the brain child of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and its members include Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and several oil-short Caribbean islands.

“In ALBA member countries there are coup attempts but that is not going to happen in Colombia, no coup attempts in Peru, because of course these presidents are pro-imperialism, capitalists, free-market oriented, who sponsor the privatization of countries’ national resources: you can be sure that in these countries there won’t be any coup attempts” continued the Bolivian leader.

“Chavez, Morales, Correa (Ecuador), (Nicaragua) Ortega, we are accused of being totalitarian, dictators, non democratic, but all that comes and is promoted by the US State Department”.

Morales said that last week’s police mutiny in Ecuador against President Correa “was encouraged” by Washington.

One dead in violent clashes at Honduras airport as exiled leader tries to fly Home, By Mail Foreign Service

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1197765/One-dead-violent-clashes-Honduras-airport-exiled-leader-tries-fly-home.html
The Honduran Military Opened Fire on supporters awaiting President Zelaya's Return































































At least one person was killed and 30 wounded in Honduras as troops opened fire on supporters of ousted president Manuel Zelaya.

Mr Zelaya's plane had been circling above Tegucigalpa airport in the capital, after flying in from the U.S., but the interim authorities insist it will not be allowed to land.

Landing the plane had been made impossible by soldiers who blocked the runway with trucks.

It sparked violent clashes at the airport between troops and protesters, following a military coup that ousted Mr Zelaya a week ago.

One man was shot in the head by gunfire from inside the airport as people tried to break through a security fence.

Security forces fired warning shots and tear gas in attempts to disperse the crowds, while Zelaya supporters started a fire and threw rocks.

A van tore through the crowd, with someone shouting to make way for the wounded. A spokesman said the Red Cross was treating about 30 people for injuries, including a woman who had been stabbed.

Soon after Mr Zelaya's plane embarked for Honduras, the interim government, which has resisted growing international pressure over the coup, said it would order the exiled leader to divert to neighboring El Salvador.

Mr Zelaya, a leftist who had been due to leave power in 2010, was pushed out of office by troops and flown into exile in Costa Rica a week ago in a coup triggered by a dispute over presidential term limits.

The coup has spiraled into Central America's worst political crisis in two decades, testing regional diplomacy and raising a challenge for the Barack Obama administration.

The injured: People move a man wounded in the Honduran violence, where one person has been killed and dozens injured

Underscoring regional tensions stoked by the ouster, interim president Roberto Micheletti said small groups of Nicaraguan troops were moving near their mutual border, although they had not crossed it.

He urged Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, a leftist ally of Mr Zelaya, to respect Honduran sovereignty.

'We have been informed about movement of troops to the frontier in Nicaragua, and I ask Mr Ortega to respect our sovereignty,' Mr Micheletti said.

Mr Ortega, whose country shares a border with Honduras to the south of the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, called the charge of troop movements toward the frontier 'totally false'.

Leftist allies of Mr Zelaya, including the presidents of Ecuador, Paraguay and Argentina, flew into neighboring El Salvador on Sunday to support him.

The Organization of American States has suspended Honduras for refusing to reinstate Mr Zelaya, the strongest move yet by foreign governments to isolate the country.

DAY 7: COUP GOVERNMENT IN HONDURAS WITHDRAWS FROM OAS , Eva Golinger, Postcards from the Revolution

Eva Golinger is a Venezuelan-American attorney, writer and investigator. Author of The Chávez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela (2005) and Bush vs. Chávez: Washington's War on Venezuela. A native New Yorker currently residing in Caracas, living passionately every moment of the Bolivarian Revolution.

Souurce Eva Golinger’s Blog: http://www.chavezcode.com/

Saturday, July 4, 2009
DAY 7: COUP GOVERNMENT IN HONDURAS WITHDRAWS FROM OAS

Well, it's official! The Organization of American States (OAS) doesn't need to bother suspending Honduras from the OAS because the coup government has decided it is withdrawing from the most important regional body in the Americas. Roberto Micheletti, the dictator who was sworn in as de facto president in Honduras on Sunday, after the democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya was kidnapped at gunpoint by masked soldiers and forced into exile, has said, "to hell with you OAS", "we don't need you either!" During Secretary General of the OAS, Jose Miguel Insulza's visit to the Central American nation to hand deliver the 72-hour ultimatum demanding the coup government step down or face suspension (the most severe sanction the OAS can impose), coup leader Roberto Micheletti gave a speech before supporters and later issued a formal statement withdrawing Honduras from the OAS, declaring, "we don't have to respond to anybody, we are a sovereign nation". The OAS visit was intended to reach some kind of dialogue or solution to the crisis in Honduras since the coup occurred on early Sunday morning, yet the coup government held tight to its position of power.

On Saturday, the OAS will convene a new meeting to review the results of its failure in Honduras and the decision of the coup government to defiantly ignore the regional body's intentions to resolve the conflict peacefully (if that is even possible at this point). Several presidents, such as Cristina Fernandez of Argentina and Rafael Correa of Ecuador will travel to Washington for the special OAS follow up meeting to the Honduran crisis.

President Zelaya had hoped to return Saturday to his elected post, yet the situation in his country, post-coup, is more complicated than originally imagined. Hondurans supporting Zelaya marched cross the nation to the capital, Tegucigalpa, on Friday to send a message to the OAS General Secretary that they are waiting for their legitimate president to return.

If the Obama administration doesn't formally sanction the coup government in Honduras and suspend all relations, as every other country around the world has done so far, a terrible precedent will be set in the hemisphere, allowing for coups that produce "friendly" results for Washington. The United States is pleased with the outcome of Sunday's coup, which deposed a leftist president aligned with countries like Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia, but at the same time is not happy with the method - a military coup- to achieve the end goal. However, if Washington continues without firmly condemning the coup government's actions and withdrawal from the OAS, Obama will lose all credibility in Latin America.