Honduran coup talk

Friday 10 or so folks - including a couple of Crescent Hill people - gathered in a Presbyterian Center to watch a short documentary on the coup a year ago in Honduras, a country that shares a border with Guatemala, and the aftermath, and to hear from Elmer (pictured above) spouse of Ellen S., who briefly attended Crescent Hill with their kids. Elmer, who is now one of the pastors of a Nasvhille church with Guatemala connections came down hard on the coup and its aftermath: he and the documentary sharply contested that the coup was popular and bloodless. Both detailed the continuing resistance to the coup and the coup-influenced governments that have followed in Honduras. A wave of left and center-left governments have swept over Latin America, through elections, and the Honduran coup was a attempt to go back to the bloody methods of the 1970s and 1980s to reverse this leftward electoral drift. Elmer said the Honduran coup endangers other countries like Guatemala also, because it's clear that the United States - even with a center-left Democrat in the White House - will do nothing to stop these coups. Not only will the government not call the coup a coup and not threaten U.S. miliary connections with the Honduran government (we have bases there) or U.S.-Honduran trade, which is very extensive, but there is also evidence that the U.S. government supported the coup from the start. The plane that flew that kidnapped Honduran president, Zelaya, out of the country, stopped at a U.S. base to refuel. And a very important figure in the Reagan/Bush war on the Latin American left - in the 1980s, met with most of the key coup figures in Honduras a week before the coup happened.

-- Perry