THE US STAKE IN NICARAGUA AND HONDURASS 2021 ELECTIONS
By John Perry, Council on Hemispheric Affairs.
June 9, 2021 | EDUCATE!
Both Honduras and Nicaragua hold presidential elections in November 2021 and
the US government has a strong interest in both, although for rather
different reasons. Both have incumbent presidents who will either stand
again or, in the case of Honduras, more likely be replaced as candidate by a
successor seen as reliably committed to the same style of government. Given
that both countries are economically and militarily tiny, it might be
thought that Washington would be unconcerned by their internal affairs, but
in reality it sees much at stake.
Promoting Democracy Or Promoting Polyarchy?
The issues that concern the US in Central America are rooted in more than a
century of intervention in its politics. The forms of intervention have
changed, of course, but always based on the fundamental aim of pursuing US
corporate interests. For decades this meant supporting dictators like
Nicaraguas Anastasio Somoza or Guatemalas Efraín Ríos Montt, but later it
was more convenient to promote democracy until, two decades ago,
democratic elections in Latin America produced the wrong results. This
brought a further shift in US intervention, towards what William Robinson
(who worked in Nicaragua in the 1980s) called promoting polyarchy, a limited
form of democracy with elite rule by transnational capitalists and agents
or allies, in which the participation of the masses is limited to choosing
among competing elites in tightly controlled elections (a system which has
applied in Honduras for several decades). Robinson added that democracy
promotion and electoral intervention programs were combined with coercive
and other forms of diplomacy, economic aid or sanctions, international media
and propaganda campaigns(
) military or paramilitary actions, covert
operations and so on to destabilize undesirable left-wing governments.
Timothy Gill argues that this policy now has a further twist, towards
supporting opposition actors to unseat democratically-elected far leftist
leaders, using agencies like USAID and the National Endowment for
Democracy. Such measures have been deployed in Nicaragua for the last 15
years.
In considering the dilemmas Washington faces in pursuing its interests, this
article sets aside for the moment the obvious case for respecting the
sovereignty of both countries as the US has no legitimate right to interfere
in them. Not only is this argument correct but it is one deployed by the US
itself in relation to its own elections: it has complained loudly about
alleged Russian interference and has strict laws in place to deter foreign
influence in US politics. Yet it openly tries to influence other countries
elections and condemns as repressive those governments which deploy
similar laws. A former US Congressman, the libertarian Ron Paul, is reported
to have said that It is particularly Orwellian to call US manipulation of
foreign elections promoting democracy. How would we Americans feel if for
example the Chinese arrived with millions of dollars to support certain
candidates deemed friendly to China?
US Concerns In Central America
What are US concerns in Central America? Foremost in its effect on US
domestic politics is the issue of migrants crossing its southwest border,
which in 2021 has hit levels not seen for two decades[5] and is forecast by
officials to reach one million arrivals over the course of the year, with
many of these coming from Honduras but few from Nicaragua. Drug trafficking
is another concern related to the USs porous border, with Central America
used as a staging post for shipments from Colombia and elsewhere. A third
concern is that, despite their small size, the US considers both countries
to be of strategic importance. Honduras is a US military asset because its
base at Soto Cano (one of 76 in Latin America), gives it quick access to the
rest of the region. In contrast, Nicaragua is categorized as an
extraordinary and unusual threat to US security which, according to Admiral
Fuller, head of the US Southern Command, is trying to destabilize
democracies in the area. Fourth, in terms of human rights, the US
categorizes both countries as deficient, although the State Departments
recent 2020 reports suggest far greater concern with Nicaragua (to which it
devotes 39 pages) than Honduras (just 27 pages).
The fifth factor driving US interest in the outcome of the November
elections is one largely unmentioned in official discourse but is perhaps
the most important: that the two countries represent completely different
economic models. While both are open to international markets and for both
the US is their main trading partner, Honduras is pursuing an extreme,
neoliberal development model based on the extraction of natural resources at
whatever cost to local communities, a minimal role for the public sector,
and maintaining the continents second most unequal income distribution
(after Brazil). On the other hand, Nicaragua has a mixed economy, with
policies focused on public sector and social investment, anti-poverty
initiatives, and promotion of small enterprise and food sovereignty, which
have cut extreme poverty by more than half since 2007.
Given the importance of this fifth factor, the US might be expected to
support the present governing model in Honduras while favoring the
opposition in Nicaragua. Indeed, as far as the latter is concerned, this is
what is happening: the US has maintained an antagonistic stance towards
Daniel Ortegas government with sanctions aimed both at Nicaraguas economy
and at individual government officials; it has persuaded allies such as the
European Union and the UK to follow suit; it is proactively funding
opposition groups and local media through the National Endowment for
Democracy and USAID, and it has instituted the RAIN programme (Responsive
Assistance in Nicaragua) which is explicitly aimed at achieving Ortegas
electoral downfall.
