double speak and double standards of all those decrying today the
flaunting of democracy by Laurent Gbagbo in Côte d'Ivoire.
Alex Engwete
***
FAIR: Honduras Down the Memory Hole
U.S. media ignore the aftermath of dubious elections they praised
By Alyssa Figueroa
A year after a military coup removed democratically elected President
Manuel Zelaya from office, Hondurans are still living under a
repressive government—but the U.S. is pushing Latin American countries
to join it in normalizing relations with the regionally ostracized
nation.
Reporting from a meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS),
the New York Times (6/8/10) dutifully relayed Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton's assertion that "we saw the free and fair election of
President [Porfirio] Lobo,'' noting on the other hand that "several
foreign ministers inveighed against Mr. Lobo's government, which they
said had violated human rights." The Times left it up to readers to
guess who might have been right. The Washington Post (6/8/10) reported
that this debate is simply an indication of "how difficult it is to
bridge regional divisions."
Such coverage is no surprise, given the media's enthusiastic response
to Lobo's election in January. After the June 28, 2009, coup, the U.S.
and many Latin American countries said they would refuse to recognize
the elections in November if Zelaya wasn't restored to office to
finish out his term (Washington Post, 9/4/09). Given that the
elections would be held under the auspices of a coup regime, the UN,
the OAS, the EU and the Carter Center didn't send observers (Real News
Network, 4/08/10).
Before the election was held, however, the U.S. backed off this
position—a reversal cheered in the U.S. press. Washington Post
columnist Edward Schumacher-Matos (11/27/09) declared that Obama was
"alone, and right, on Honduras," because the election "will come off
favorably enough." A Post editorial (11/28/09) agreed, arguing that
Hondurans were eager for the election because they "have little taste
for Mr. Zelaya, who embraced the leftist populism of Hugo Chavez."
(See FAIR Action Alert, 9/24/09.) Yet an August 2009 poll by the
Honduran polling company COIMER & OP found that 52 percent supported
Zelaya's return to presidency, while 33 percent opposed it. In the
same poll, those who expressed an opinion came out 3-to-1 against the
coup (Narcosphere, 10/7/09).
The election went on, with many publications (e.g., Washington Post,
L.A. Times, both 11/30/09) deeming it "peaceful," while at the same
time reporting that 500 protesters were targeted with tear gas. There
was little coverage of the beatings and arrests leading up to the
election, or of the nearly 5,000 soldiers dispersed throughout the
country to enforce a state of emergency (Guardian, 11/28/09).
The New York Times, which a few weeks before the election (11/7/09)
held that "an election run by the coup plotters won't be credible to
Hondurans—and it shouldn't be to anyone else," afterwards wrote
(12/5/09), "there is wide agreement that last week's presidential
election in Honduras …was clean and fair."
Most outlets declared that voter turnout was near 60 percent, taking
the word of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. The Miami Herald (12/1/09)
argued that this supposed turnout meant that "the interim government,
which has the support of virtually all the major factions of Honduran
society…can now claim that it presided over a fair and credible
election." The Wall Street Journal (11/29/10) called the elections "a
win for all people who yearn for liberty."
The Tribunal's announcement, however, contradicted its own turnout
data—which at the time hovered at 49.2 percent—as well as those of the
only independent Honduran organization to do exit polling, which put
the figure at 47.6 percent (Real News Network, 12/8/09), 7 percentage
points lower than the last presidential election (Washington Post,
12/1/10). There were also "an unusually high number of null and blank
ballots—about 6 percent" WashingtonPost.com, 11/30/09).
After helping legitimize Lobo's presidency, U.S. media ignored the
aftermath. Amnesty International (6/28/10) recently "accused the
Honduran authorities of failing to address serious human rights
violations that followed the coup." The Committee of the Families of
the Detained and Disappeared of Honduras (2/28/10) reported 310 human
rights violations just 30 days into Lobo's presidency. At least nine
journalists have been killed (AP, 6/15/10), making Honduras the
world's most dangerous country for journalists in the first quarter of
2010 (Reporters Without Borders, 6/16/10). Nobody has been arrested
for these murders.
According to the New York Times (6/6/10), the dismissal of four
lower-court judges in May who were critical of the coup was only an
illustration of the "country's political divide"—one that the Times
and its media brethren seem happy to put behind them.
0 comments:
Post a Comment