Honduras (catch all)

[Gringo Malandro]

CRS report on legality:

http://schock.house.gov/UploadedFile...uras_FINAL.pdf

[JarodParker]

Some closure... if there's such a thing.

Honduras swears in Porfirio Lobo as President

[J Wolfsberger]

Some closure... if there's such a thing.

Honduras swears in Porfirio Lobo as President

Actually, I doubt it. The protests over the ouster of Zelaya were never rooted in any sort of unconstitutionality or illegality under Honduran law. Leftists were angry that a leftist lost power. He's still out, so they'll still be angry:

(From the BBC) "Several nations refused to recognize the legitimacy of November's election.
...
Several Latin American countries, including Brazil and Venezuela, said recognizing the election would amount to condoning a coup."

[John T. Fishel]

agree but he is likely to be one of only two Latin American leaders (the other being Raul Castro) to not eventually welcome Honduras back into the fold. Brazil needs a little time to get its embassy back to normal but Lula will come around. Meanwhile, Zelaya accepted exile while the Honduran supreme Court dropped the trason charges against him and all charges against the military and former govt. Pres Lobo signed an amnesty for the military and former govt and helped engineer the deal for Zelaya to fly to the DR. On another Latin American front the OAS just issued a report highly critical of Chavez' repression of democratic opposition and freedom in Venezuela - its principal author was a Brazilian diplomat.

Cheers

JohnT

[J Wolfsberger]

... On another Latin American front the OAS just issued a report highly critical of Chavez' repression of democratic opposition and freedom in Venezuela - its principal author was a Brazilian diplomat.

Now, that is nice to hear!

[Dayuhan]

The left will still be upset, but the left is congenitally upset, it's their nature. Probably Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia will hold out and refuse to recognize, but the impact of that will be insignificant. This round seems pretty much done.

What happens next depends largely on what Lobo and crowd decide to do. If they lapse back into the status quo, the extreme left will reorganize and there will be another round, whether electoral or otherwise. If Lobo can develop a functional economic policy, implement some effective reforms, and get some results, the radical position will be undercut and they will end up with little more than an ideological core.

It would not be at all a bad thing if a moderate left movement willing to respect the electoral process emerged, as has happened in many other Latin American countries.

[bourbon]

DEA Honduras drug killing part of new, aggressive strategy against illicit flights. The Washington Post, 24 June 2012.

With the new operation, Honduran and U.S. drug agents follow every flight they detect of unknown origin and work with non-U.S. contract pilots who don’t have the restrictive rules of engagement that the U.S. military do.

The area of Brus Laguna, where the DEA says an agent shot a drug suspect as he was reaching for his gun Saturday, is part of the remote Mosquitia region that is dotted with clandestine airstrips and a vast network of rivers for carrying drugs to the coast.

Saturday’s incident marked the first time that a DEA agent has killed someone in Central America since the agency began deploying specially trained agents several years ago to accompany local law enforcement personnel on all types of drug raids throughout the region, said DEA spokeswoman Dawn Dearden.

Man Is Killed by U.S. Agent in Drug Raid in Honduras, by Charlie Savage. The New York Times, 24 June 2012.

WASHINGTON — A United States Drug Enforcement Administration agent shot a man to death in Honduras during a raid on a smuggling operation early Saturday, a spokesman for the American Embassy in Honduras said Sunday. The man who was killed had been reaching for his weapon, the official said, and the agent fired in self-defense.

The shooting brought further attention to the growing American involvement in counternarcotics operations in Central America. Commando-style squads of D.E.A. agents have been working with local security forces in several countries and have been present at several firefights in Honduras in which people have died in the last 15 months.