Breaking News: Honduras' de facto president: Nicaraguan troops moving toward common border; Zelaya's flight to Tegucigalpa diverted to Managua

Just as we expected, it appears that Latin America's Red Axis leaders, primarily including Raul Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Daniel Ortega, are prepared to use military force to reimpose their leftist lackey Manuel Zelaya upon an unwilling population. Honduras' de facto President Roberto Micheletti, Reuters reports today, has announced that Nicaraguan troops are moving toward the two countries' common border:

Honduras' interim President Roberto Micheletti said on Sunday Nicaraguan troops were moving to the mutual frontier and urged Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega to respect Honduran sovereignty.

He gave no further details about troop movements in Nicaragua which shares a border with Honduras to the southeast of the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa.

His comments came as ousted President Manuel Zelaya attempted to fly home a week after he was ousted in a coup. Zelaya is a left-wing ally of Ortega and Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez.

The interim government said it had contacted the Organization of American States to express its willingness to enter dialogue. The OAS earlier on Sunday suspended Honduras for refusing to reinstate Zelaya.

For its part, the Nicaraguan military denies that it has moved troops to the country's northern border with Honduras, which served as a base for the Contras during the 1980s civil war against the first Sandinista regime. Nicaragua's top general, Omar Halleslevens, is regarded by the Pentagon as a "hardline Sandinista."

Managua has also denounced statements issued by the Micheletti regime to the effect that the communist governments of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua have armed Zelaya partisans ahead of his publicized return today. Denis Moncada, Nicaragua's ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), refuted the allegations before the OAS General Assembly on Saturday.

In another previous post we suggested that military intervention to restore Zelaya to the presidency was a possible topic on the agenda of the leftist leaders who converged in Managua on Monday. There Ortega hosted the meetings of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, the Central American Integration System, and the Rio Group. At the time we quoted Micheletti as saying: "I have come to the presidency not by a coup d'etat but by a completely legal process as set out in our laws. Furthermore, I would like to warn Venezuela that our country is ready to go to war if there is interference by this gentleman [meaning Chavez]. Several battalions of troops were being prepared outside of Honduras for intervention."

Last Monday, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador halted cross-border trade with Honduras. Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom is a compliant, pro-Cuban center-leftist, while the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front recently assumed control of El Salvador's presidency for the first time.

On Friday Honduras' military-backed government withdrew from the OAS, seeking to preempt today's expulsion from that body. Zelaya, risking arrest, intends to return to his homeland in the company of fellow leftists, Argentine President Cristina Kirchner, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, and the OAS's Chilean chief Jose Miguel Insulza.

On Sunday, reports the AFP news agency in a late-breaking story, military personnel and thousands of Zelaya partisans surrounded the airport in Tegucigalpa. Military vehicles blocked the runway to prevent Zelaya's plane from landing. The deposed president, who began his flight at Dulles International Airport in Washington DC and was accompanied by other aircraft containing the officials mentioned above, was forced to land in Managua.

In a related story, the newly inaugurated president of Panama, business magnate Ricardo Martinelli, has vowed to challenge the leftward shift in politics that has characterized Latin America over the last decade. Last Wednesday he promised: "I will challenge the ideological pendulum in Latin American by promoting free economics." Intriguingly, Cuba sent a representative to attend Martinelli's inauguration: Vice President Estaban Lazo Hernandez.

WW4 File: N. Korea test-fires seven tactical missiles today, launched four on Thursday; Russia bolsters anti-missile defense in Far East

The Republic of Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reports that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) fired four short-range missiles off its east coast on Thursday evening. The projectiles, which flew about 60 miles, were identified as KN-01 missiles with a maximum range of up to 100 miles.

On Saturday the DPRK test-fired seven more tactical missiles from sites along the country's east coast. The missiles are estimated to have a maximum range of about 300 miles, much farther than the salvo fired previously. Their launch was apparently timed to coincide with Independence Day in the USA.

In reaction to a mid-June report in the Japanese media suggesting that Pyongyang might fire a long-range missile toward the Hawaiian Islands in early July, the Pentagon has bolstered anti-missile defense around the Aloha State. Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura confirms that a long-range missile launch by the DPRK this weekend is possible.

Pictured above: A Seoul pedestrian passes by a television screen showing news of the North Korean missile launch mentioned above.

Not so coincidentally, Interfax reports that the Russian military has deployed an early-warning missile launch system in its Far East to guard the country against external threats including, apparently, Communist North Korea. Under cover of such deployments, of course, the Kremlin, in the event of a nuclear exchange, is also protecting itself from a US counterstrike via Alaska or the Pacific Ocean.

Last week, the ROK’s defense ministry informed parliament that the military was boosting its pre-emptive strike capabilities to counter the North’s nuclear missile threat. According to Yonhap, the South Korean military has forward deployed air and artillery assets to the Yellow Sea border region to counter possible North Korean gunboat or missile attacks. Meanwhile, black-clad, heavily armed commandos attached to the coast guard, known as the Special Sea Attack Team, are training to interdict weapons of mass destruction on the high seas under the aegis of the US-led, 90-nation Proliferation Security Initiative.

Currently, a US Navy destroyer is shadowing the North Korean freighter Kang Nam 1 in the South China Sea. The freighter's movements are also being monitored electronically at the South Korean Coast Guard station at Incheon. Incheon was the scene of General Douglas MacArthur’s September 1950 seaborne landing that turned the tide of the Korean War.

Under the leadership of conservative President Lee Myung-bak, South Korean Coast Guard cutters mount 20 mm rotary chain guns and, in the event of war, they would support naval operations. "The guidelines for rules of engagement have changed," explained Coast Guard spokesman Yun Byeong-du, adding: “In the past, vessels had to get permission from the Blue House [presidential residence] to retaliate. Now it is up to captains." "The Coast Guard," opines the Washington Times, "is just the front line in the toughest South Korean defense posture in more than a decade."

