Feint Left

Newsweek!? ^ | July 14, 2009 | Mac Margolis

[don-o]

Latin American leaders outraged over the Honduras coup have stood silently by as the region's other populists trod upon democracy.

Thankfully, the Hondurans were a step ahead of him (Zelaya). In 1988, lawmakers in Tegucigalpa had armor-plated their Constitution with a few "untouchable items"—clausulas petreas—such as Article 239, which sets the presidential mandate at a single four-year term (with no reelection) and declares that any leader who even proposes to amend the Constitution to end term limits will be automatically disqualified from the job and banned from politics for 10 years. Amazingly, Zelaya pressed ahead anyway, ignoring explicit orders by the Congress and the attorney general. When Gen. Romeo Vasquez, head of Honduran armed forces, refused to carry out the plebiscite, Zelaya fired him. And when the Supreme Court restored Vasquez to power, Zelaya ginned up a mob to seize the bundles of ballots (which had been sent to Tegucigalpa courtesy of Chávez) that voters were meant to fill out on voting day. All the while, the earnest, democracy-minded statesmen dripping with outrage over Zelaya's ouster said nothing.

[don-o]

Excerpted from down in the article. More thruth being told from an unexpected source.

[don-o]

ping

FReepmail to be added / removed from Honduras list

[angkor]

Interesting. Yesterday the WashPost ran an article about the hippie-dippie American millionaire (with a destructive mean streak) who financed Zelaya’s election even though he knew very little about him. But he had a paranoid chip on his shoulder for Zelaya’s more-qualified opponent Porfirio Lobo, whom he **suspected** may have been involved in some manner with illegal logging (a textbook hippie-dippie hot button).

Following is a sample from this **very** revealing article:

As Honduras convulsed this month over Zelaya’s ouster — in his pajamas — in a military coup, Andersson spoke for the first time about what he proudly describes as the “shenanigans” he orchestrated in the final days of the 2005 upset. It is a saga sprinkled with heaps of cash, private detectives, sting operations, attack ads, internecine squabbles and Andersson’s epic grudge against Zelaya’s wealthy, dashing opponent, Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo, whose last name means “wolf” in Spanish.

In short, Andersson had a blast.

“I just had a taste of blood in my mouth,” he says, suddenly balling his right hand into a fist and bringing it crashing down onto a glass coffee table. “My mission was not to avoid poverty or bankruptcy or disgrace; my mission was to beat Pepe Lobo.”

Rich Man, Poor Plan: Allen Andersson Made a Bundle, Then Made Things Happen — for a While — in Honduras

The entrepreneur threw his weight and money behind Manuel “Mel” Zelaya, even buying a Honduran newspaper to propel him to the presidency in 2005.

By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 14, 2009