Honduras: just say no… maybe, but

Via “Ten Percent”

A controversial facility at Ft. Benning, Ga. –formerly known as the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas — is still training Honduran officers despite claims by the Obama administration that it cut military ties to Honduras after its president was overthrown June 28, [National Catholic Reporter]  has learned.

A day after an SOA-trained army general ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya at gunpoint, President Barack Obama stated that “the coup was not legal” and that Zelaya remained “the democratically elected president.”

The Foreign Operations Appropriations Act requires that U.S. military aid and training be suspended when a country undergoes a military coup, and the Obama administration has indicated those steps have been taken.

However, Lee Rials, public affairs officer for the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, the successor of SOA, confirmed Monday that Honduran officers are still being trained at the school.

“Yes, they’re in class now.” Rials said…

As I’ve said before, I really don’t care about President Mel Zelaya (who, no matter what, will be out of office in a couple of months anyway), but that allowing “exceptions for our ‘friends’ in Latin America” when it comes to international law and foreign policy is extremely short sighted and counterproductive to future relationships in the region. The Obama Administration has been arguing — unsuccessfully and not in good faith — that they “inherited” problems with Latin America from the Bush Administration, which I don’t see any steps being taken to correct.

Speaking of outside powers likely to lose influence in Latin America as a result of this coup, add the Roman Catholic Church. Daniel Trotta (Reuters) writes:

Honduras’ powerful Roman Catholic Church has backed the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya, surrendering a chance to be an impartial mediator because it would rather take sides in order to counter the influence of Venezuela’s leftist president, Hugo Chavez.

…

“The Church should have taken a more conciliatory posture,” said Efrain Diaz, a political analyst with the non-governmental Center for Human Development. “This country is fractured and it needs a climate of reconciliation.”

Ismael Moreno, a Jesuit priest and radio commentator who is not part of the hierarchy, put it more bluntly.

“The Church has lost all ability to mediate,” he said. “It has lost all credibility.”