“North Korea is the weakest state in the region,” comments Dan Pinkston, director of the International Crisis Group’s office in Seoul, “They don't have the technological or economic base to compete conventionally, so they have to rely on asymmetric capabilities.” For this reason, argues Kim Shin-jo, a Northern defector captured during a 1968 raid from the South, the DPRK will rely on its 120,000-strong commando force and insurgent forces in the ROK. The last could include an uprising led by “affluent, sophisticated and well-informed southerners,” meaning communist sympathizers, a possibility recently acknowledged by General Walter Sharp, commander of US forces in Korea.

Latin America File: Insulza visits Honduran coup leaders, opponents; Micheletti regime preempts expulsion from OAS, withdraws from organization

- Honduras’ Top Army Lawyer: Generals Exiled, Rather than Arrested, Zelaya to Avoid “Burying a Pile of People,” “Most of the Military” Will Resign if Deposed President Returns

- Up to 600 US Troops Stationed at Soto Cano Ordered to Stay on Honduran Army Base; Joint US-Honduran Military Exercise Suspended; Cuba's Official Media Identifies Base as Hub of Intrigue against Zelaya

Zelaya's allegiance to Chavez is difficult to stomach. I would have a hard time taking orders from a leftist. He used soldiers as political tools. [Wealthy rancher] Zelaya is a leftist of lies.
-- Colonel Herberth Bayardo Inestroza, top legal advisor to Honduran army, veteran of counter-insurgency operations of the 1980s

On Friday Jose Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), arrived in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, to urge the interim government of de facto President Robert Micheletti to stand down and make way for the restoration of the democratically elected Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya, ousted by the military last Sunday morning and exiled to Costa Rica. Insulza, the Cuban News Agency reported, met with members of Honduras' Supreme Court, parliamentarians, and representatives of the popular movements and union organizations opposed to the military coup. “We are not going to Honduras to hold any negotiations," Insulza admonished the day before, "We are going to demand the end of what has been done thus far and to look for ways to bring the country back to normality."

Insulza announced his trip to Tegucigalpa while visiting Georgetown, Guyana, where he was attending the 30th Meeting of the Heads of State and Government of the Caribbean Community (Caricom). On Wednesday the OAS passed a resolution demanding Zelaya’s reinstatement within 72 hours, a deadline that will expire on Saturday. Caricom also expressed its support for Zelaya’s return to power. In addition to the OAS and Caricom, on Tuesday the United Nations General Assembly, under the presidency of Sandinista cadre/Catholic priest Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, passed a unanimous resolution condemning the coupists and urging Zelaya’s reinstatement. D'Escoto's paymaster is Nicaragua's past/present Marxist dictator Daniel Ortega, who is leading the charge against Honduras' new military-backed regime.

For his part, Micheletti, who was formerly speaker of the national congress and next in line of succession to the presidency, insists that the transfer of power was according to the constitution. Zelaya, however, has pledged to return to his homeland this Sunday, in the company of Insulza, Cristina Kirchner and Rafael Correa, the presidents of Argentina and Ecuador respectively, and serve out the balance of his presidency, which expires next year. Insulza, a Chilean, Kirchner, and Correa are all leftists so their animosity to the Honduran coupists is to be expected. Pictured above: Micheletti addresses supporters at a rally in Tegucigalpa on July 3.

Not surprisingly, the vindictive communist dictator of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, has suspended subsidized deliveries of oil to Honduras to punish the military-backed regime that deposed his compliant lackey. On Venezuelan television last night former paratrooper Chavez pathetically denied claims that Petrocaribe’s energy supplies to Honduras on preferential terms had constituted “financial assistance” to Zelaya. No doubt, too, Comrade Hugo, will absolve himself of all involvement in the shipment of referendum ballots to Honduras for the purpose of helping Zelaya subvert the constitution of that Central American country and establish a left-wing dictatorship.

At the same time, opposing demonstrations in support of the rival Micheletti and Zelaya governments continued in cities throughout Honduras. Leftist groups have come out in full force to rally behind the deposed president. Juan Barahona, leader of the United Workers’ Front, has joined with other Zelaya partisans to create the People’s Resistance Front. Pro-Zelaya protests have occurred in Tegucigalpa and the northern city San Pedro Sula. At least two pro-Zelaya demonstrators were killed, at least 60 others injured, and over 270 arrested. In the opposing camp, pro-Micheletti supporters formed the Civic Democratic Unit, staged a sit-in in the capital on Tuesday, rallied in the southern city Choluteca on Wednesday, and held rallies in San Pedro Sula on Thursday.

In an interview with the Miami Herald the Honduran army’s top legal advisor, Colonel Herberth Bayardo Inestroza, acknowledged that military brass “circumvented” laws to forcibly remove Zelaya. It was the first time any participant in the coup admitted committing an offense. “We know there was a crime there,” conceded Inestroza, adding: “In the moment that we took him out of the country in the way that he was taken out, there is a crime. What happens is that that crime, the moment that the circumstances that it occurred, there is going to be a justification and cause for acquittal that will protect us.”

Zelaya was ousted in a predawn raid at his house after he vowed to resist a court order that ruled a non-binding referendum to be held that day illegal. The wealthy rancher had clashed with the attorney general, the Supreme Court, congress, the armed forces normally under his command, and even the Catholic Church. Instead of being arrested to stand trial for abuse of power and treason, the military grabbed Zelaya from bed at gunpoint and forced him onto a plane bound for San Jose, Costa Rica. “What was more beneficial, remove this gentleman from Honduras,” Inestroza explained, “or present him to prosecutors and have a mob assault and burn and destroy and for us to have to shoot? If we had left him here, right now we would be burying a pile of people.”

Speaking for both himself and many other career soldiers in Honduras, Inestroza confided: “Zelaya's allegiance to Chavez is difficult to stomach. I would have a hard time taking orders from a leftist. He used soldiers as political tools. Zelaya is a leftist of lies.” Referring to the communist insurgencies and civil wars that wracked Central America in the 1980s, Inestroza, now 54 years old, recalled:

We fought the subversive movements here and we were the only country that did not have a fratricidal war like the others. It would be difficult for us, with our training, to have a relationship with a leftist government. That's impossible. I personally would have retired, because my thinking, my principles, would not have allowed me to participate in that.

