Alberta, Septiembre/September 2009
17
ALTERNATIVA Latinoamericana
ENGLISH SECTION
Is
the
end
of
the
world
as
we
know
it. . .
ENGLISH SECTION
Canadian Corporate Media
and Honduras
inevitable conclusion: we adapt to a world of
less, not more, we do it voluntarily or we hit a
wall and are forced to do it. The next 20 years
are to be very different from the previous ones.
You can see it as a fascinating change or be
miserable about it, but it will not change much.
A New World?
Jorge Beinstein, a well known economist,
noted years ago that consumption in the US, the
largest market of the world, is disconnected
from its economic reality: "Americans consume,
import and accumulate debt like never before,
encouraged to do so by a government that prints
nearly a billion and a half dollars every year." In
the meantime, the rest of the world, and
particularly Asia, take those dollars into their
reserves and exchange them later for US
Treasury bonds. They contribute by dealing with
the American fiscal debt. But, he says, this is not
charity: they are keeping alive the largest market
of the world for their products. China and Japan
sell most of its exports in the US and Europeans
invest in the US huge amounts of capital.
Finances are becoming more important to the
economy everywhere, in part because finances
pay better, even if they are riskier than other
investments. The global phenomenon is called
"financiarization".
Talking about a megacrisis, Beinstein
identifies the financial global deficits (of which
70% belong to the US), the dollar decline
(increasingly taking place even in the face of no
emerging substitute), the crisis of energy (at
peak or pass peak times), the increasing gap
between rich and poor everywhere, the
increasing military war expenses incurred in
attempts to control energy resources, and the
level of social disintegration (shown mainly by
the number of people incarcerated which puts
the US at the top with 25% of the total population
of people in jail) as bad news. Washington
continues, however, to attempt to be at the head
of the empire. But bad financial, energetic and
military news are coming together. Injecting
massive amounts of liquidity through a gigantic
bailout to the financial institutions do not seem to
be able to dissipate the rumours of a collapse.
For Beinstein the collapse will be slow but it
is also unavoidable. The shape of the world
emerging from it can either be more egalitarian
or more oppressive, hierarchical, exploitative
and inhumane, he argues. The outcome
depends, at least in part, on whether we
understand the challenge we face and work
towards creating a more humane world.
R.E.M. said it: "It is the end of the world as
we know it...and I am fine"...Are we ready and
are we fine?
The
dominant
Canadian
media's
coverage of
the coup in
Honduras
has been
atrocious.
Even a
close
observer of
the Canadian
press would
know almost
nothing about the ongoing demonstrations,
blockades and work stoppages calling for the
return of elected President Manuel Zelaya. Since
Zelaya was overthrown by the military on June
28 the majority of teachers in Honduras have
been on strike. Recently, health workers, air
traffic controllers and taxi drivers have also taken
job action against the coup. In response the
military sent troops to oversee airports and
hospitals across the country.
For more than a week protesters from all
corners of the country walked 20 km a day and
on Tuesday tens of thousands of demonstrators
converged on the country's two biggest cities,
San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa. These
demonstrations prompted the de facto regime to
reimpose a curfew in the capital, which had
been in effect in the weeks after the coup.
This resistance -- taking place under the
threat of military repression -- has gone almost
entirely unreported by leading Canadian media.
So has Canada's tacit support for the coup.
Last Tuesday the ousted Honduran Foreign
Affairs Minister told TeleSur that Canada and the
US were providing "oxygen" to the military
government. Picked up by numerous Spanish
language newspapers, Patricia Rodas called on
Canada and the US to suspend aid to the de
facto regime.
During an official visit to Mexico with Zelaya
last week, Rodas asked Mexican President
Felipe Calderon, who was about to meet Harper
and Obama, to lobby Ottawa and Washington
on their behalf. "We are asking [Calderon] to be
an intermediary for our people with the powerful
countries of the world, for example, the US and
at this moment Canada, which have lines of
military and economic support with Honduras."
