The following quotes (except as noted) Are From: https://newrepublic.com/article/120559/honduras-charter-cities-spearheaded-us-conservatives-libertarians
“In the early 1950s the United Fruit Company hired legendary public relations expert Edward Bernays to carry out an intense misinformation campaign portraying then-Guatamalan president Jacobo Arbenz as a communist threat.” -- Scott Price, IC Magazine
“Between the time of the (Honduran)coup (June 2009) and February 2012, there were at least 59 politically motivated assassinations of civilians associated with the resistance movement. This is a low estimate, as intimidation and fear of reprisal prevents communities and family members from reporting many such deaths. There were at least 250 violations of human rights in the military junta’s first three months alone.” -- Committee of Family Members of the Disappeared of Honduras (COFADEH), respected human rights organization.
"I’ve seen all sorts of horrific things in my time. but none as detrimental to the country as this." –Sandra Maribel Sanchez- Honduran journalist
“In 2013, the (illegitimate)Honduran government passed a law…which is to create autonomous free-trade zones that are governed by corporations, instead of the countries in which they exist.”
“…the project will allow multinationals to violate labor and environmental rights. It's unconstitutional and violates national sovereignty. According to the charter city law, Honduras will sell territory to investors, and that territory becomes an autonomous region (that is)no longer governed by Honduran laws or police.”
“This is nothing more than a plan to get rid of the national debt by auctioning off the country,”ex-president Manuel Zelaya, overthrown in the US-backed 2009 coup
“Many fear the ZEDEs (‘Special Economic Development Zones’ [‘Privatized Free Trade Zones’]) in Honduras because they will become a tool for organized crime to strengthen its hold on the country”
“Nine Americans remain key players in the ZEDEs—six of whom served in the administration of former President Ronald Reagan.” (They are Mark Klugmann, Grover Norquist, Richard Rahn, Loren A. Smith, Reagan’s son, Michael and Mark Skousen – see below for more details.)
“US investor-members (of the Honduran Special Economic Development Zone’sso-called Committee for the Application of Best Practices) include Mark Klugmann, speech writer for presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush and image consultant to Honduran post-coup president Lobo; Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform; Richard Rahn, vice president of the Chamber of Commerce during the Reagan administration and senior member of the (Libertarian) Cato Institute; Loren A. Smith, federal judge and chief campaign advisor to Reagan in 1976 and 1980; Reagan’s son, Michael; and Mark Skousen, former CIA economic analyst and Forbes columnist.”
"I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half."– Jay Gould, railroad robber baron, as he hired armed Pinkerton detectives (and other goon squad thugs) to brutally break a labor union strike
This time we can’t just call up the police ‘cause the criminals got all the cops on a leash” – Songwriter Ethan Miller, from his powerful pro-worker song Organized Crime
Hondura’s President Porfirio Lobo talks with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Guatemala City on March 5, 2010. (Photo: Guatemala Presidency/Handout)
Hondura’s Illegitimately-elected right-wing President Porfirio Lobo met with President Obama in October 2011 following the military coup that deposed the social democratic president Zelaya
Wounds inflicted by the Honduran military upon a Lenca tribal anti-dam activist, whose father was murdered in the same attack
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Last Sunday I attended a vigil at Peace Church here in Duluth, MN that commemorated the life and death of assassinated Honduran environmental activist Berta Caceres, a 44 year-old mother of four.
Caceres has been devoting her life organizing her fellow indiginous tribal members (the Lenca Indians), fellow Hondurans and other justice-loving citizens of the world in resisting the privatization of their ancestral lands, resources and rivers by foreign investor groups and the traitorous collaborating politicians and businessmen that rule Honduras.
Those “traitors” to her homeland’s indigenous rights are being backed-up by the Honduran military, the private corporation’s armed guards, and shadowy “death squads” that have been harassing Berta and other resistors with death threats, intimidation and killings over the years.