I am 54 years old. I left my youth, my adolescence and part of my adulthood here -- an entire lifetime. You should understand it's very difficult for someone who has dedicated his whole life to a country and an institution to see, from one day to another, a person who is not normal come and want to change the way of life in the country without following the steps the law indicates.

Even though Article 24 of Honduras’ penal code would apparently exonerate the generals who directed the coup, Inestroza still fears a political slaughter if Zelaya returns: “I will resign and leave the country, and so would most of the military. They would come after us and the other political leaders who were involved in this.”

On Thursday, the possibility that Zelaya could return to his old job became more likely when Micheletti moderated his rhetoric somewhat, offering to hold early elections or a referendum that would permit his deposed rival to finish out the remaining months of his term. The latter, however, would be “difficult” to implement immediately. The potential for a mass resignation of patriots from the Honduran military, however, would enable Zelaya to stack the armed forces with officers sympathetic to his leftist ideals and the process of Latin American integration that has bound Honduras’ destiny with the Havana-Caracas Axis. Zelaya’s restoration would also be a victory for the region’s Red Axis leaders like Chavez, Ortega, Raul Castro, and others.

However, late on Friday, after Insulza's visit to Tegucigalpa, the Micheletti regime hardened its position again and preempted the OAS's threat to expel Honduras by voluntarily withdrawing from the organization. On July 4 the Voice of America reported: "The Supreme Court of Honduras told OAS chief Jose Miguel Insulza Friday that its decision to oust Mr. Zelaya is irreversible, and that the leftist leader would be arrested if he returned home." In addition to the resolutions passed by the OAS, the Caribbean Community, and the United Nations condemning the military coup, the World Bank is suspending loans and the US State Department is considering freezing aid to the Central American country. Thus, the political and economic isolation of Honduras grows and, in our assessment, the potential for a showdown between the country and a pan-Latin American military coalition increases.

Meanwhile, in the wake of last Sunday’s coup, a joint US-Honduran military exercise was suspended. Accordingly, up to 600 US troops stationed at Soto Cano Air Base under Southern Command’s Joint Task Force-Bravo have been ordered to stay on base until the political turmoil in Honduras blows over. The US Armed Forces uses the Honduran military base for counter-narcotics interdiction and humanitarian missions. Incidentally, the official communist propaganda machine in Cuba was quick to identify the US military presence in Honduras as a hub of intrigue against Zelaya and his government. Similar imprecations against Washington's "meddling" in Honduras issued from the mouth of Chavez this week too.

Latin America File: Zelaya, backed by UN, OAS, accompanied by Kirchner, Correa to return to homeland this weekend; Micheletti: "No way, Jose"

Ballots for Zelaya's Constitutional Referendum Potentially Ending Presidential Term Limits Printed in Venezuela

The war of words between, in the one camp, the military- backed government of de facto Honduran President Roberto Micheletti, formerly the speaker of that country's congress, and, in the other camp, the deposed president Manuel Zelaya, the Organization of American States, and the United Nations is heating up. Zelaya, accompanied by fellow leftist presidents, Cristina Kirchner of Argentina and Rafael Correa of Ecuador, is threatening to return to his homeland this weekend, after the OAS's 72-hour ultimatum for reinstating the head of state.

Pictured above: On Monday Cuba's communist thug-in-chief Raul Castro arrived in Managua for emergency sessions of the Bolivarian Alliance (formerly Alternative) for the Americas and the Rio Group. He is greeted by President Daniel Ortega's wife, Rosario Murillo, who heads up the neo-Sandinista regime's Councils of Citizens' Power. Castro characterized the Honduran coup plotters as "fascists."

Micheletti has vowed that Zelaya will be arrested upon his arrival in Honduras and would be able to avoid that fate only by entering the country at the head of a foreign army. "Zelaya," he declared, "has already committed crimes against the constitution and the law. He can no longer return to the presidency of the republic unless a president from another Latin American country comes and imposes him using guns. Seven and a half million Hondurans will be ready to defend our territory against a foreign invasion."

Is it possible that Zelaya's comrades in the region's Red Axis, particularly Raul Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Daniel Ortega were drafting this very scenario in Managua on Monday? There's no question that the Chavezista regime had every intention of helping Zelaya establish a left-wing dictatorship via the constitutional referendum slated for last Sunday. The ballots, after all, were printed in Venezuela and impounded at a Honduran military base.

Will the UN and OAS, moreover, sanction a Cuban-Venezuelan- Nicaraguan intervention force in Honduras? Will we witness a dry run for Red Dawn 2? Your resident blogger may post the following headline in the weeks ahead: "Communist troops invade Honduras from Guatemala and Nicaragua." US President Barack Hussein Obama will no doubt look the other way and the shopping mall regime will heave a great sigh. At the very least, the Honduran coup could provide impetus for the Havana-Caracas-Managua Axis to transform ALBA into a military alliance, a subject that Chavez first broached in January 2008.

Communist Bloc Military Updates: 4th Sino- Soviet war game to begin July 22; 8,500 Russian troops drill near Georgia; US Air Force preps for nuke war

Russian and Chinese troops will begin their fourth joint war game, disguised as an "anti-terrorist" operation, between July 22 and 26. Dubbed "Peace Mission 2009", the drill will involve 2,500 military personnel, who will arrive at the deployment area on July 14. The first phase of the exercises consists of military and political consultations and will be held in Khabarovsk, in Russia's Far East, while the second and third phases will take place outside Baichen in northern China. Lt. Gen. Sergei Antonov, spokesentity for the Russian General Staff, commented: "Peace Mission 2009 will become an important step in the development of the Russian-Chinese partnership and their armed forces." Pictured above: Russian soldiers.

Not too far away from the site of Peace Mission 2009, of course, political tensions between North and South Korea are on the rise. In late May, after detonating its second test nuclear bomb, Pyongyang scrapped the 1953 armistice that halted hostilities, but did not establish a peace treaty, with Seoul.