To my knowledge, no Canadian media
reported Rodas' comments. Nor did any
Canadian media mention that Canada's
ambassador to Costa Rica, Neil Reeder, met
coup officials in Tegucigalpa last week. The
Canadian media has also ignored the fact that
Canada is the only major donor to Honduras yet
to sever any aid to the military government.
Latin American (and to a lesser extent US)
media have covered Ottawa's tacit support for
the coup more closely than the Globe and Mail,
Ottawa Citizen and most of the rest of the
Canadian media. When Zelaya tried to fly into
Tegucigalpa a week after the coup Canada's
minister for the Americas, Peter Kent, told the
Organization of American the "time is not right"
for a return. The New York Times ran two
different articles that mentioned Canada's anti-
Zelaya position while Bloomberg published
another. Many Latin American news agencies
also printed stories about the Conservative
government's position, however, the Canadian
media was uninterested.
A few weeks later Zelaya attempted to
cross into Honduras by land from Nicaragua.
Kent once again criticized this move. "Canada's
Kent Says Zelaya Should Wait Before Return to
Honduras," read a July 20 Bloomberg headline. A
July 25 right-wing Honduran newspaper blared:
"Canadá pide a Zelaya no entrar al país hasta
llegar a un acuerdo" (Canada asks Zelaya not to
enter the country until there's a negotiated
solution).
After publishing a number of articles about
Ottawa's position in the hours and days after the
coup, Mexican news agency Notimex did a piece
that summarized something this author wrote for
rabble.ca. Then on July 26, Notimex wrote about
the Canadian Council for International
Cooperation's demand that Ottawa take a more
firm position against the coup. Both of these
articles were published (at least online) by a
number of major Spanish-language
newspapers.
Finally, a month after the coup there was a
small breakthrough into Canada's dominant
media. A sympathetic producer at CBC radio's
The Current provided space for Graham Russell
from Rights Action, a Canadian group with a
long history in Honduras, to criticize Ottawa's
handling of the coup. Unfortunately, Russell's
succinct comments were followed by the CBC
interviewer's kid gloves treatment of Minister
Peter Kent. Still, the next day the Canadian
Press revealed that Ottawa refused to exclude
Honduras from its Military Training Assistance
Program, a program rabble.ca reported on days
after the coup.
Uninterested in the Conservative
government's machinations, the Canadian
media is even less concerned with the
corporations that may be influencing Ottawa's
policy towards Honduras. Rights Action has
uncovered highly credible information that
Vancouver-based Goldcorp provided buses to
the capital, Tegucigalpa, and cash to former
employees who rallied in support of the coup. As
far as I can tell, the Halifax Chronicle Herald is
the only major Canadian media outlet that has
mentioned this connection between the world's
second biggest gold producer and the coup.
Under pressure from the Maquila Solidarity
Network, two weeks ago Nike, Gap, and another
US-based apparel company operating in
Honduras released a statement calling for the
restoration of democracy. With half of its
operations in the country Montréal-based Gildan
activewear, the world's largest blank T-shirt
maker, refused to sign this statement. According
to company spokesperson Genevieve Gosselin,
Gildan employs more than 11,000 people in
Honduras. Without a high-profile brand name
Gildan is particularly dependent on producing T-
shirts and socks at the lowest cost possible and
presumably the company opposed Zelaya's
move to increase the minimum wage by 60% at
the start of the year. Has Gildan actively
supported the coup like Goldcorp? It is hard to
know since there has yet to be any serious
investigation of the company's recent activities in
the country.
The Canadian media's coverage of the
coup demonstrates the importance of
independent media. We need to support news
outlets willing to challenge the powerful.
Yves Engler
(dissidentvoice.org)
Canadian Minister of State
of Foreign Affairs for the
Americas, Peter Kent: "the
time is not right for Presi-
dent Zelaya's return to his
own country."
The Essential Exponential
For the Future of our Planet:
Albert A. Bartlett