Charges Against Top Honduran Military Officials Could be Dropped

The charges against six Honduran military officials, accused of abusing their power when they sent President Mel Zelaya out of the country on an airplane in June, will likely be dropped in order to “ease tensions.” This from the New York Times this morning who says the actual detainment of the president on June 28 is not part of the public prosecutor’s recent claim against the senior military officials; only his forced departure was cited as illegal. Those named in the case include the following individuals: Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Romeo Vasquez; his top aide Venancio Cervantes; Luis Javier Prince, the air force commander; Carlos Antonio Cuéllar, inspector general; Miguel Ángel García, army commander; and Juan Pablo Rodríguez, navy commander. And, says RNS at Honduras Coup 2009, Chief Justice Jorge Alberto Rivera, has been assigned to hear the public prosecutor’s case in front of the Supreme Court to decide whether it can proceed. But, as the paper goes on to report, these charges would all disappear if the Honduran Congress passes an amnesty proposal that president-elect Pepe Lobo is pushing for. Debate on that measure is supposed to start next week. Responding to the news of the charges yesterday, Mel Zelaya called the move a distraction from the real crimes, including the coup d’etat itself, murder, and other human rights violations. “It’s a trick from prosecutors to charge the army officers with a minor crime instead of with the grave crimes they committed,” Zelaya said in a statement yesterday.

Other notes on Honduras this morning: From RNS and El Tiempo, Micheletti’s foreign minister Carlos Lopez Contreras said Thursday that US diplomat Craig Kelly assured the de facto president that US aid would restart, without conditions, after the inauguration of Pepe Lobo. No public comments were offered by Mr. Kelly before he left Tegucigalpa but the US Embassy there did put out a statement. It reads (in part, translation by RNS):

“Mr. Kelly congratulated "Pepe" Lobo for his election and expressed the will of the United States to work with the new government of President Lobo to help confront the challenges once the Accord has been implemented....Mr. Kelly observed that the punctual implementation of the pending elements of the Accord are the best way to restore the position of Honduras with the international community.”

This news amidst new reports that the closing of anti-coup radio stations continues. Again, via RNS, Reporters Without Borders says community radio station "Galuma Bimetu" in Triunfo de la Cruz was shuttered over the weekend. Actually, shuttered is the wrong word. The station was really ransacked and burned to the ground. The reason behind the incident is not fully known but Reporters Without Borders does write that it “confirms the consistent danger that the independent media, known for their opposition to the coup against Manuel Zelaya, are under.” The station director’s, Alfredo Lopez, was detained by the Micheletti government in August for “being a member of the resistance against the coup.” The station has also opposed a major development project in the area.

On to other stories this morning:

· A few more pieces rounding-up a review of 2009 and predictions for 2010. In The New Republic over the holidays, Jorge Castaneda wrote that since the end of the Cold War the United States has lost interest in Latin America. “For the first time in centuries, the United States doesn’t seem to care much what happens in Latin America” and “a strange and centrist hemispheric consensus has emerged in support of U.S. indifference,” Mexico’s one-time foreign minister writes. But, Castaneda goes on, “this new strategic environment is precarious” because it allows for the “mischievous” Hugo Chavez (with Cuba’s help, he argues) to further develop “foreign activities” across the region. His recommendation: the U.S. must “get off the defensive” in Latin America, creating

“an actual doctrine--or, at least, coherent policy--to guide his decisions: a calculus that distinguishes between matters that are properly part of a country’s domestic policy and those that entail violations of freely consented international agreements.”

For a critical response to Castaneda and his obsession with Hugo Chavez (my words), see Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue here.

Also, Arturo Valenzuela recaps U.S. engagement with Latin America over the last year at the State Dept.’s blog, Dipnote. CIP’s Just the Facts highlights major events in the region in 2009, month by month. And just out, the latest issue of NACLA (subscription required), examines Obama’s foreign policy toward the region over the last year. Again, the major argument: continuity. The magazine writes:

“In April, President Obama made his hemispheric debut at the Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. ‘I’m here to launch a new chapter of engagement that will be sustained throughout my administration,’ he told his counterparts, to applause…Since then, however, Obama’s honeymoon with Latin America has definitively ended—largely because of his administration’s efforts to prevent the reinstatement of Manuel Zelaya to the presidency of Honduras, following the military coup in June, and its granting of legitimacy to the coup government.”

· From Argentina, tension between the Central Bank and President Cristina Kirchner erupted this week into a major crisis. The Wall Street Journal reports that “Kirchner said she was firing the country's central-bank chief Thursday (for “bad conduct and incompliance with duties as a public servant”), escalating a battle over foreign-currency reserves into a nascent constitutional crisis.” Ms. Kirchner’s emergency decree against bank president Martin Redrado has been called unconstitutional by the opposition-controlled Congress. “We're in a full-blown institutional crisis, one of the worst the country has seen in a long time,” Alberto Bernal, chief macroeconomic strategist for Bulltick Capital Markets in Miami, tells the paper. More from the LA Times who says at the heart of the dispute between the president and Redrado is the banker’s refusal to “release $6.6 billion in foreign reserves to service the nation's mounting foreign debt”—a move Redrado said must be approved by Congress first (and that body is out on vacation). And now the BBC reports this morning that Redrado has stepped down from his position (but has not “resigned”). He says he plans to challenge the president in court.

· Also from the Wall Street Journal, reports of a growing energy crisis in oil-rich but hydroelectric dependent Venezuela.

· While some in Washington argue the Cuba should be taken off the State Dept.’s “State Terror List,” others, like Florida Reps. Connie Mack and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen are vociferously arguing Venezuela should be put on the list for its relations with Iran and accusations that it has supported Colombia’s FARC.

· Haiti's democratic and economic development depends on the success of legislative and presidential elections planned for this year, says a top U.N. representative to the country. “Success [of elections] would allow the country to enter a virtuous circle where stability and development are mutually reinforcing. Their failure will exacerbate distrust and suspicion and could jeopardize the progress achieved during the last four years,” remarked UN peacekeeping chief Hedi Annabi in a speech yesterday. The first vote of year is Feb. 28 when new legislators are to be elected.

· Lastly, two opinions. In the Miami Herald yesterday, a piece by Ass’t Sec. General of the OAS, Albert Ramdin about why the Americas need the OAS. And, the Economist tells Alvaro Uribe it’s time to step aside—for risk of emulating Hugo Chavez, in the magazine’s words. Uribe’s still contemplating his response, but time is running out.