The vigil was somber and meditative and a call to some sort of action to those of us who were in attendance. To me it was also a call to do something to resist other tyrannical corporations that are forging ahead with their nefarious plans to exploit and extract the planet’s irreplaceable resources wherever they can - by any means necessary.
I have long believed that, in order to be effective, it is necessary to name out loud, not just the evil that is being done to the land and its creatures, but also to name the suspected or proven evil-doers
That methodology was effective in my practice of holistic health care, where victims of neglect or psychological, sexual, physical, emotional, spiritual trauma needed to not only identify the signs and symptoms of their so-called “mental” ill health, but also to name the drugs, vaccines or human perpetrators of the violence, including those in my own medical profession and the pharmaceutical industries that profited so lavishly from their toxic products. Doing so was very therapeutic and often curative for my patients, partly because they realized finally that their sicknesses were NOT necessarily their fault.
So, in addition to commemorating the life and death of another martyr to the cause of peace and environmental justice, I feel that it is important to understand the history of the power-hungry perpetrators of violence to the land, its creatures, whether it be greedy human sociopaths, greedy inanimate/corporate entities, blinded or co-opted bureaucracies or merciless military/police organizations that solve a corporation’s or oligarch’s problems by terrorizing those that are in the resistance movements.
Therefore I offer below the following timeline of historical events in Honduras that led up to Berta’s execution, starting with the gold-obsessed Christopher Columbus and the evil conquistadors that followed him to a new world that was already occupied by First Nations’ peoples who were systematically massacred or otherwise cheated out of their sovereign right to own and make use of their own land, mineral and water resources as they saw fit. I have obtained the information from a multitude of accurate sources.
(Note that this March 30, 2016 is the 117th anniversary of the merger of two US banana companies into the United Fruit Company (now called United Brands), that did everything in their power to enslave the aboriginal people of Central America by immorally removing them from their ancestral lands, refusing to pay them livable wages for their forced work, putting their lives and health at risk and illegally occupying their land, all of which resulted in poverty, hunger, homelessness and refugeeism.
Of course this pattern of exploitation should be familiar to anybody who is awake. It happened (and is still happening) to aboriginal peoples in our own backyard, whether it is in the United States, Canada, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, Australia, New Zealand and almost every geographical location on the planet where exploitable resources exist.
Powerful extractive, polluting, mostly foreign multinational corporations like Glencore//PolyMet, Antofagasta/Twin Metals and Enbridge are threatening the environmental health – especially the water resources of northeast Minnesota.
They all need to be resisted. Please offer any help you can give to the Duluth 7 anti-pipeline activist group, which is facing criminal trespass charges after they tried to deliver a protest letter to the corporate Duluth offices of Enbridge Energy, a Canadian oil pipeline company, on November 2, 2015. Their arraignment is scheduled for April 1, 2016.
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A Historical Timeline from Columbus to the Berta Caceres Assassination
1502: During his 4th voyage to the New World, Christopher Columbus reaches the coast of Honduras and then travels south to Panama.
1525: Spain conquistadors begin the brutal military assault on Honduras and all of Central and South America, with millions of innocents displaced and executed.
17th century: The northern coast of Honduras falls to British buccaneers. “British” Honduras (now Belize) is established as a British colony, along with many Caribbean island nations.
1860: William Walker, US physician and pro-slavery soldier of fortune from Nashville, TN, leads mercenary soldiers in temporarily “conquering” Nicaragua. He is executed by firing squad by the Honduran government.
1898 April-December: Spanish-American war. Following the war that stole much of northern Mexico for the western United States, the US military occupies Cuba and Puerto Rico.
1899 March 30: The Boston Fruit Company merges with the Snyder Banana Company, and renames itself the United Fruit Company. The company at one time controlled 75% of the banana market in the US.
1903 November: The United States, with an eye on digging an interoceanic canal for trade purposes, conspires with separatist groups in the Colombian state of Panama to declare independence from Colombia. The US government sends the US Navy to prevent Colombia from recovering its territory. As soon as Panama's independence is assured, the US obtains control over a strip of land (ultimately called the Canal Zone) through which it planned to building the canal.
