by the El Reportero’s news service
Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro, former Cuban leader, predicted that Latin America would be swept by a wave of military coups if Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was not returned to power after his ouster in a June 28 coup.
Castro, in a column published late on Friday on an Internet site run by Cuba’s communist government, said right-wing military leaders trained by the United States could be encouraged to take up arms against their governments, depending on how the Honduras crisis turned out.
“If President Manuel Zelaya is not returned to his post, a wave of coups threatens to sweep many Latin American governments, or they will be left at the mercy of military men of the extreme right, educated in the security doctrine of the School of the Americas,” he wrote, Reuters informs.
Zelaya’s last gamble
The deposed President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, left Managua, Nicaragua, on July the with a caravan of supporters en route north to Estelí, from where he intends to set up camp before attempting to return to Honduras in the next few days.
Having denounced as a failure the talks led by Costa Rica’s President Oscar Arias to broker a solution with the de facto government led by Roberto Micheletti, Zelaya will be hoping that this last high stakes gamble – which, like his previous attempt to fl y into Tegucigalpa airport on July 5, will likely be televised live – will push the de facto government into accepting a compromise deal allowing for his reinstatement to serve out the remainder of his term (to January 27, 2010).
Colombia new regional base for US anti-drug operations?
The US flew its last anti-drugs mission from its base at Manta, on Ecuador’s Pacifi c coast, on July 17. Its ten year lease on the airbase, which expires in November, will not be renewed by Ecuador.
It is natural that the US should look to neighboring Colombia, its most active regional ally and recipient of billions of dollars of US military aid, to fi ll the gap. The government of President Alvaro Uribe confi rmed on July 16 that it is close to reaching a deal to allow the U.S. ‘limited access’ to at least three of its air force bases, including its main airbase in central Colombia. Both countries were quick to state that the U.S. would not be acquiring its own bases but rather would obtain increased access to Colombian facilities. Nevertheless, the deal is controversial, not least because it is likely to ramp up tensions with Colombia’s left-leaning neighbors.
Mexican army convicts soldiers
On 23 July the Mexican army announced that since 2006 it has convicted 12 soldiers and prosecuted a further 52 for a variety of offences.
