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More than a year after the June 28, 2009 coup in Honduras which ousted democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya, the Obama Administration is wholly embracing the post-coup government of Porfirio Lobo. Last Wednesday Secretary of State Clinton signed an agreement with the new Honduran President who won in a post-coup election boycotted by supporters of Zelaya and criticized by many members of the International community. The Memorandum of Understanding agreed to by the US and Honduras was designed to strengthen economic growth and development through remittances sent back home by Honduran workers in the US. Clinton met with Lobo in New York during the gathering of the United Nations General Assembly. Hondurans organized against the coup wrote a strongly worded letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon protesting Lobo’s participation as Honduras’ representative in the General Assembly. The National Front of Popular Resistance and other groups reminded the UN of the resolution it passed just two days after Zelaya’s ouster, condemning the coup. American officials like Clinton and others have urged the Organization of American States (OAS) to admit the Lobo regime as a member. While US pressure on the OAS may have worked in the past, today’s pro-democracy wave in Latin America has made the OAS more independent of its Northern ally. The OAS has instead sworn in ousted President Zelaya as a deputy of the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN), as Honduras’ representative.

GUEST: Rodolfo Pastor, pre-coup Minister in charge of Political Affairs at the Embassy of Honduras in Washington DC, post-coup Deputy Chief of Mission for the remainder of Zelaya’s government in exile, now works with the grassroots group, Hondurans for Democracy, and member of the National Popular Resistance Front in Honduras

Find out more at www.porlademocracia.org, hondurans4democracy.blogspot.com, and www.quotha.net.