1903: The United States invades Honduras.
1903: US invades the Dominican Republic.
1906: The US Army re-invades Cuba. The American occupation continues until 1909.
1907: US troops invade Nicaragua and establishes a protectorate in the country.
1907: Due to political violence, the US re-invades Honduras during the war with Nicaragua to “protect American lives”.
1909: The US Army re-invades Nicaragua.
1911: The US helps to overthrow President Miguel Devila of Honduras.
1912: The US Army sends troops to Cuba.
1912: The US marines land in Panama during the contested presidential elections.
1912: The US Army intervenes again in Honduras.
1914: The US Navy fights against rebels in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
1915: The US Army invades Haiti.
1916: The US Army invades the Dominican Republic.
1917: The US Army invades Cuba and the American occupation lasts until 1933.
1918: The US Army intervenes in Panama and maintains a police force in the country.
1919: The US marines land in Honduras during the presidential campaign.
1920: The US Army lands in Guatemala and fights for two weeks and puts down a peasant pro-union movement against the United Fruit Company. The victims are called communists.
1924: US military “intervenes” in Honduras to “protect American interests” (ie, the profitability of the United Fruit Company) during a presidential election.
1925: US Army lands in Panama during a general strike against the banana plantation owners.
1932: US Navy intervenes in the Marti Revolt in El Salvador.
1932-49: Honduras suffers under the military dictatorship of General Tiburcio Carias Andino and his right-wing National Party of Honduras (NPH).
1933: First election to the presidency of Honduras of General Carias, who developed close ties with his fellow right-wing, neofascist , military dictators in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, all supported by the US. He remained in office until 1949.
1934: In a military coup, US-backed military dictator Anastasio Somoza takes power in Nicaragua and outlaws political parties that favor the poor and working class. He was assassinated on September 17, 1980.
<<snip>>
1945: TheUnited Fruit Company introduces Miss Chiquita Banana as the company’s official symbol.
1953: President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorizes Operation PBSUCCESS, a covert operation in which the CIA funds, arms, and trains 480 men led by Carlos Castillo Armas, the first of many of Guatamala’s (and other Central and South American) military dictators vigorously supported by the US.
1954: After escaping from prison following an abortive military coup attempt against the Guatemalan government (1950), strongman and dictator-to-be Carlos Castillo established an army in neighboring Honduras. Castillo received financial and military support from the CIA and political support from Republican US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and CIA Director Allen Dulles. The Dulles brothers were once well-paid lawyers for the United Fruit Company.
1954: Castillo’s army invades Guatemala in June, 1954, successfully overthrowing the democratically-elected socialist Jacobo Arbenz, who had instituted land reform benefitting the landless peasants (the 99%). Arbenz was vigorously opposed by the United Fruit Company, its bought-and-paid-for politicians and the wealthy landowners (the 1%).
1954: Che Guevara witnesses the CIA-backed coup in Guatemala against Arbenz and is convinced that only armed revolutions can overthrow wealthy land-owning tyrants and other fascist entities.
1956: The Honduras military junta ousts civilian president Lozano Diazin a bloodless coup. Honduras was subsequently ruled by the junta for the next two years.
1957: José Ramón Adolfo Villeda Morales is elected Honduran president. He serves for 6 years.
1963 October 13: The presidential candidate of the Liberal Party of Honduras, campaigning on the platform to abolish the military, is expected to win the election. But Honduran democracy is again crushed by a military coup d’etat just before election day.
1963: General Osvaldo Lopez took power after the coup and served as president until 1971.
1972: General Lopez again takes power in another coup d’etat.
1974: General Lopez resigns after he was exposed for accepting a bribe of over a million dollars from United Fruit.
1974: Hurricane Fifi devastates Honduras, killing 5,000.
1975: Colonel Juan Alberto Melgar Castro takes power.
1978: General Policarpo Paz Garcia ousts Melgar in a coup.
1981: Roberto Suazo Cordova, of the Centrist Liberal Party of Honduras, is elected president. He leads the first civilian government in more than a century.
