Posted by emersberger
on November 3, 2009, 3:28 am
http://www.chavezcode.com/2009/11/honduras-victory-for-smart-power.html
She makes good points but time (and resistance) will decide whether imperialism wins or loses.
Victories and defeats are never that easy to determine in the long term. In the 1970s, Latin America's organized left was mostly wiped out through mass murder. Today we see how fleeting those victories for US policy really were. However, what is true for victories by US imperialism is also true for victories against it. They are not always that easy to access.
That said, I think Golibger is reading events in Honduras much too passimistically.
In Honduras, even a symbolic return of Zelaya is going to be very hard for the coupsters to swallow (or to avoid in spite of the loophoes they wrote into the accords). The dictatorship was not able to employ the level of violence that was employed in South America during in the 1970s. Not to make light of the violence that they did employ, but they could not come anywhere close to wiping out their organized opponents as Pinochet and others did. In fact, rather than wiping them out, they are now saddled with social movements that are more unified and radicalized than ever before.
The calls for consitutional reform are certainly not going away, no matter what Zelaya agreed to (which explains why he agreed to "concessions" on that - it was always going to be a long term project, not something he imposed).
More generally, rightists who fantasized about Honduras being the first stage of a return to the 1970s should be disappointed by the outcome of the Honduran coup - so far.
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