Under the auspices of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the first-ever Sino-Soviet exercise, Peace Mission 2005 took place in Russia and the eastern Chinese province of Shandong, involving warships, aircraft, and over 10,000 servicemen, including marines and paratroopers. Russia and China also hosted Peace Mission 2007, when then President Vladimir Putin announced the resumption of long-range bomber patrols. Most recently, the SCO states held Norak-Antiterror 2009 in Tajikistan in April. Peace Mission 2010 is slated to occur in Kazakhstan, obviously next year.

Meanwhile, under the aegis of the Caucasus 2009 war game, the Russian armed forces appear to be positioning themselves for another invasion of the former Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, now the site of a tremendous tug-of-war between the Soviet strategists and NATO, which is attempting to woo Tbilisi into its fold. In late July and early August of last year the Russian military prepared to attack Georgia under cover of the Caucasus Frontier 2008 drill.

"The Caucasus 2009 war games," opines CBS News, "are being seen by many experts as a warning shot for nearby Georgia, where the government says it has rearmed armed forces and where NATO recently wrapped up its own exercises." A Russian Defense Ministry official related that more than 8,500 troops will take part in the drill, along with nearly 200 tanks, armored vehicles, 100 artillery units, and several units from Russia's Black Sea Fleet. The exercises are being personally overseen by Gen. Nikolai Makarov, chief of Russia's General Staff.

In addition to the military personnel that will participate in Caucasus 2009, more than 6,000 Russian troops have been illegally stationed in each of Georgia's breakaway regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia has also been building military bases, storage facilities for supplies, and roads in the two regions, which Moscow and Managua alone recognized as independent. Last month, NATO wrapped up four weeks of training exercises in Georgia. Even though just a few hundreds troops participated, Russia was annoyed, branding them a provocation.

Deputy Defense Minister Col. Gen. Alexander Kolmakov was quoted by Kremlin media on Monday as saying that Caucasus 2009 was adjusted as a result of the NATO games and would be "quite major, as compared with those that were conducted in Soviet times." Over the weekend, Russia and NATO agreed to resume military ties that were suspended after last August's Caucasian War.

Pictured here: The iconic, 1950s-era B-52H Stratofortress still comprises part of the backbone of the US Air Force's strategic bomber fleet.

In spite of the fact that the USA now faces the socialist, pro-Islamic administration of President Barack Hussein Obama, the military is still prudently preparing to counter a strategic nuclear attack. Although there is much discussion about the threat posed by Iran and North Korea's missile capabilities, the fact of the matter is there are only two states that possess the ability to annihilate the USA: Russia and, to a much lesser extent, the People's Republic of China. The US Air Force reports on the Global Thunder 09 exercise underway at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota:

A B-52H Stratofortress soars through the air during the rapid launch portion of Global Thunder 09 here June 30. Global Thunder 09 is the USSTRATCOM Field Training Exercise and Battle Staff Exercise designed to exercise all mission areas withprimary emphasis on Nuclear Command and Control (NC2). Global Thunder 09 provides training opportunities for component, task force, unit, forces, and command posts to deter, and if necessary defeat, a military attack against the United States and to employ forces as directed by the President.

Global Thunder 09 coincides with the routine launch of an unarmed Minuteman 3 ICBM from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on June 30. The missile struck a target near the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The local media reported on the coordination between military personnel at Vandenberg and Minot:

A task force from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., worked with members of Vandenberg’s 576th Flight Test Squadron to ready the missile for the test. Airmen from the 576th also installed test-specific equipment such as tracking, telemetry and command-destruct systems necessary to collect data and meet 30th Space Wing safety requirements.

“These are dangerous times we’re living in right now,” said Lt. Col. Lesa K. Toler, the 576th Flight Test Squadron commander and the mission director for this test launch.

“It’s extremely important our combatant commander has the capabilities he needs to perform the mission of fighting and winning our nation’s wars,” Toler added. “Testing an operational asset pulled from the missile field at Minot provides us confidence our weapon system is capable of performing when needed.”

"The Air Force," the same article concludes, "conducts several Minuteman tests each year to verify the weapon system’s reliability and accuracy. Some 450 Minuteman 3 weapons sit on alert in and around Malmstrom AFB, Mont., F.E. Warren AFB, Wyo. and Minot AFB, N.D."

Latin America File: Honduran military ousts Zelaya in Central America’s first post-Cold War coup; region’s Red Axis leaders convene emergency meetings

- Elected on Conservative Platform in 2006, Zelaya Moved Dramatically to the Left, Leading Honduras into Havana-Caracas Axis

- Honduras’ De Facto President Micheletti Responds to Venezuela’s Saber Rattling with Threat of War, Informs Press: “Several Battalions of Troops Were Being Prepared Outside of Honduras for Intervention”

- Hugo Chavez Arranges Jet to Fly Zelaya from Costa Rica to Nicaragua to Attend Red Axis Strategy Sessions, Accuses CIA of Fomenting Coup against Deposed President

Pictured above: In spite of his misfortunes, ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya (left) jokes around with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (right) and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega (center, covering microphone) at the Central American Integration System summit in Managua, on Monday.

Last Thursday, as we blogged here, Venezuela’s communist thug-in-chief Hugo Chavez formally received three new countries into the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA)--Ecuador, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda. “The ALBA continues to grow in Latin America. Now we have nine nations to build a new project. It is the most dynamic core,” gushed Chavez during his weekly TV-radio program. ALBA’s leaders, meeting in Caracas, also repackaged ALBA as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of the Americas, or Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, suggesting that a deeper political-economic-social integration is underway. In 2004 Cuba and Venezuela organized the regional bloc of socialist states to counter the Washington-led Free Trade Area of the Americas. Nicaragua, Bolivia, Dominica, and Honduras are also members of ALBA. Significantly, from the vantage of the Soviet strategy of quietly encircling the USA with enemies, even Russia has expressed an interest in joining ALBA.