1982: Brutal Guatemalan dictator (and fundamentalist Christian) Rios Montt meets with US President Ronald Reagan in Honduras. Reagan dismisses reports of egregious human rights abuses in the region and resumes weapons sales to military rulers.
1986: President Reagan issues an executive order granting emergency aid for Honduran army.
1988: Amnesty International reports increases in human rights violations by Honduran armed forces, and right-wing death squads.
1989: General Alvarez is assassinated.
1990: Rafael Callejas is sworn in as president; Nicaraguan Contras leave Honduras.
1990-1998: Honduran military death squads kill hundreds of indigenous rights activists.
1995: Compulsory military service is abolished. Many military officers are charged with human rights abuses.
1997: Carlos Flores, Liberal Party, is elected president, pledging to restructure armed forces.
1998: Hurricane Mitch devastates Honduras. Cholera and malaria epidemics ensue
1999: Honduran armed forces are placed under civilian control.
2001: Honduran Committee for Defense of Human Rights states that more than 1,000 homeless street children were murdered the year before by death squads backed by the Honduran police. A drought ravages Central America, and Honduras loses 80% of its grain crops.
2002: Honduras restores diplomatic ties with Cuba.
2003: Thousands of protestors across Honduras unite to demand that the government revoke debt payment agreements with the IMF. Sadly, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua agree to the terms of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), which, like ALL “Free Trade Agreements” gives favorable trade terms to oligarchs and their corporations, to the detriment of the non-elites.
2004: Honduras also signs NAFTA.
2005:Liberal Party's Manuel Zelaya, a social democrat, wins presidential election. Honduran Congress approves Central American Free Trade Agreement.
2006: Zelaya inaugurated as new president, promises to fight corruption.
2008: Honduras joins Bolivarian Alternative for Americas, headed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
2008: Zelaya administration blocks many hydroelectric dam projects, siding with the aboriginal people who would be most affected.
2009June: President Zelaya forced into exile following a US-supported military coup d’etat. Porfirio Lobo, of the conservative National Party of Honduras, is installed as president in a fraudulent, US-backed election November 2009.
2009: In the first three months of the right-wing President Lobo’s administration, at least 250 violations of human rights occur just during the first two years and over 59 assassinations of civilians are documented.
2010: President Lobo’s rallying cry was “Honduras is Open for Business.”
2010: September: The post-coup, right-wing nationalist government awards 47 hydroelectric dam concessions in just one law, without consulting the indigenous communities which rely on the rivers for food and water.The law was part of a tsunami of pro-business laws passed by the National Congress.
2010: President Juan Orlando Hernandez becomes the country's president in an election marred by allegations of fraud and intimidation. Orlando, a businessman, is a staunch supporter of foreign investments in dams, mining, tourism and oil.
2009: After the coup, the US builds up its air base presence in Honduras through the establishment of three forward-operating bases, ostensibly for “drug interdiction”, but actually to enhance businesses and repress the civilian population.
2011: Honduras receives more than $50 million in Pentagon contracts. 62 percent of all Defense Department funds intended for Central America that year go to Honduras.
2012: January President Orlando is invited to visit the US Military’s Southern Command headquarters in Miami to meet with high-ranking officials.
2012: May At least 4 people are gunned down by Honduran military forces firing from a US State Department helicopter, under the supervision of uniformed DEA and US Navy agents.
<<snip>>
March 3, 2016: The courageous anti-tyranny activist Berta Cáceres is executed in her sleep by a right-wing death squad connected to those who were issuing constant death threats against her.
Cáceres was the cofounder of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Movements of Honduras (COPINH). She was an unrelenting activist committed to protecting her Lenca Tribe’s First Nation’s natural resources, lands and rivers against powerful, military-backed, business consortiums of US banks, IMF and World Bank predatory lenders, dam construction companies and mining companies that are intent on unethically – and illegally (in violation of international law) - exploiting the indigenous people’s natural resources.
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