Hawkish lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are insisting that President Obama’s move to thaw relations with Havana, contra his assertions, will hinder democracy in Cuba.
Among those lining up to blast the policy along those lines in the Senate are prominent Republicans John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and a stalwart from within his own caucus outgoing foreign relations committee chair Bob Menendez (D-N.J.). In the House, influential critics include Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) and Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.).
Engel, perhaps, offered the most tame of the criticism among the bunch, claiming that “the actions taken by the President today should only be sustained if the Cuban government responds by making fundamental democratic changes on the island.” Rubio, meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, said that “tyrants around the world know that the US can be had.”
While the long-run effect of the move on the Communist Party of Cuba might be debated, the integrity of its aforementioned congressional critics cannot be. One needn’t even look outside the Western Hemisphere for evidence of their superficiality.
At the heart of the matter is the government in Honduras. Its military took power in a 2009 coup, after deposing the democratically-elected president Manuel Zelaya. In November of 2013, the right-wing ruling party won a bogus election, described by The Nation as being marred by “allegations of vote-buying…election fraud and ongoing murders of opposition supporters.” The result of the vote is that a government that has presided over an explosion of violence targeting journalists and activists looks set to rule indefinitely.
But the Obama administration didn’t protest because it has never been concerned with human rights. The Guardian reported that EU observers’ complaints about the vote were quelled at the highest level to placate Washington, which “put $11 million into the election and wanted to legitimize the rule of its ally, the National Party, just as it did in the more blatantly illegitimate election four years ago” after the coup.
So what has the Serious Human Rights Caucus said about the matter?
In July, Menendez said the US and Honduras “can come together to address the root causes of the humanitarian crisis unfolding on the southern border of United States” – one caused by Honduran oppression.
In November, Rubio said that “a strong US-Honduras alliance is key to addressing some of the most pressing security threats of our hemisphere,” and claimed that a “democratic and prosperous Honduras is critical to the security and future of our hemisphere.” While the latter point might be true, the man Rubio had met with before making the statement, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández disagrees.
And again, last month, Ros-Lehtinen, Diaz-Balart and Engel all met President Hernandez.
“I was pleased to be joined by my congressional colleagues and receive President Hernandez in Washington, DC for a productive conversation about the issues that impact Honduras and the United States.” Ros-Lehtinen said. She described the anti-democratic government as “an important ally in the region.”
McCain’s policy blunders on Honduras are less recent, but no less hypocritical. In 2009, he took to his Twitter account – the very same he used to praise Libyan autocrat Muammar Gaddafhi – to announce that he regretted the coup “but it’s clear President Zelaya was in violation of his country’s constitution.”
it’s clear President Zelaya was in violation of his country’s constitution.
The reason isn’t partisan. As mentioned, the Obama administration, too, supports the Honduran government. To find out why, one needn’t look further than the ruling party’s embrace of the Washington Consensus. Its support of rights-free “special economic zones” and its employ of advisers like Grover Norquist, a senior fellow at CATO and a former Reagan speechwriter speak volumes. It probably won’t be enough to silence the hypocrites as they seek to withhold funds for President Obama’s historic diplomatic outreach.
