Special to WorldTribune, July 23, 2009
By Cliff Kincaid, Accuracy in Media
The United Nations on July 23, begins a debate over a new U.N. military doctrine called the “Responsibility to Protect,” which would authorize the world organization to be used as cover to intervene in the sovereign affairs of a nation state, supposedly to protect the people of a country against their own government. The first target could be anti-communist Honduras.
The “Responsibility to Protect,” also known as RtoP or R2P, is supported by the World Federalist Movement, a group dedicated to world government by strengthening the United Nations system. It is the major force behind the “International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect.”
R2P was sold as something to be exercised against regimes practicing genocide against their own people. But the new doctrine is so vague and subject to political manipulation that one can speculate it could be used to justify some form of U.N. intervention in Honduras on the pretext that the people there are somehow being victimized by a popular military-backed regime. In fact, some Hondurans are telling this columnist that they are fearful that U.N. “blue helmets” are right now being prepared to invade their country.
It is difficult to dismiss these concerns as baseless rumors, considering that the key U.N. official orchestrating the debate is General Assembly President and Lenin Peace Prize recipient Miguel D’Escoto. This is the same figure who recently managed passage of a U.N. resolution supporting the return to Honduras of Manuel Zelaya, who was removed by the military on the orders of the Honduran Supreme Court and Congress. Zelaya is a lackey of Venezuelan communist ruler Hugo Chavez, who is using his oil money to buy and influence governments throughout Latin America.
In an ominous development, blogger Jason Poblete, an astute observer of Latin American affairs with excellent sources, reports that “The Obama Administration is considering a United Nations Security Council Resolution against the constitutional government of Honduras.” If true, anticipated U.N. sanctions against Honduras could be followed by the world organization being used as cover for outside forces to invade Honduras and reinstate Zelaya.
The new government in Honduras replaced Zalaya because he was trying to set himself up as president-for-life, Chavez-style. All of this was found to be in violation of Honduran law and the Constitution. Despite what officials of the Obama Administration said, it was not a military coup in any sense. The military doesn’t run Honduras today. In fact, the new president, appointed by Congress, is from Zelaya’s own political party. Zelaya was dismissed because of the simple fact that he tried to violate the law and the Constitution.
Zelaya flew from Costa Rica, where he was deported, to U.N. headquarters in New York, where D’Escoto, who is also a Communist Catholic Priest from Nicaragua, greeted him as a comrade. Since the crisis began and the U.N. voted to have him reinstated, the Obama Administration has been trying to figure out a way to get him back into power. Costa Rican President Oscar Arias recently hosted some negotiations to try to resolve the dispute but they appear to be going nowhere.
The U.N. may be the logical next step, if Zelaya’s allies in the region don’t act precipitously on their own and intervene. Chavez has already threatened to invade Honduras to put Zelaya back in power.
Interestingly, according to one report, when Zelaya tried to return to Honduras by plane and was turned away, his supporters began chanting “We want blue helmets!” — a reference to U.N. peacekeepers. This could be the scenario we see developing, using the “Responsibility to Protect” or something similar as justification for U.N. economic and military intervention.
R2P is usually offered as a possible remedy in the case of Darfur, a region of Sudan where people are being massacred by the Islamic regime. But this was never realistic. President Obama promised but has failed to do anything about this. The real source of the problem in Darfur is the communist regime in China, which directly finances the Sudanese regime through oil purchases.
With Arab and Muslim governments also unwilling to confront the problem directly, the burden of responding to Darfur falls on the incompetent and corrupt U.N., which is always anxious to expand its scope and power. The “Responsibility to Protect,” which was actually approved by the U.N. General Assembly in 2005, when the Bush Administration was in power, is supposed to be the answer. The debate unfolding in the U.N. is over how to implement this doctrine and under what circumstances.
Everybody knows, of course, that the doctrine will not be used against China, a member of the U.N. Security Council. Nobody expects a U.N. force to liberate Tibet. Neither will a U.N. force be deployed to protect Georgia from Russia. Instead, it will be used against small countries, possibly Honduras, where there is a U.N. “consensus” and the Obama Administration could vote and work with China and Russia.
D’Escoto, or as he is called, “Father D’Escoto,” will preside over the U.N. debate, which is expected to run into Friday. Pope Benedict XVI endorsed the “Responsibility to Protect” in an April 2008 speech before the U.N. but has been unclear about how it should be implemented. He has called for dialogue in Honduras.
On the ground in Honduras, an overwhelmingly Catholic Central American country, the Catholic Church has backed the ouster of Zelaya because of the realistic fear that he was a front man for Chavez. In a statement, the Catholic bishops of Honduras declared that Zelaya had been removed from office on the basis of a valid court order.
But not all of the Catholic elements in the country are opposing Zalaya’s return. The Jesuit-run Radio Progreso has been acting as a mouthpiece for Zalaya and his supporters and is the source of the recent report that Zelaya intends to invade the country in cahoots with something called the Peaceful Resistance Front. The Catholic Church in Honduras fears that Zelaya could spark a bloodbath. Such a spectacle could provide the cover for U.N. intervention.
With Obama’s plans to seize the health care and energy sectors a focus of public attention, few in Congress are taking a hard look at the prospect of violence in Honduras. However, Senator Jim DeMint and several other senators have protested the Obama policy. DeMint also introduced an amendment to the defense authorization bill to require the Director of National Intelligence to present a “full report” on the roles played by Chavez and the leaders of Nicaragua and Cuba in facilitating the crisis in Honduras.
What is also needed is for the Congress — and the media — to start investigating the Obama Administration’s role in all of this. On July 13, the State Department spokesman confirmed that Chavez had called Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon to “discuss the current situation in Honduras and the ongoing negotiations mediated by Costa Rica’s President Oscar Arias.” The confirmation followed news of Chavez boasting about the telephone call on Venezuelan state TV.
This tends to confirm what former Marxist SDS radical Tom Hayden, leader of “Progressives for Obama,” has written about the Obama-Chavez relationship. Based on his own inside sources of information, Hayden said that he thinks Obama and Chavez are working together on Honduras and have an “understanding,” which he even describes as “collaboration.” The call Chavez made to Shannon suggests that Chavez is calling the shots.
If the Obama Administration is, in effect, acting as an agent of Venezuela in Honduras, such a foreign policy could be described not only as anti-American but potentially treasonous, considering that the outcome could be the loss of another country in Latin America to the Chavez brand of communism.
Are we the only ones in the U.S. media who consider this newsworthy?