Perhaps alarmed by President Manuel Zelaya’s post-election leftward lurch and determination to attach the country’s destiny to the Havana-Caracas Axis, the Honduran military overthrew the president on Sunday morning. Soldiers surrounded Zelaya’s official residence, seized the president, who was still in his pajamas, drove him to an air force base, and forced him to board a plane for Costa Rica. Electricity and telephone service was simultaneously cut throughout the country. The military then swore in congressional speaker Roberto Micheletti as interim chief executive. A majority of the members of congress voted to accept a letter of resignation that Congressional Secretary Jose Alfredo Saavedra insisted was signed by Zelaya and dated last Thursday.

Speaking to the media upon his arrival in San Jose, Costa Rica, Zelaya accused “dark forces from the past” of perpetrating the putsch, no doubt referring to the alliance between the military and business oligarchy that ruled Honduras during much of the Cold War. “There is no way to justify an interruption of democracy, a coup d'etat,” the exiled Zelaya complained on Sunday, during a telephone interview with Telesur, the electronic platform of Latin America’s Red Axis. “This kidnapping is an extortion of the Honduran democratic system,” he added. Zelaya vehemently denied writing a letter of resignation. Zelaya called on Honduran soldiers to desist, urged citizens to hold peaceful protests, and requested Honduran police to protect demonstrators.

Meanwhile, as Bloomberg reports above, troops also seized Honduras’ foreign minister, Patricia Rodas. In comments broadcast on Telesur, Venezuela’s ambassador to Honduras, Armando Laguna, asserted that his colleagues from Nicaragua and Cuba were also beaten and briefly detained after trying to defend Rodas against masked soldiers. On Monday morning Rodas sought asylum in Mexico, where she was welcomed by government representatives.

Later on Sunday government supporters took to the streets of Tegucigalpa to protest Zelaya’s ouster, hurling rocks at the soldiers and shouting “Traitors!” Labour union leader Rafael Alegria, a Zelaya ally, allegedly organized the protests. On Monday the Cuban News Agency reported that since midnight 20,000 protesters had encamped outside the presidential palace. Meanwhile, Honduras’ General Labor Confederation and the People’s Union Bloc announced that they intend to cripple the economy with a general strike until Zelaya is reinstated. On the same day, reports the Latin American Herald Tribune, police with helicopter support used tear gas and clubs against several hundred supporters of President Zelaya. An employee of the state telephone company was gunned down Monday morning by a soldier, while 60 other Zelaya partisans were injured.

The Honduran military, the MSM reports, acted after the nation’s Supreme Court overturned Zelaya’s decision to fire the commander of the armed forces, General Romeo Vasquez, who in turn had refused to guarantee security for a referendum that Zelaya intended to use to impose constitutional changes on the country via a constituent assembly. The ballot had been slated for Sunday. The president’s critics charged that Zelaya hoped to remove term limits to his re-election. If true, then Zelaya was simply following the path blazed by Venezuela’s “President for Life” Hugo Chavez and his comrades in Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Ecuador, who are attempting to do the same, no doubt to implement a uniform communism throughout the region.

Signs of an impending military putsch were evident last Thursday, when Zelaya led a caravan of supporters to air force headquarters to collect the ballots for the non-binding referendum, preventing them from being destroyed in compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling. Earlier that day hundreds of troops were deployed to strategic points in Tegucigalpa in what their commanders explained was a move to “avert potential disturbances” by Zelaya partisans. Significantly, even the country’s ruling Liberal Party, with which Zelaya is associated, urged the public not to vote for the president’s referendum. Although elected as a conservative in 2005, Zelaya has moved dramatically to the left while in office.

Within hours of the Sunday coup, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that he had placed his armed forces on alert and warned that Caracas would intervene with force if Venezuela’s diplomats in Honduras were harmed. “We will bring them down. We will bring them down, I tell you,” Chavez, a former paratrooper, ranted on Venezuelan television on Monday, threatening military intervention: “I have put the armed forces in Venezuela on high alert.” Chavez, who was himself briefly ousted in a 2002 coup that he blamed on then US President George W. Bush, accused the Central Intelligence Agency of fomenting the coup against Zelaya. The CIA, as we reported last week, is one of Chavez’s favorite bête noires, another being capitalism. In reality, leftists worldwide absurdly blame the US intelligence community for much of the world’s ills.

De facto Honduran President Micheletti disregarded the international condemnation of Zelaya’s ouster and issued a counter-challenge to Chavez’s saber rattling. On June 30 the Australian media quoted Micheletti as saying: “I have come to the presidency not by a coup d'etat but by a completely legal process as set out in our laws. Furthermore, I would like to warn Venezuela that our country is ready to go to war if there is interference by this gentleman [meaning Chavez].” Micheletti confided that he possessed intelligence that “several battalions of troops were being prepared outside of Honduras for intervention.”

The region’s Red Axis was quick to rally to Zelaya’s side in Managua, where on Monday past/present Marxist dictator Daniel Ortega hosted emergency meetings of ALBA, the Central American Integration System, and the Rio Group, which welcomed Communist Cuba into the fold last December. In summoning his comrades to Managua, Ortega stated that they intended to “fight back the forces of resistance” against Zelaya.

In attendance at the ALBA meeting were self-avowed communist presidents Raul Castro and Hugo Chavez, self-avowed socialist presidents Evo Morales and Rafael Correa, their foreign ministers, and deposed leader Zelaya himself, who flew from San Jose to Managua on a jet provided by Chavez. Together the region’s leftist leaders resolved to withdraw their ambassadors from Honduras. The ALBA leaders afterwards released a joint statement: “In the face of the dictatorial government that intends to be imposed, the countries of Alba have decided to withdraw our ambassadors and to leave minimal diplomatic representation in Tegucigalpa. There is no question of seeking diplomatic accreditation from the usurpers.” The motion was read out by Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Faldor Falconi.

“I denounce the criminal, brutal character of this coup,” Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez told a news conference in Havana earlier in the day, before flying to Managua. He ranted: “This coup has removed a legitimate and constitutional government simply for wanting to hold a vote. There is only one constitutional government in Honduras, and one constitutional president who should return immediately without conditions.”

