Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), who led efforts in 2009 to support would-be dictator Manuel Zelaya of Honduras, is continuing her campaign against the democratically elected government that replaced him.
Schakowsky has circulated a letter among Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives (a similar letter exists in the Senate) that asks the state department to suspend aid to the Honduran military and police because of alleged human rights abuses.
While genuine human rights abuses might warrant such a suspension, Schakowsky and her colleagues continue to ignore human rights abuses by Zelaya, who aligned with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez in 2009 in an attempt to rig a constitutional referendum, and who was removed from power in accordance with the Honduran constitution. The Democrats’ letter repeats the false claim–refuted by the Congressional Research Service, no less–that Zelaya had been ousted in a “coup.”
In the wake of his removal, Zelaya incited a wave of anti-Jewish violence in Honduras by claiming that “Israeli mercenaries” had been trying to poison him. Schakowsky visited and embraced Zelaya as he hid in the Brazilian embassy. Her congressional office notes that she “raised serious concerns about the widespread human rights abuses,” yet she failed to say anything about Zelaya’s own abuses or his anti-Semitism. She also co-sponsored of H. Res. 630, calling for Zelaya’s reinstatement as president of Honduras.
As noted by Mary Anastasia O’Grady at the Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration played a similarly nefarious role at the time, trampling Honduran democracy in an attempt to appease Chavez and improve relationships with his radical left-wing government.
Long after Honduras has left the events of 2009 behind, Congressional Democrats and the administration are continuing to meddle, sacrificing both democracy and goodwill in the name of their radical left-wing agenda in foreign affairs.