However, while this may be the obvious stance for the US to take, with clear
precedents from the 1980s and earlier, it is far from clear that it really
serves US interests, as we shall see.
The US Dilemma In Honduras
In Honduras, the US faces a dilemma. Its president, Juan Orlando Hernández
(JOH), was favored by the Trump administration principally because he is a
strongman (utilizing la mano dura, in Spanish) who is willing to forcibly
stop Honduran migrants from leaving the country and who signed an absurd
safe country agreement implying that Honduras was a haven for asylum
seekers. A similar agreement with Guatemala led a Trump-era official to
declare that The Guatemalan border with Chiapas [in Mexico] is now our
southern border. In return, Trump was willing to acquiesce in the
disastrous domestic policies being pursued by JOH even though they are
pushing more Hondurans to attempt to leave.
Part of President Joe Bidens problem in dealing with Honduras is that the
blame for its disastrous policies extends back to Barack Obamas presidency
when, in 2009, he turned a blind eye to the military coup which deposed the
progressive President Manuel Zelaya. The coup led to a succession of
neoliberal governments and legitimized a series of flawed elections which
culminated, in 2017, with JOH being returned as president even though the
counting of the vote was clearly fraudulent. Since 2009, opposition has been
suppressed by increasingly militarized police forces (the country has
several different ones) which, far from preventing the endemic gang
violence, appear to have fostered it, so that many migrants say they are
literally running for their lives. Human rights abuses were brought to
international attention by the murder of Indigenous land rights activist
Berta Cáceres in 2016, the most notorious of a continuing series of
assassinations and disappearances of community activists. Corruption is also
rife, with the US-favored elites able to steal from the state with virtual
impunity after the failure and disbanding of a US-sponsored anti-corruption
body known as the MACCIH (Misión de Apoyo Contra la Corrupción y la
Impunidad en Honduras). Since it was closed, 93% of those accused in
corruption cases begun by the MACCIH have been freed.
Honduras, A New Narcostate
Nothing has illustrated Bidens dilemma more clearly than two recent US
prosecutions for drug-running which have implicated numerous Honduran
government officials and led to it being labelled a narcostate. The first
was the conviction of JOHs brother Tony, who faces at least 30 years in
prison for bringing 200,000 kilos of cocaine into the US. The prosecution
concluded that drug traffickers infiltrated and controlled the Honduran
government. The defendant in the second case, Geovanny Fuentes, claimed that
his drug labs were protected by the military on the orders of JOH himself,
quoting him as saying that he would shove the drugs right up the noses of
the gringos by flooding the US with cocaine. While JOH was quick to deny
the allegations and to remind Biden of their past friendship, the new
administration has been obliged to distance itself, saying that We are
committed to partnering (
) with those in the Honduran Government that are
committed to working with us to root out the corruption that has become
really endemic to that country. A US Special Envoy recently went on a
four-day visit to Guatemala and El Salvador to investigate the root causes
of migration, but not to Honduras. To worsen matters, Honduras is reported
to have been flooded with Colombian cocaine since the start of 2021.
Corruption Affects Fight Against COVID-19
A combination of natural disasters has highlighted the ways in which the
narcostate fails not just the poor but the majority of Hondurans. In
November 2020, two hurricanes hit a country totally unprepared for them,
destroying 6,000 homes and seriously damaging 85,000 more. Six months
afterwards, the international organization Médecins Sans Frontières said the
governments response had been inadequate, leaving more than 55,000 people
still living in temporary shelters. Poverty in Honduras increased to 70% in
2020, up 10.7 percentage points from 59.3% in 2019, driven by tropical storm
damage and by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The massive disruption has provoked a fresh peak of coronavirus infections
in 2021. Honduras has the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rate in Central
America, to the point where mayors in seven cities near the border with El
Salvador asked for and received vaccines from their Salvadoran counterparts.
Hondurans living near the Nicaraguan border are crossing it to get
vaccinated. Weakened by corruption and underfunding, the health service has
been overwhelmed. In April, a senior doctor reported the collapse of the
hospital network which is now on a war footing. Of seven mobile hospitals
ordered last year to fill the gaps, only two are working properly. The head
of the agency which made the $47 million deal to buy the hospitals, accused
of corruption, was sacked. People protested at one of the mobile units under
the banner: If it were a narco lab, it would be working.
Despite its terrible track record, the National Party, in power since the
2009 coup, faces a divided opposition, posing further dilemmas for the US.
Opinion polls suggest that the left-of-center LIBRE party, headed by Xiomara
Castro, wife of Manual Zelaya who was deposed in the 2009 coup, is
best-placed to threaten the National Party. Her position could have been
strengthened via an alliance with other opposition parties but this has not
happened. Although the Liberal Party represents the traditional opposition,
its candidate Yani Rosenthal served a prison sentence in the United States
in 2017 for money laundering, meaning that Biden cannot easily back him. In
any case, most observers think that JOHs National Party will prevail,
either through renewed electoral fraud or by buying votes, or both, as it
did in 2017. JOH has resisted pressure for transparency in election funding,
was accused by opponents of having no interest in electoral reform, and
pushed through purely cosmetic changes to electoral law on the last possible
day in the election timetable.