Faux rightist Mexican president Felipe Calderon later arrived in Managua for the Rio Group meeting, at which time he informed reporters that “Both Mexico and the Rio Group strongly reject the coup d'etat in Honduras.” In step with the Red Axis, Mexico and Chile also announced that they, too, are withdrawing their ambassadors from Tegucigalpa.

Almost without exception, world reaction to the Honduran coup has been negative. The USA’s socialist president Barack Hussein Obama has called on the coup leaders to “respect the rule of law.” Not surprisingly, on Monday the Russian Foreign Ministry also condemned the coup. “The embassies of the member countries of the regional Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) backed Russia's condemnation, the Cuban ambassador said at a news conference in Moscow,” reports Novosti, inadvertantly exposing the nexus between Russia and its offspring, ALBA. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged “the reinstatement of the democratically elected representatives of the country.” Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, president of the UN General Assembly, who is also a Sandinista and a Catholic priest, invited Zelaya to address an extraordinary session of the assembly in New York City.

Obama characterized the coup as “not legal.” “All of us have great concerns about the situation in Honduras,” Obama admonished, after meeting at the White House with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, one of Washington’s few allies in Latin America. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose husband, former president Bill is an alleged KGB asset, declared that “Democracy should be restored in Honduras.” Clinton revealed that a US delegation would go to Honduras after a special meeting of the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) on Tuesday. “We have a lot of work to do to help the Hondurans get back on the democratic path,” Clinton stated. Incidentally, about 600 US troops are stationed at a base in Honduras under Southern Command’s Joint Task Force-Bravo, primarily for the purpose of drug interdiction.

For his part, Zelaya, speaking in Managua, vowed to return to his homeland on Thursday: “I will fulfill my four-year term of office, whether you agree –the ones in favor of the coup – or not. I was expelled by force and will return on my own free will.” He then invited the General Secretary of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza, to accompany him in his return to Honduras. Accepting D´Escoto’s invitation to address the UN General Assembly, Zelaya travelled to the USA on Tuesday. During his visit to New York City, the UN General Assembly unanimously approved a resolution demanding the restoration of Zelaya to the presidency.

Africa File: Nigeria’s “ex”-red president announces insurgent leader’s release at joint press conference with Medvedev, MEND bombs Shell pipeline

- Medvedev Revitalizes Soviet-Era Relations with Egypt and Angola, Forges New Links with Nigeria and Namibia

- Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta Plays Up Opposition to New Gazprom Deal in Communique to Russian President

- Kremlin Energy Giant Puts the Squeeze on the European Union’s Nigerian Natural Gas Supply

Pictured above: The Nigerian and Russian presidents in Abuja, on June 24.

Under KGB-communist dictator Vladimir Putin the neo-Soviet leadership has restored political-economic-military relations with the Arab socialist regimes in the Middle East and North Africa that were dormant during the 1990s and the early 2000s. “Post”-communist Russia remains closely allied with Syria, Egypt, Libya, and Algeria. Moscow is also revitalizing relations with sub-Saharan Africa’s communist regimes, including Angola, Namibia, and South Africa.

Last week Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, a Soviet Komsomol graduate and compliant Putin lackey, toured Egypt, Nigeria, Namibia, and Angola in that order. Military sales, joint business ventures, and ideological opposition to a US-dominated, “unipolar” world are constant themes emerging from such trips. In other words, little has changed within the Communist Bloc since the fake demise of the Cold War in 1991.

On June 23 Medvedev arrived in Cairo where he signed a strategic partnership agreement with Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak’s National Democratic Party and its predecessor, the Arab Socialist Union, have dominated Egyptian politics since Soviet ally Gamal Nasser overthrew King Farouk I in 1952. Medvedev summarized the meeting with Mubarak as follows:

Our negotiations were held in a frank and amicable atmosphere, which had always been characteristic of the top-level dialog between Russia and Egypt and had largely contributed to the achievement of impressive results. The strategic cooperation treaty we have signed will determine bilateral relations for years to come.

There are promising areas of cooperation between Russia and Egypt. We have achieved rather good results in the economic cooperation. Bilateral trade exceeded $4 billion last year. We have many promising projects in energy, transport and space exploration. There are new spheres of interaction, as well, such as ecology, archives and suppression of narcotics.

Tourism is one of the most dynamic spheres. Tourism grew 22% last year to 1.8 million Russian visitors. That is why we have signed the strategic partnership agreement that defines long-term cooperation guidelines.

The three-page document defines Moscow-Cairo relations for the next decade, pledges regular political contacts and biannual presidential visits, and fosters inter-parliamentary contacts. “The sides traditionally develop defense and military-technical cooperation with due account of mutual interests and international commitments,” the agreement explains. Among other bilateral links, the Russian TV and Radio Broadcasting Company and the Egyptian Radio and Television Union signed a cooperation protocol.

After shoring up the decades-old Soviet-Egyptian partnership, Medvedev flew to Nigeria to meet that country’s "ex"-communist president, the first-ever such visit by a Soviet/ Russian head of state to the populous, oil-rich country. On June 24 Medvedev arrived in the Nigerian capital Abuja, where he met counterpart Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, who assured the Russian president that he was committed to ensuring “total peace and security across the country.” Shortly after the encounter, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) claimed that its guerrillas attacked Royal Dutch Shell’s Bille-Krakama pipeline in Rivers state. In a dramatic statement addressed to Medvedev himself, MEND threatened: “This is the fate that awaits the gas pipelines you plan to invest in Nigeria, if justice is not factored in the whole process.”

Kremlin energy monster Gazprom has signed a deal to invest at least US$2.5 billion in a joint venture with Nigeria's state-owned oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, to explore and develop the country’s vast gas reserves. “If we carry out all our plans, Russian investment in Nigeria can reach billions of dollars,” Medvedev gushed. The formation of Nigaz will be a 50-50 partnership.

