Hillary’s aggressive prioritization of elite corporate interests over the interests of common people, has taken many disturbing turns. Perhaps one of the most disturbing is her role in the 2009 military coup that brought down a democratically elected government in Honduras. The coup ousted Manuel Zelaya, a wealthy landowner who had to be “brought to heel” when his government veered left, vowed to combat poverty, and then dared to push through a modest minimum wage increase for workers earning starvation wages in the garment factories that put clothes on the backs of Americans. In “Hard Choices,” Clinton’s autobiography, she openly admits that she used her power to bring pro-U.S. "stability" to Honduras at the expense of democracy, stating: “We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya (the democratically elected president) moot”. Those “free and fair” elections entailed a media blackout, targeted assassinations of anti-coup leaders, and a generalized and grave deterioration of human rights ahead of the polls. No international institutions were allowed to monitor these elections.
This was not a popular stance among Latin American governments, and others in the international community, who had pressed the US to use its influence to restore the democratically elected government. The EU denounced elections to be held by an illegal dictatorship that had suspended civil rights, raided and shut down independent media outlets, and that was brutally beating and arresting peaceful pro-Zelaya demonstrators. State Department officials instead blocked the OAS from adopting a resolution that would have refused to recognize Honduran elections carried out under dictatorship, effectively giving the US seal of approval to the military coup. The result was a significant deterioration of hemispheric relations that continues to this day. The paperback edition of “Hard Choices” omits any mention of the Honduran coup.
The MSM has since treated the coup, and the subsequent murders of environmental, LGBT, labor, and indigenous rights activists, as a local matter unrelated to US policymakers. True to form, the MSM trots out the hollow and vapid “cycle of violence” and “ever has it been thus” clichés so often employed when murderous governments are ushered into power with help from the United States.
When the globally renowned environmental and indigenous rights activist Berta Caceres was murdered by US trained security forces in 2014, the New York Times reported that:
“Since a 2009 coup in Honduras, journalists, judges, labor leaders, human rights defenders and environmental activists have been assassinated in targeted killings, with their murders often going unsolved. Twelve environmental defenders were killed in Honduras in 2014, according to research by Global Witness, which makes it the most dangerous country in the world, relative to its size, for activists protecting forests and rivers.”
Yet the Times made no mention of Hillary Clinton’s well-documented role in propping up this brutal, repressive, pro-corporate military coup against a chorus of international critics and condemnation. Other media outlets, such as The Washington Post, Guardian, NBC, CNN and NPR, reported on Berta Caceres death, while making no mention of the coup at all!
Hillary Clinton prides herself on being a feminist, but what kind of feminist is she, exactly? Do feminists support right-wing coups?
Candidate Clinton has been silent on the coup and its violent aftermath, however she stands by her 2014 statement that Honduran children fleeing this horrific violence should be sent back to their families to “send a message” that it is not worth trying to make the dangerous journey to the United States.
Before Her Assassination, Berta Cáceres Berta Caceres Singled Out Hillary Clinton for Backing Honduran Coup