ホンジュラス関係 今朝のTHE JAPAN TIMESの記事です。
Honduras coup exposes Chavez’s limits
Ideological ally offers support but no real help
ANALYSIS
David W. Koop
Mexico City
AP
The coup in Honduras has shown the limits to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s power in the region as
Latin America looks to Washington and U.S. President Barack Obama to resolve the ordeal.
Chavez put his military on alert and declared that Honduras’s interim government “must be
overthrown.” But a month after the coup, he has not only failed to reinstate his friend Manuel Zelaya –
he has solidified the deposed president’s opposition.
As the officials who ordered Zelaya out of the country a month ago at gunpoint refused to budge, even
Chavez found himself saying: “Do something. Obama, do something!”
Chavez gave the deposed Zelaya use of a Venezuelan airplane – which the Honduran military prevented
from landing – his foreign minister as a travel companion and his state-run television cameras for
media exposure.
But when Zelaya needed help getting reinstated, he went to Washington, not Caracas.
The U.S., which condemned the coup, enlisted Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oscar Arias, now Costa Rica’s
president, to broker a solution. Those talks fell apart when the interim Honduran government of Roberto
Micheletti refused to reinstate Zelaya.
Zelaya in now camped at the border of Nicaragua and Honduras to keep international pressure on
Micheletti’s government, something U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called “reckless.”
Zelaya accused Clington of backing off from her support and urges Washington daily to take tougher
measures against the coup leaders. The U.S. State Department revoked the diplomatic visas of four of
them Tuesday and said it’s reviewing the visas of all interim government officials.
Meanwhile, Chavez has limited his action to calling for Hondurans to rise up to reinstate Zelaya,
even as pro-Zelaya protests have been small. Instead, the Venezuelan president has been a talkative
bystander, calling coup leaders “gorillas” and referring to Micheletti as “Goriletti.”
This is not the role Chavez imagined fir himself. In a decade in office, he has used his nation’s
oil wealth and his vision of a united continent free of “U.S. imperialism” to cultivate a leadership
role beyond Venezuela’s borders.
Chavez has provided a regional model for extending presidential rule and governing by plebiscite to
thwart the political and business elite that long ruled – and still owns – much of Latin America.
In fact, it was Zelaya’s attempt to hold such a vote – ignoring a Supreme Court order to cancel it –
that the opposition cited in arresting him and throwing him out of the country. Opponents accuse Zelaya
of wanting to use a constitutional referendum to extend his rule the way Chavez has, something Zelaya
denies.
Zelaya, a wealthy rancher elected in 2005 from the Honduran business establishment, may have pledged
allegiance to Chavez for reasons as many financial as they are ideological.
Chavez’s Petrocaribe program gave Honduras oil, asking for long-term payment at a very low interest
rate. Chavez’s nine-nation ALBA, which Zelaya joined last year, gave Honduras $300 million in aid –
which the opposition complains Zelaya never accounted for.
Falling oil prices have diminished Chavez’s international reach, and in any case the aid provided by
Venezuela pales in comparison to the cash flowing from the north.
Trade between Honduras, the hemisphere’s fourth-poorest country, and the United States tops $7
billion a year. Hondurans living in the United States sent home an estimated $2.5 billion a year on top
of that before the current economic crisis. Together, that money accounts for more than a fifth of the
Honduran economy.
Photo
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (left) and ousted
Honduran President Manuel Zelaya attend the 28th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution in 2007 in
Managua. AP
Angry Chavez “freezes” ties with Colombia
Caracas AP
President Hugo Chavez recalled his ambassador from Bogota on Tuesday and threatened to halt Colombian
imports after the neighboring country said antitank weapons found in a rebel arms cache came from
Venezuela.
Chavez also said he would completely sever diplomatic ties and seize control of Colombian-owned
businesses.
His warning to Colombia stems from President Alvaro Uribe’s complaint over the weekend that antitank
rocket launchers sold to Venezuela by Sweden during the 1980s were obtained by Colombia’s main rebel
group, the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Sweden confirmed the weapons originally were sold to Venezuela’s military.
Chavez accused Bogota of acting irresponsibly in the accusation, saying there is no evidence
Venezuela was the source of the weapons. He threatened to halt all trade agreements with Uribe’s
government and find new suppliers to replace imports from Colombia.
Venezuela and Colombia share $6 billion in annual trade. Among goods imported from Colombia are food
items that can become scarce due to state-imposed price controls.
Chavez also threatened to shut down a 224-km pipeline that carries 5.7 million to 8.5 million cu.
meters of natural gas daily from Colombia to oil installations in western Venezuela.
