Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Letter to Obama on Honduras

Fifteen members of Congress wrote a letter to President Obama (PDF here), asking him to formally label the coup a "military coup" and thereby suspend non-humanitarian aid, while also freezing the bank accounts and assets of those involved. The idea is that measures can be taken that will not adversely affect the Honduran people. It will likely be ignored, but it's good to have it on the record at least.

Days since the coup: 45
Days until the scheduled presidential election: 109

6 comments:

Anonymous,  9:14 AM  

Ohhhh! Careful Greg! Lanny Davis will be all over you demanding that you, "Take it back...Take it back TAKE IT BACK". :)

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/7/honduras

Nell 2:35 PM  

Seventeen members of Congress, according to the link to Grijalva's site in the post. But who's counting?

The recess can only partially explain that number being so small. Still, I'm very glad it exists and was sent, and appreciate Rep. Grijalva's gesture of publicizing it on the Global Day of Action for Honduras called for by the resistance front.

Presumably the Congressman and his co-signers are part of the nameless critics Obama was aiming at with his dig about "hypocrisy". Stay classy, Mr. President.

Greg Weeks 3:19 PM  

Count the number of signatures on the letter.

leftside 5:43 PM  

It is basically only the "progressive caucus" supporting this measure. So sad (but I guess, inevitable) how this issue has become politicized.

Here's one of the best op-eds on this issue I have seen.

Nell 7:36 PM  

Greg: Count the signatures on the letter.

I had done that before commenting; there are 15.

You're probably familiar with 'Congressional letters', both in the form of 'Dear Colleague' messages to other members and to the executive branch. Members often "sign on" even though they may not have done so before the physical letter was delivered. This is especially likely to happen when the chamber recesses and members hear from constituents asking them to sign on, but are no longer present to literally sign.

Given the President's attitude as expressed this weekend, and what actions are open to the administration, I'd like to see another Congressional letter soon urging him to join the UNASUR countries in declaring that the U.S. government won't recognize a government resulting from elections conducted under an illegal, unrecognized coup regime.

Anonymous,  8:09 PM  

UNASUR won't recognize elections held under a coup government? Doesn't that mean that most of UNASUR is now illegitimate?

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