[Peace] Fwd: Our Man in Honduras

[Belden Fields]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: moderator at PORTSIDE.ORG
> Date: July 25, 2009 9:05:27 AM CDT
> To: PORTSIDE at LISTS.PORTSIDE.ORG
> Subject: Our Man in Honduras
> Reply-To: moderator at PORTSIDE.ORG
>
> Our Man in Honduras
>
> By Roberto Lovato
> Associate Editor,New America Media
>
> The American Prospect
> July 22, 2009
>
> http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=our_man_in_honduras
>
> "If you want to understand who the real power behind
> the [Honduran] coup is," says Robert White, president
> of the Washington- based Center for International
> Policy, during a recent interview, "you need to find
> out who's paying Lanny Davis."
>
> Davis, an ally of the Clinton family who is best known
> as the lawyer who defended Bill during the presidential
> impeachment proceedings, was recently on Capitol Hill
> lobbying members of Congress and testifying against
> exiled President Manuel Zelaya before the House Foreign
> Relations Committee. White, who previously served as
> the United States ambassador to El Salvador, thought
> that such information about Davis' clients would be
> "very difficult to find."
>
> But the answer proved easy to find. Davis, a partner at
> the law firm Orrick, Herrington, & Sutcliffe, openly
> named them -- and his clients are the same powerful
> Hondurans behind the military coup.
>
> "My clients represent the CEAL, the [Honduras Chapter
> of] Business Council of Latin America," Davis said when
> reached at his office last Thursday. "I do not
> represent the government and do not talk to President
> [Roberto] Micheletti. My main contacts are Camilo Atala
> and Jorge Canahuati. I'm proud to represent businessmen
> who are committed to the rule of law." Atala,
> Canahuati, and other families that own the corporate
> interests represented by Davis and the CEAL are at the
> top of an economic pyramid in which 62 percent of the
> population lives in poverty, according to the World
> Bank.
>
> For many Hondurans and Honduras watchers, the
> confirmation that Davis is working with powerful, old
> Honduran families like the Atalas and Canahuatis is
> telling: To them, it proves that Davis serves the
> powerful business interests that ran, repressed, and
> ruined Honduras during the decades prior to the
> leftward turn of the Zelaya presidency.
>
> "No coup just happens because some politicians and
> military men decide one day to simply take over," White
> says upon hearing for whom Davis is working. "Coups
> happen because very wealthy people want them and help
> to make them happen, people who are used to seeing the
> country as a money machine and suddenly see social
> legislation on behalf of the poor as a threat to their
> interests. The average wage of a worker in free trade
> zones is 77 cents per hour."
>
> "The tragedy," adds White, "is that the Canahuatis and
> the Atalas and the other big businesspeople don't
> understand that it's in their best interest to help to
> do things like help people make a decent living, reduce
> unemployment, and raise the minimum wage."
>
> Davis disagrees. He believes that the tragedy of
> Honduras lies with Zelaya and that the president
> brought the coup upon himself. "It is an undisputed
> fact that Mr. Zelaya has violated the constitution.
> It's my job to get the facts out."
>
> Asked if he had qualms about representing
> businesspeople linked to a coup government denounced
> and unrecognized by the United Nations, the
> Organization of American States, and many countries
> across the globe (including the United States), Davis
> responded, "There are facts about Mr. Zelaya that the
> world community may not be aware of. I'm proud to
> represent clients who support the decision of Secretary
> of State [Hillary] Clinton to back the mediation of
> President Arias in the conflict [between Zelaya and
> coup leaders]. But my biggest concern is safety and
> security of the Honduran people."
>
> Davis is not the only one concerned about the safety
> and security the Honduran people. The Committee of
> Families of Disappeared-Detainees in Honduras
> (COFADEH), a nongovernmental human-rights organization,
> released a report last week documenting over 1,100
> human-rights violations -- arbitrary detentions,
> physical assaults, murders, and attacks on the media by
> the government and affiliated clandestine forces --
> that have occurred since the coup began on June 28.
>
> COFADEH has also placed responsibility for the coup and
> the terror it has wrought directly on many of the
> founders of the Alliance for Progress and Development
> of Honduras (APROH), a predecessor of CEAL. Though now
> defunct, APROH brought together some of the same
> business and military interests that compose the
> political and economic hub of Honduras' radical right,
> including the Canahuatis, Atalas, and other CEAL
> families and businesses represented by Davis.
>
> The CEAL predecessor's track record on human rights has
> been less than stellar. In 1983, Honduras' El Tiempo
> newspaper leaked an internal APROH document that
> recommended a military solution to problems in Honduras
> -- and the rest of Central America -- to Ronald
> Reagan's Kissinger Commission, a bipartisan committee
> charged with formulating U.S. policy in the region.
> Perhaps more damning, APROH is considered by COFADEH
> and other human-rights organizations as the eminence
> grise behind the death squad killings conducted by the
> infamous "Batallion 316" in the 1980s.
>
> Upon hearing Davis' statements, Jose Luis Galdamez, a
> journalist for Radio Globo, laughs. "Mr. Davis is
> either ignorant of Honduras or is knowingly bloodying
> his name and that of the Clintons for lots of money,"
> he says. Galdamez recently went into hiding after
> members of the armed forces and paramilitary
> organizations harassed him and his colleagues. The
> military raided his radio station, beat workers there,
> and threatened them for working at one of the few
> independent media outlets willing to "report about
> what's actually happening in Honduras," Galdamez says.
>
> "I wish Mr. Davis would come here where I'm hiding so I
> can show him what it's like to feel threatened not just
> by [de facto Honduran President] Micheletti and the
> military, but by the Canahautis and other groups of
> power he represents," Galdamez says.
>
> Galdamez, Gilda Rivera of the Center for Women's
> Rights, and others interviewed for this story fear
> that, in hiring Clinton ally Davis, Canahuati, Atala,
> and CEAL are using the liberal sheen of the Democratic
> Party to divert attention from the dark history behind
> the current Honduran coup.
>
> "The rich simply send you out to kill you and then kill
> with impunity. They never investigate into who killed
> who because the groups in power control the media,
> control the judiciary, and now control the government
> again," Galdamez says. "Mr. Davis is trying to
> legitimize people who use psychological intimidation
> and violence. He's representing the interests of state
> terror."
>
> In a recent statement denouncing the coup, COFADEH
> described its backers as "the same group that in the
> 1980s was known as Alliance for Progress and
> Development of Honduras, which maintains its terror
> thru death squads." The COFADEH report documents four
> cases of extra-judicial killings, including the July 5
> shooting of 19-year-old Isis Obed Murillo, captured in
> a graphic video subsequently posted on YouTube.
>
> Asked about human-rights violations by the Micheletti
> government, Davis again places the onus for the current
> crisis on Zelaya. "I researched the facts on what
> occurred during the presidency of Mr. Zelaya. Mr.
> Zelaya led mob violence, and you can see that on a
> YouTube video."
>
> When pressed about the grisly footage of the shooting
> of Murillo, Davis responded, "Is there a video of the
> shooters? We need to know the facts." He added, "If you
> can show me facts proving that my clients are involved
> in violations of civil liberties, I'll resign."
>
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