by Oui
Sun Feb 24th, 2019 at 05:22:03 AM EST
So the U.S. stops refugees from Honduras at the border with Mexico ... president Trumnp called in the military for protection?
Berta Cáceres murder trial plagued by allegations of cover-ups set to end | The Guardian |
She died in the arms of her friend Gustavo Castro, a Mexican environmentalist, who was shot by a second gunman in the attack, but survived by pretending to be dead.
Cáceres had led numerous campaigns to protect indigenous territories from environmentally destructive mega-projects, as general coordinator of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (Copinh).
Continued below the fold ...
Her murder sparked international outrage and affirmed Honduras's ranking as one of the most dangerous countries in the world for defenders of land rights and natural resources. It was a bitter blow for the country's social movements battling against a toxic mix of poverty, violence, corruption and impunity that has forced thousands to flee since a military coup in 2009.
Cáceres's family and colleagues have attempted to expose the criminal networks responsible for the smear campaigns, surveillance, sexual harassment, false criminal charges, threats and ultimately her murder. But their quest for justice has been frustrated by restricted access to crucial evidence controlled by the public prosecutors.
Even before the trial opened, hopes that it would uncover the truth were dealt a blow when the judges excluded the family's lawyers from proceedings.
[...]
The verdict against eight men accused over the murder of Honduran indigenous environmentalist Berta Cáceres will be handed down on Thursday after a controversial five-week trial plagued by allegations of negligence and cover-ups.
Cáceres - who won the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize - was shot dead in March 2016, after a long battle against the internationally financed Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam project on the Gualcarque river, territory sacred to the indigenous Lenca people.
US Policy Failure on Honduras, Zelaya Returns!
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What Manuel Zelaya's return means for Honduras
(Guardian) - Zelaya was ousted from the presidency when he was kidnapped at gunpoint by the military on 28 June 2009. Although no hard evidence has yet emerged that the US government was directly involved in his overthrow, the Obama administration did everything it could to help the coup government to survive and then legitimate itself through elections that most of the rest of the hemisphere, and the world, rejected as neither free nor fair.
Zelaya's return represents a partial reversal of that coup d'etat and Washington's efforts to consolidate it, just as President Aristide's return to Haiti after seven years in exile, on 18 March - despite furious efforts by the Obama administration, and even President Obama himself, to prevent it - is a partial reversal of the 2004 US-organised coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Haiti. And it is another demonstration of how the western hemisphere has changed: the agreement for Zelaya's return was mediated through the governments of Venezuela and Colombia, with no US involvement or even lip-service support until it was over.
○ Honduras Military Coup to Preserve 1982 Constitution
○ Honduras on Slippery Slope by ask @BooMan on Sept. 22, 2009
GOP Meddling Over Honduras
Right-wingers in our country, however, do not like President Manuel Zelaya because he is an ally of Hugo Chavez and his politics are leftist. They are upset that the State Department has withdrawn foreign aid to the military junta there.
○ ¡Ese negrito que no sabe nada de nada!
***Media's Aggression towards López Obrador by XicanoPwr @EuroTrib on July 30, 2006
Beginning in March 2006, the Wall Street Journal published an anti-AMLO column by Mary Anastasia O'Grady - who also vehemently attacked Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez - who argued that AMLO's opposition to President Vicente Fox's pro-corporate economic policy should signal "a worrying authoritarianism with moralistic overtones" and suggested that an alternative path for development would qualify as "wild populist experimentation."
In April 2006, Conservative Felipe Calderón - although denied by the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) - informally hired two American consultants political advisor and Fox News commentator Dick Morris and Republican strategist Rob Allyn to help him in his failing campaign. In June, El Universal report how Juan Camilo Mourino, Calderón's campaign manager, suddenly started running campaign ads that resembled those of the United States, electoral techniques evidently imported from the United States.
○ Peacekeeping, Politics, and the 1994 US Intervention in Haiti
One of a primary mistakes made by the young Barack Obama … lacking experience he asked Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, it ruined his presidency on foreign policy. It became right-wing and in his second term it was insufficient for John Kerry to readjust. Wrong people in the CIA and 26 other intelligence branches and in the leadership of the Pentagon. A lost cause for “Democrats”. Again it opened an opportunity for goofball like Republican Trump to “upset” an expected crowning of Mrs. Hillary Rodham. The name “Clinton” was aleady coupled on corruption and bribery in high places. Living in North America with impunity … the power of filthy wealth.
Key power brokers | Dick Morris – Lanny Davis – Paul Manafort – Roger Stone – Mchael Cohen – all the same making of corrupt politicians and failed policy |
○ All the President's broken men | CNN – today |
○ Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba … and Then Lost It to the Revolution | The Smitsonian |
The coup in Honduras has exposed divisions between Barack Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton …
Who's in charge of US foreign policy? | The Guardian Opinion – July 2009 |
The current stand-off in Honduras, in which the coup government headed by Roberto Micheletti is refusing to allow the return of elected president Manuel Zelaya, is raising questions about who is in charge of US foreign policy for the hemisphere.
Divisions have been noticeable from early on in this administration, for example at the summit of the Americas in Trinidad last April. Obama went to the summit with the idea of presenting a new face to the rest of the hemisphere and was immediately undermined by his adviser and director for the summit, Jeffrey Davidow. Fortunately, Obama ignored his advisers and proceeded along a diplomatic path.
When the coup occurred on 28 June, the first statement that came out of the White House was a major blunder. Although the US and international press gave Obama a pass, the diplomatic community could hardly help noticing that the White House issued the only official statement in the world that didn't have a bad word to say about the coup when it happened.
○ A Labyrinth of Deception: Secretary Clinton and the Honduran Coup
○ During Honduras Crisis, Clinton Suggested Back Channel With Lobbyist Lanny Davis
That’s why I couldn’t muster support for HRC in 2016 … if there is to be corruption in high office, let it be a Republican President to go down, not a Democrat. Thinking Tricky Dick Nixon in 1973 after Watergate. Nothing, nothing has changed … but it got worse, much worse.
How can someone who supported Barry Goldwater in 1964 become a progressive Democrat? It just cannot be done …
