

Although the Obama State Department would like to portray their efforts to return Zelaya to Honduras as an attempt to bring closure and help heal that nation from the wounds it suffered 18 months ago, the reality is the opposite. Zelaya’s return would instead stoke the fires of factionalism and most likely bring more violence to a country that is still struggling to recover from the turmoil it suffered in 2009.

One of the groups leading the charge in Honduras to return and reinstate Zelaya as president is the National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP). This leftist organization has produced a poster calling for Zelaya’s reinstatement that rivals the pomposity of their deposed leader. It features an artistic silhouette of Zelaya wearing his trademark cowboy hat, and it perfectly captures the leftist use of art to portray tyrants as heroes. The FNRP does not try to hide its Marxist dogma -- on its website, it proudly declares that it is:

… carrying out a political and social struggle against a savage capitalism that is transnational, monopolistic, and alienating. This struggle is anti-neoliberal, anti-oligarchic, anti-imperialist, anti-patriarchal, and anti-racism, which seeks the transformation of social, political, economic, and educational structures and cultural domination .…

These are the allies of Zelaya in Honduras; leftists who seek the destruction of democracy and the free market in Honduras in order to install a system of “social justice,” which is newspeak for tyranny and enslavement. A return of Zelaya to Honduras would embolden and inspire the FNRP and other leftist groups, ensuring violence and bringing about another attempt to align with countries such as Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, which are all well on their way to a Cuban-style communist dictatorship.

In a country that is still struggling to maintain law and order, where Catholic bishops receive death threats for publicly defending the rule of law and judges recuse themselves from trying the case against Zelaya, the situation is nothing if not volatile. The Obama administration’s insistence on introducing a pretentious despot with a propensity to incite violence into this unpredictable environment goes beyond incompetence and lack of experience; it is blatant recklessness.

One can only surmise what motivation is behind the Obama administration’s decision to continue meddling in Honduran domestic affairs. Whatever the reasons may be, the Obama administration needs to explain itself. If the White House continues pursuing this course, it needs to explain to the American and Honduran people, as well as the rest of the world, why it has decided to put the Honduran people and their democracy in harm's way.