A top official in Honduras’ ousted government charges there was US involvement in the coup that deposed president Manuel Zelaya, saying the plane that flew him into exile stopped at an airfield manned by hundreds of US troops.
Patricia Valle, who served as Zelaya’s deputy foreign minister, says the Honduran military aircraft took off from the capital’s Toncontin airport, then landed to take on fuel at the Soto Cano base before heading to Costa Rica. She says Zelaya stayed on the plane during the stop.
Soto Cano — also known as Palmerola — is a Honduran military base that is home to at least 500 US troops engaged in counter-narcotics operations and other missions in Central America.
Valle charged Saturday that the stop at Palmerola showed US officials at some level were complicit in the June 28 coup, although she gave no evidence that US personnel at the base interacted with the Honduran military officials on the plane or that they even knew Zelaya was there.
“Zelaya was taken to Palmerola,” Valle said. “The United States was involved in the coup against Zelaya.”
She didn’t offer any proof for that assertion, however, and stressed that she didn’t believe the highest levels of the Obama administration were involved.
Valle made the allegation in response to a question about a report in the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo saying Zelaya spoke about stopping at the base during a meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday.
A US embassy spokeswoman, Shantel Dalton, said she had no information about Valle’s claim and could not comment.
Joint Task Force-Bravo, the military unit that operates at the base, and the US Southern Command did not return calls.
Palmerola was used by the US during the Central American civil wars of the 1980s.
US Air Force personnel are responsible for maintaining the base’s airfield and share air traffic control duties with Honduran authorities,the Joint Task Force-Bravo Web site says.
Zelaya has increasingly voiced his frustration with the US government for failing to impose tougher penalties on the coup-installed government.
Washington has suspended millions of dollars in military and development aid to Honduras.
But it has stopped short of imposing trade sanctions that could cripple the Honduran economy, which is highly dependent on exports to the US.
The government of interim President Roberto Micheletti is trying to withstand international pressure to restore Zelaya before scheduled Nov. 29 presidential elections. It insists Zelaya was legally removed from office after violating court orders to call off a referendum asking voters whether they would support rewriting the Constitution.
Zelaya’s supporters tried to keep up the pressure on Saturday. More than 1,000 sympathizers congregated in a plaza to commemorate a 19-year-old man killed during a July 5 protest.
‘CHINESE ASSET’: The senate cited Bamban Mayor Alice Guo in contempt after a police raid revealed a scam center operating at a facility on land she partially owned The Philippine Senate yesterday threatened to arrest a mayor for contempt during a hearing investigating her alleged ties to Chinese criminal syndicates. The arrest threat came after Bamban Mayor Alice Guo (郭華萍) failed to appear for a second consecutive hearing, citing stress. The case that began in March, when authorities raided a casino in Guo’s farming town of Bamban, has shed light on criminal activity in the mostly Chinese-backed online casino industry in the Philippines. It gained national attention after one senator asked whether Guo might not have been born in the Philippines and could even be a Chinese “asset,” an accusation she
‘DO WHATEVER’: US Representative Nancy Pelosi said on MSNBC the decision was up to Joe Biden, but her lack of a full statement backing him is likely to send a signal The re-election campaign of US President Joe Biden on Wednesday hit new trouble as US Representative Nancy Pelosi said merely “it’s up to the president to decide” if he should stay in the race, celebrity donor George Clooney said he should not run, and Democratic senators and lawmakers expressed fresh fear about his ability to challenge former US president Donald Trump. Late in the evening, US Senator Peter Welch called on Biden to withdraw from the election, becoming the first Senate Democrat to do so. Welch said he is worried because “the stakes could not be higher.” The sudden flurry of pronouncements, despite
THREATS: The Japanese leader signaled concern over Russia’s war in Ukraine, its deepening cooperation with North Korea and Chinese posturing against Taiwan Russia’s deepening military cooperation with North Korea has underlined the need for Japan to forge closer ties with NATO as regional security threats become increasingly intertwined, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told Reuters. In written remarks ahead of his attendance at a NATO summit in Washington this week, Kishida also signaled concern over Beijing’s alleged role in aiding Moscow’s two-year-old war in Ukraine, although he did not name China. “The securities of the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific are inseparable, and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and its deepened military cooperation with North Korea are strong reminders of that,” Kishida said. “Japan is determined to
‘STARWARS’: The weapons would make South Korea the first country to deploy and operate laser weapons, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration said South Korea is to deploy laser weapons to shoot down North Korean drones this year, becoming the world’s first country to deploy and operate such weapons in the military, the country’s arms procurement agency said yesterday. South Korea has called its laser program the “StarWars project.” The drone-zapping laser weapons that the South Korean military has developed with Hanwha Aerospace are effective and cheap, with each shot costing 2,000 won (US$1.45), and also quiet and “invisible,” the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said in a statement. “Our country is becoming the first country in the world to deploy and operate laser weapons, and