[progchat_action] Will the Democrats support the Honduran coup?
Steven Robinson
By Robert Naiman Policy Director of Just Foreign Policy The Huffington
Post November 20, 2009
A statement put out by Senator Lugar's office this week contained
a striking revelation: apparently, the State Department intends to
fund election observer missions of the International Republican
Institute and the National Democratic Institute for the controversial
November 29 Honduras election supervised by the coup regime. If the
US sends election observers before President Zelaya is restored,
it would prepare the ground for recognizing the coup regime and its
election as legitimate, putting the U.S. at odds with the rest of
the hemisphere. Funding election observers appears to be part of a
strategy of legitimizing the June coup against President Zelaya.
Both the IRI and the NDI are funded by Congress through the National
Endowment for Democracy.
The International Republican Institute is affiliated with the
Republican Party and the National Democratic Institute is affiliated
with the Democratic Party.
The IRI has a sordid history of anti-democratic actions, like
supporting the 2004 coup in Haiti.
The NDI, on the other hand, is at least nominally accountable to
the Democratic Party, so its involvement in trying to legitimize
elections under the coup regime is quite surprising. Democratic
leaders in Congress, like Senator Kerry and Representative Berman,
have strongly opposed the coup.
Congressional Democrats have urged President Obama not to recognize
elections under the coup regime.
President Rich Trumka of the AFL-CIO, which has good relations, to
say the least, with many Congressional Democrats, has written that
continued repression of trade unionists by the coup regime makes
it impossible to hold free and fair elections. President Trumka
called on the U.S. government to oppose national elections in
Honduras unless President Zelaya is reinstated.
Note that Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation
of Teachers, an AFL-CIO affiliate, sits on the NDI board.
All this suggests that if Members of Congress and Democratic
constituency groups would speak up, the National Democratic Institute,
at least, could be prevented from participating in the legitimation
of elections under the coup regime.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/will-the-national-democra_b_36511
7.html
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