{"id":616779,"date":"2025-12-06T22:38:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T22:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/616779\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T22:38:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T22:38:12","slug":"trumps-pardon-of-an-ex-honduran-president-is-shocking-so-is-the-history-of-us-support-for-him-dana-frank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/616779\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s pardon of an ex-Honduran president is shocking. So is the history of US support for him | Dana Frank"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since President Trump first announced the pardon of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez last Friday, the media has been wading through the long list of criminal acts that led to Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s 2024 conviction for drug trafficking, money laundering and arms dealing. Trump\u2019s outrageous pardon is being contrasted with his unlawful, aggressive attacks on boats allegedly trafficking drugs for the government of Venezuela. Missing from the narrative, though, are the other illegal acts committed by Hern\u00e1ndez that weren\u2019t about drug trafficking, and thus didn\u2019t fall under the justice department\u2019s anti-drug mandate when it charged and convicted him in the southern district of New York. Many are the crimes of Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez, and ruinous.<\/p>\n

And long is the history of US support for him in full knowledge of those crimes. Presidents Obama, Trump and Biden all stood by their man in Honduras<\/a> for the eight vicious, destructive years he was in power. They ignored his drug connections, supported the military and police that kept him in power through state terror, and countenanced his illegal re-elections. Hern\u00e1ndez was only able to rise to power, and stay there, because of the United States government.<\/p>\n

When Hern\u00e1ndez was a member of congress he was part of a committee that approved <\/a>the 2009 military coup that deposed the democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya. As president of congress in 2012, he led the \u201ctechnical coup\u201d<\/a> in which four out of five members of the constitutional branch of the supreme court were illegally and replaced with his loyalists. Hern\u00e1ndez won the presidency in a dubious <\/a>2013 election. Two years later it was revealed that he and his party stole <\/a>as much as $300m from the national health service to pay for their campaigns, bankrupting it. Under his watch, the criminal justice system crumbled; gangs, violence, extortion and murder proliferated<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2017, Hern\u00e1ndez ran <\/a>for re-election even though the constitution <\/a>strictly forbade it. When the majority of the results had been counted in that election and his opponent was clearly ahead, Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s officials shut down the computers, then announced <\/a>a week later that he had won by 1.7%.<\/a> In response, outraged Hondurans peacefully protested and Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s security forces used live bullets for the first time in decades, killing<\/a> at least 20 protesters and bystanders.<\/p>\n

All those years Hern\u00e1ndez was also in bed with drug traffickers. As the brave prosecutors of the southern district of New York (SDNY) have shown, he accepted huge sums from drug traffickers, including a million dollars from the famous Mexican cartel leader Joaqu\u00edn \u201cEl Chapo\u201d Guzm\u00e1n. Memorably, Hern\u00e1ndez promised <\/a>to \u201cshove the drugs right up the gringos\u2019 noses\u201d.<\/p>\n

But when Hern\u00e1ndez overthrew the supreme court in 2012, the US government looked the other way. When widespread violence erupted<\/a> in the run-up to the 2013 election that Hern\u00e1ndez falsely claimed to have won, and a recount was barred, Obama\u2019s secretary of state, John Kerry, blessed the outcome<\/a> and praised the Honduran government \u201cfor ensuring that the electoral process was generally transparent, peaceful, and reflected the will of the Honduran people\u201d. When Hern\u00e1ndez ran for re-election in 2016 in complete violation of the Honduran constitution, the US embassy in Tegucigalpa announced: \u201cThe United States does not oppose President Hern\u00e1ndez or others from presenting themselves for re-election according to Honduran democratic practices.\u201d<\/p>\n

And when Hern\u00e1ndez went on to steal the 2017 election, the state department, under Trump, congratulated him on his victory.<\/p>\n

In 2015, hundreds of thousands of people erupted in peaceful anti-corruption demonstrations<\/a> demanding \u201cFUERA JOH!\u201d (Hern\u00e1ndez Out!). Days after the biggest single march in the capital, the US ambassador, James Nealon, stood next to Hern\u00e1ndez in a matching guayabera shirt at the embassy\u2019s big Fourth of July party and announced very deliberately: \u201cRelations between the United States and Honduras are perhaps the best in history.\u201d Soon after, Biden, then the vice-president, launched the \u201cCentral American Alliance for Prosperity\u201d<\/a>, rushing $250m to aid the Honduran government.<\/p>\n

During all these years the US also poured tens of millions of dollars into the support<\/a> of the Honduran military and police, shared<\/a> intelligence with its military, and worked closely with figures now documented to have been collaborating <\/a>with drug traffickers. Former general Juli\u00e1n Pacheco Tinoco, minister of security under Hern\u00e1ndez, for example, was named<\/a> explicitly during Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s trial. It\u2019s implausible to think the US wasn\u2019t well aware of Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s narco connections all these years, given its vast intelligence apparatus including the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Drug Enforcement Administration.<\/p>\n

Yet in 2017, Gen John Kelly, former head of the United States Southern Command and about to become Trump\u2019s chief of staff, referred to<\/a> Hern\u00e1ndez as a \u201cgood friend\u201d and a \u201cgreat guy\u201d. Adm Craig Faller, head of the United States Southern Command, after presenting a medal in December 2020 to the chief of Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s armed forces in December 2020 announced: <\/a>\u201cHonduras is a trusted partner in regional efforts to combat illicit traffickers.\u201d Beginning in 2015, 80 Members of Congress <\/a>and a dozen senators<\/a> demanded that the US suspend all security aid to Honduras, but Obama, Trump and Biden kept the money flowing nonetheless.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Trump\u2019s shocking pardon, Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s drug crimes are now more well known than ever. But the rest of his repressive, thieving, dictatorial history, backed by the United States year after year, has evaporated from the story. Who will be held accountable up north for supporting him all those years, in yet another chapter of repressive US intervention in Latin America? Or will Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s full criminal history \u2013 and US support for him \u2013 be swiftly forgotten?<\/p>\n