“Gazprom's action to secure a foothold in Nigeria,” opines the Financial Times, “where western groups have led the development of the oil industry for half a century, has given rise to concerns in Europe that Moscow is seeking to gain control of Nigerian reserves to tighten its grip on the European Union's gas supplies.” The same source exposes Moscow’s pincer strategy in this respect: “European governments see Nigeria's gas reserves - the seventh-largest in the world - as a potential route to diluting their reliance on Russia, which supplies up to half the gas consumed by the EU.” Thus, while the Kremlin strangles the EU’s African gas supplies, the Soviet strategists are positioning themselves to become Europe’s sole provider via the Nord Stream and South Stream pipelines.

Intriguingly, Medvedev’s visit to Nigeria coincided not only with the MEND terrorist operation in Rivers state, but also the release of self-avowed Islamo-Marxist terrorist leader Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, who was arrested by the State Security Services the previous day. By his own account Dokubo-Asari, founder of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF), was apprehended at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos on arrival from Germany, where he had been hanging out since May 23, putatively for a medical check-up. In a joint press conference with Medvedev, President Yar’Adua declared that Dokubo-Asari was released under an amnesty agreement with the militants: “So, there was no arrest or detention. What happened does not amount to arrest or detention.”

MEND appears to be a spin-off from Dukubo-Asari’s NDPVF and thus the insurgent leader, who was previously jailed for two years, appears to be still involved in the sabotage campaign against Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and other Western oil companies. Although the Niger Delta militants have kidnapped some Russian oil workers in the past, in light of Gazprom’s new venture with the Nigerian government it would appear that the MEND-NDPVF insurgency may be a cover for the Kremlin’s attempt to oust Western petroleum companies and take control of Nigeria’s natural resources.

From the Nigerian capital Medvedev flew to Windhoek, the Namibian capital, where he met President Hifikepunye Lucas Pohamba on June 25. State-run Itar-Tass reports on Medvedev’s reception: “The Namibian president welcomed Medvedev on the square in front of the main entrance in the State House of Receptions. The leaders shook hands and took their seats on the podium in front of the line of the guard of honor. The military orchestra played the national anthems of the countries, and the guns fired 21 salvos.” Russian presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko summarized the agenda for Medvedev and Pohamba’s face-to-face conference:

The Russian business community has been displaying growing interest of late in entering the promising market of Namibia that possesses rich natural deposits. In this connection during the visit the sides will discuss possibilities for the expansion of Russian investment participation in major projects of the Namibian economy, in particular, in the sphere of the prospecting and development of mineral deposits, hydrocarbons, electric power industry, transport and tourism.

One of the promising cooperation spheres is the energy industry starting from the hydropower to atomic power industry. We are ready and are even offering at the expert level cooperation programmes, so we will speak about this.

The agenda of the talks between the presidents of Russia and Namibia is expected to include a broad range of international and regional problems. In particular, they will consider in detail problems related to ensuring the sustainable development of countries of the African continent, issues linked with peacekeeping in Africa and search for ways of the settlement of conflicts that are the main obstacle to stability and socio-economic growth in African states. Among other possible themes will be international cooperation in overcoming the global financial crisis, issues of ensuring global energy security.

Medvedev was also expected to meet with the first Namibian president, Sam Nujoma, who founded the ruling South-West African People’s Organization in 1960, at which time South West Africa was still administered by South Africa as a League of Nations mandate territory. During the Namibian War of Independence that began in 1966, when South Africa's mandate over its de facto fifth province ended, Nujoma commanded his guerrillas against the South African Defense Force, achieving internationally recognized independence in 1989. Today he remains an outspoken supporter of Zimbabwe's racist Marxist dictator Robert Mugabe.

Incidentally, with respect to the subject of “peacekeeping in Africa,” the Russian Armed Forces currently maintain small peacekeeping groups in Chad, Sudan, and the Central African Republic under United Nations-African Union command At the same time, Russian destroyers, in combination with an international flotilla of warships, ply the waters off the coast of Somalia to curb high seas piracy. Taking advantage of civil war and anarchy in east-central Africa, the Kremlin has re-projected a limited strategic influence in the region, forfeited during the 1990s and early 2000s. A revitalized relationship with Yemen may also see the re-establishment of a Russian naval presence on the Arabian Peninsula. The re-projection of Moscow’s power throughout the world has in fact been promised by Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov since 2007.

From the Nambian capital Medvedev flew to the Angolan capital, where he was received by counterpart Jose Eduardo Dos Santos. Angola is the last stop in Medvedev’s African tour. The main themes of the talks between Medvedev and Dos Santos will be the promotion of major high-tech joint projects, presidential aide Prikhodko commented.

Three areas of joint Soviet-Angolan economic cooperation are diamond mining (with well-known industrial applications), oil exploration, and hydroelectricity. For example, Angolan mining companies Catoca and Luo will join the Russian company Alrosa in exploiting the Cacolu diamond field. Alrosa has also been granted geological and oil prospecting rights in the basins of the Cuanza and Congo Rivers. A joint partnership will be established between Zarubezhneft and Angola’s state-run oil company Sonangol. The Soviet-Angolan HydroChicapa joint company, along with Alrosa, completed a hydroelectric station on the Chicapa River in 2008. Tekhnopromexport also participated in the construction of Angola’s largest Capanda hydroelectric plant and is currently involved in the construction of two large stations on the Cuanza River.

Finally, Russian companies are expected to participate in the creation of Angola’s national satellite communication system, ANGOSAT. Military-technical cooperation, however, is not viewed as a priority direction, Itar-Tass quoted a Kremlin source as saying. Prikhodko remarked: “Particular attention will be paid to international issues for further consolidation of foreign policy cooperation between Russia and Angola.”

Between 1975 and 2002 Angola was the scene of a significant conflagration between the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which declared independence from Portugal, and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which was backed by the USA and South Africa before the latter fell to communism in 1995. Between December 1987 and March 1988, UNITA and South African troops combined their forces at Cuito Cuanavale to clash with Angolan government troops, which enjoyed the support of Cuban troops, SWAPO guerrillas, and Umkhonto we Sizwe--the armed wing of the South African Communist Party and the African National Congress. More ominously, Angola's army and its foreign allies operated under the direct command of Soviet generals. Years later, in 2002 UNITA leader and ex-Maoist Jonas Savimbi was killed in a clash with government troops. Angola and Cuba maintain close relations to this day.

