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On Friday, March 8, former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was convicted in Manhattan federal courtroom of three counts of drug trafficking and weapons conspiracy. Extradited to america shortly after finishing his second presidential time period in 2022, Hernandez, 55, faces a compulsory minimal sentence of 40 years in jail.
Following the conviction, US Lawyer Basic Merrick Garland accused Hernández of working Honduras as a “narco-state the place violent drug traffickers have been allowed to function with digital impunity”. Garland appropriately mentioned, the U.S. Division of Justice has now proven its dedication to “disrupting all the ecosystem of drug trafficking networks that hurt the American individuals, regardless of how far or how excessive now we have to go.” .
And but given america' basic function in nurturing and sustaining this ecosystem within the first place, the responsible verdict might be safely filed beneath the “Can't Make This Up” class of imperial hypocrisy.
For starters, do not forget that Hernández was till not too long ago an excellent ally of the US administration, which appointed him a key ally within the so-called “warfare on medication” and accordingly funneled cash into Honduras. The appropriate-wing chief got here to energy in 2009 5 years after a US-backed coup in opposition to Manuel Zelaya hailed as a messiah who had dared to steer the nation a bit off the straight and slim path of neoliberal dystopia.
The pretext fabricated for the coup, overseen by US President Barack Obama, was that Zelaya was planning to stay President of Honduras in violation of the constitutional one-term restrict. This restrict was later instantly abolished to allow the continued rule of Hernández, whose re-election in 2017 was acknowledged by the US Donald Trump administration regardless of widespread allegations of fraud.
The post-election protests triggered a very lethal response from Honduran safety forces, which didn’t cease the US from persevering with to fund those self same forces. Anyway, this was frequent apply within the Central American nation that the US has traditionally considered as its personal personal army base.
For instance, in the course of the Chilly Battle, the US used Honduras as a launchpad to terrorize neighboring Nicaragua, which had didn’t correctly undergo the charitable repression of US-imposed capitalism.
And what are you aware: one contributor to the warfare effort in Nicaragua was none aside from distinguished Honduran drug lord Juan Ramon Mata Ballesteros, whose airline Setco – which helped provide US-trained Contra mercenaries – was ” It was generally known as the “CIA Airline”. In the meantime, the drug commerce from which the Contras have been profiting helped stem the crack cocaine epidemic in South Central Los Angeles.
How's that for “an ecosystem that harms the American individuals”?
After all, America's long-standing involvement in drug trafficking is hardly a secret; As a New York Occasions headline from 1993 put it: “CIA Drug Connection Is as Outdated because the Company”. The CIA's narco-operations have spanned the globe from Pakistan to Laos to Venezuela, whereas many worldwide narco-politicians – like Hernandez – have acquired not less than momentary help from the US authorities.
Take the case of Hernandez's fellow Central American chief Manuel Noriega, Panama's late drug-running dictator, whose service as a CIA asset and American pal continued for many years, till one high-quality day in 1990, when he was arrested for drug trafficking. Moved to Miami to face. Smuggling and different costs. In 1992, he was sentenced to 40 years in jail – the identical sentence now hanging over Hernandez.
Through the prelude to Noriega's extradition, US forces bombed the poor neighborhood of El Chorrillo in Panama Metropolis in broad daylight, killing a number of thousand civilians. The neighborhood was briefly nicknamed “Little Hiroshima”; The US named this bloodbath “Operation Simply Trigger”.
To be truthful, in fact, the US was in no place to implement “justice” in Panama – and the present Hernandez drug trial isn’t actually “simply trigger” both. On the finish of the day, america' erstwhile Honduras narco-buddy is merely a symptom of the US-fueled ecosystem, not its trigger.
Moreover, the justice system of a worldwide superpower that’s primarily accountable for institutionalizing impunity in Honduras's post-coup period can’t be credited with bringing any form of justice to Honduras.
As scholar Dana Frank writes in her ebook The Lengthy Honduran Night time: Resistance, Terror, and america within the Aftermath of the Coup, the American “drug warfare” funds safety guards working for biofuel magnate Miguel Facas Was to help the murderous actions. The Aguán Valley in northeastern Honduras, the place small farmers claiming their land rights have been “being hunted like animals”.
In line with WikiLeaks cables, the US had recognized since not less than 2004 that Facus was trafficking cocaine. Frank summarized the despicable choice: “Similtaneously US funding for Honduras's army and police elevated beneath the pretext of combating the drug warfare, US-backed troops carried out a joint operation with the safety guards of somebody who which america knew to be a drug.” Traffickers, to violently suppress the campesino motion for his or her unlawful claims to huge components of the Aguan Valley.
Returning to US Lawyer Basic Garland's allegations concerning a “narco-state the place violent drug traffickers have been allowed to function with digital impunity”, it’s painfully clear that the mentioned scenario is one hundred pc america. It’s created in – the nation whose demand for and criminalization of medicine additionally drives all the narco-enterprise.
Lastly, if the US really desires to “disrupt all the ecosystem of drug trafficking networks,” it must disrupt itself first.
The views expressed on this article are these of the writer and don’t essentially replicate the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.