What will the American people say if it is discovered that their government pulled diplomatic strings to put a friend of drug traffickers back in power in Honduras?
Manuel Zelaya, who was deposed on Sunday for his willful violations of the Honduran Constitution, was never much of a friend of the United States, and rumors of his garden-variety corruption are nothing new. Nevertheless, President Obama issued a zealous statement in the Oval Office on Monday saying that Mr. Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, and he has put his administration on the side of reinstating Zelaya.
But wait. President Obama might want to ask our intelligence and law enforcement agencies what they know about Zelaya’s drug corruption, in light of public allegations that just surfaced.
On Tuesday (June 30), the Associated Press published an accusation by a current Honduran official that Mr. Zelaya’s government “allowed tons of cocaine to be flown into the Central American country on its way to the United States.” Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Ortez is quoted as saying, “Every night, three or four Venezuelan-registered planes land without the permission of appropriate authorities and bring thousands of pounds . . . and packages of money that are the fruit of drug trafficking . . . We have proof of all of this. Neighboring governments have it. The DEA has it.”
Although the administration’s left-wing supporters have suggested a reappraisal of the “war on drugs” in Latin America, I am fairly confident that President Obama would draw the line at actually putting the drug smugglers’ friend back in power in Honduras. Drug thugs are streaming southward to Central America, evading Mexico’s stepped up law enforcement efforts. The tiny states of Guatemala and Honduras do not have the security resources to resist the blood-thirsty cartels. Drug-related crime, murders, money laundering, and kidnapping are spiraling upward, and most observers are convinced that officials are vulnerable to threats and bribes.
U.S. officials and private citizens in these countries have intimated to me on many occasions that their governments are complicit in these illegal activities. The public accusations that emerged on Tuesday have a ring of truth to them. And no U.S. diplomat—or commander-in-chief for that matter—will want to be accused in the weeks ahead of turning a blind eye to allegations of drug corruption by Zelaya while they were busy putting him back where he can do some real damage to our security.
The accusations demand immediate scrutiny. Zelaya has been busy this week playing political martyr. But we need to know now how much of saint he ain’t.