Nevertheless, the US State Department urged the Honduran Congress to approve
the new law and, when it did, the Organization of American States (OAS)
called it a significant step forward. They did this despite having
produced clear evidence of fraud in the last elections, which the OAS said
had low integrity, even calling for the elections to be rerun. Maneuvers
like these suggest that the US might well swallow its objections to
corruption and back the National Party, while insisting that it choose a
candidate to replace JOH. But if his successor governs in the same mold
corruption, poverty, and violence are likely to continue, spurring fresh
migration.
The US Dilemma In Nicaragua: Ortega Leads The Polls
Notwithstanding its political hostility towards Daniel Ortegas government,
the US cannot avoid noting that few Nicaraguans head north towards its
southwest border. Nicaragua is also more successful than its neighbors in
combating the drug trade. It recently regained its status as one of the
safest countries in Latin America, despite the violent protests of 2018,
even while Honduras remains one of the most dangerous. After a two-month
peak of COVID-19 infections and deaths in mid-2020, Nicaragua has had a much
lower incidence of the virus than its neighbors; as a result, the economic
damage it experienced in 2020 was about half the average for Latin America
generally. The two November hurricanes, which hit Nicaragua first, caused
relatively few deaths and aid was quickly sent to the regions most affected.
As in Honduras, the Nicaraguan opposition is divided, but this gives the US
a different problem: should it urge Ortegas opponents to unite behind a
single candidate whom it backs to win, or should it denounce the election as
a fraud (as it last did in 1984), persuade the opposition to stand down, and
attempt to delegitimize the winner? The latest opinion poll gives Ortega a
substantial lead (69% of voting intentions compared with 21% for the
opposition if it has a single candidate), making Washingtons dilemma worse:
as things appear now, barely six months from the polls, there might be a
decisive Sandinista win that would be difficult for the US to discredit,
especially as several political parties are now committed to taking part.
Inevitably Washington is laying the groundwork to do this, joining the OAS
in criticizing Nicaragua for not implementing radical electoral reforms,
even though there were no more than minor criticisms of the electoral
process last time around (the OAS said at the time that any faults in the
2017 election have not substantially affected the will of the people as
expressed at the ballot box.)
Most recently, Washington has had new opportunities to attack the Nicaraguan
electoral process as its authorities have moved to take legal action against
opposition figures involved in corrupt practices. Washington alleges that
the Ortega government is trying to debar them from standing in the
elections, describing as candidates those accused of the crimes, even
though no party has yet selected who will stand. The most notable case is
that of Cristiana Chamorro, under investigation for illegal use of foreign
funds sent to the Nicaraguan non-profit that she controls. The money came
from USAID and other US or European sources of the kind noted by Timothy
Gill (see above), and was redirected to right-wing media outlets hostile to
the Sandinista government. Chamorro closed her non-profit foundation in
February this year, ostensibly to avoid compliance with a new Nicaraguan law
controlling the receipt of funds from foreign governments which is very
similar to the USs own Foreign Agents Registration Act. In other words,
Nicaragua is now, and perhaps belatedly, using the same measures to control
foreign influence over its politics as the US government has had in place
since 1938. Ben Norton, who has analyzed in detail the sources of Chamorros
funding, says that the Nicaraguan media it finances are an integral part of
a political opposition that Washington has carefully managed, trained, and
funded with millions of dollars over the past decade.
The US faces a deeper dilemma in Nicaragua of which it must surely be aware,
even if it ignores it in public discourse. None of the Nicaraguan opposition
groups which it supports have so far put forward any platform other than
vague intentions to promote democracy. But several were Trump supporters
or have befriended right-wing US politicians such as Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio,
and others. Many were also prominent figures in Nicaraguas neoliberal
governments between 1990 and 2006, under which poverty deepened and
corruption became rampant. The opposition coup attempt in 2018 was fueled by
the free flow of money, weapons, and drugs to those who held cities under
siege when the country was paralyzed by roadblocks. It therefore seems
highly likely that if Sandinismo were to be displaced, the outcome would be
a neoliberal government of the kind that has produced social collapse in
Honduras.
In 2005, when neoliberal policies were at their worst, surveys suggested
that almost 70% of Nicaraguans wanted to emigrate, compared with fewer than
half that number now. This could easily change. It can hardly be in the
interest of the US for caravans of Nicaraguan migrants to start heading
north towards its southwest border, along with their neighbors from
Honduras. Yet Washingtons conflicted policies in Central America are
likely to drive more migration, not reduce it.