Back in the USSR, Medvedev wiped off Angola’s tropical sweat from his brow and enthused: “Work with our African partners should have been started earlier. Africa is waiting for our support. Our policies here will be very friendly, but at the same time pragmatic. The Soviet Union always held a very friendly position with regard to African countries, helping them win independence.” During his eight-year stint as president Putin visited Libya, Algeria, and South Africa.

Latin America File: Chavez welcomes Ecuador, two Caribbean states into ALBA; Cuban troops join other soldiers in Venezuelan military parade

- Chavez Bows Out of Funes Installation Ceremony, Citing CIA-Backed Assassination Plot in San Salvador, Praises Timely Intelligence from Amigo Ortega

- Blast from the Past: Grenadian Government Renames Point Salines International Airport after Slain Marxist Dictator Bishop, Cuban Delegation in Attendance, New ALBA Member Officiates

Pictured above: In attendance at his June 1 presidential inauguration in San Salvador, Nicaraguan counterpart Daniel Ortega welcomes Mauricio Funes into Latin America's Red Axis. At far left is Cuban Vice President Esteban Lazo Hernandez, second from left is Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, and second from right is Funes' vice president, Salvador Sanchez Ceren. The last was the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front's battlefield commander during the 1980s civil war.

On Wednesday, Venezuela’s communist thug-in-chief Hugo Chavez formally received three new countries into the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA): Ecuador, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda. “The ALBA continues to grow in Latin America. Now we have nine nations to build a new project. It is the most dynamic core,” gushed Chavez during his weekly TV-radio program “Alo, Presidente.”

In 2004 Cuba and Venezuela organized the regional bloc of socialist states to counter the Washington-led Free Trade Area of the Americas. Nicaragua, Bolivia, Dominica, and Honduras are also members of ALBA. Significantly, from the vantage of the Soviet strategy of quietly encircling the USA with enemies, even Russia has expressed an interest in joining ALBA.

On May 25 of this year Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa ratified his country’s decision to jon the bloc, after the country previously attended ALBA meetings as an observer. The accession of the two Caribbean island states was approved during the last ALBA summit in mid-April, held ahead of the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago. Chavez also showed up in Port of Spain, using the occasion to schmooze with fellow socialist, US President Barack Hussein Obama.

To celebrate the accession of three new countries into Latin America’s Red Axis, officers, cadets and troops from Cuba and the other ALBA states will march in a military parade on Venezuelan soil. El Universal reports that some 100 military personnel of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba have rehearsed for this occasion. The participating military delegations will commemorate the 188th anniversary of the Battle of Carabobo and Venezuela’s Army Day. General Clíver Alcalá Cordones, commander of the 41st Armored Brigade of the Venezuelan National Armed Forces, explained that 175 foreign military officers will march in Campo de Carabobo, in southwest Valencia state.

Rocío San Miguel, director of the non-governmental Organization for Social Monitoring of Security and Defense Affairs, cautioned that “This particular and unprecedented situation violates Article 187, number 11 of the Venezuelan Constitution, since the National Assembly must authorize the deployment of foreign missions in Venezuela. The government, moreover, has not published any resolution in the Official Gazette to confirm this action.” The National Assembly, of course, is totally dominated by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and other pro-Chavez parties, so an NGO’s appeal to the constitution will probably fall on deaf ears. Furthermore, the high-handed deployment of Cuban troops in Venezuela, even for ceremonial purposes, reflects a wider movement among Latin America’s leftist-communist regimes to welcome foreign militaries into the region, to wit the Russian Navy’s visit to Nicaragua last December, over the objections of the country’s liberal opposition.

In another sign of the deepening integration within the Western Hemisphere's section of the Communist Bloc, ALBA leaders decided to change the name of the organization to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America or "The People's Trade Agreement."

It may be some time before Russia joins ALBA, even as an observer, but the Soviet strategists have already re-established many Cold War-era links in Latin America, especially with Communist Cuba, neo-Sandinista Nicaragua, Bolivarian Venezuela, Red Bolivia, and Socialist Ecuador. On June 23, at a ceremony in Novo-Ogarjovo, the official residence of the Russian president outside Moscow, Russia and Venezuela agreed to organize a new bilateral bank. In attendance were Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Venezuelan Executive Vice President and acting Minister of Defense Ramón Carrizález. The agreement was initialed by Russian Vice Minister of Finance Dmitry Pankin and Venezuelan Vice Minister of Finance and Economy Gustavo Hernández.

“The founders of the bank, on the Russian party, are Vneshtorgbank and Gazprombank. The Government assumes that Russia will have a 51% share,” explained Pankin. State-run oil company PDVSA and the National Treasury will be the new bank’s Venezuelan stockholders. Carrizález, who described the relations between both countries as “strategic,” gave Putin a letter written in the Russian language and signed by President Chavez. The content of the missive was not revealed. For his part, Putin hailed the visit of the Venezuelan vice president as “very successful.”

Carrizález arrived in Russia after visiting Belarus, another strategic partner of Venezuela in the Not-So-Former Soviet Union. On the initiative of Caracas, the presidents of Belarus and Venezuela held a telephone conversation on June 20, the same day Carrizález began his official visit to Minsk. Alexander Lukashenko and Chavez discussed bilateral relations in the fields of economic and political cooperation, including large-scale joint projects in construction, engineering, and petrochemistry. Special attention was given to the implementation of a joint oil production venture in Venezuela. Lukashenko and Chavez agreed to meet in the near future. The Venezuelan dictator has previously materialized in Minsk.

Communist Cuba Subverts Grenada 25 Years after Operation Urgent Fury

Like the Soviets and their major Latin American client states, the smaller countries of the Caribbean Basin are also using the global financial crisis to agitate for political and economic integration via organizations like the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). For example, OECS members Trinidad and Tobago, St. Lucia, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines have indicated their willingness to form an economic and political union by 2013. Trinidadian Prime Minister Patrick Manning, addressing a special convention of the ruling People’s National Movement, urged Caricom and the OECS to coordinate regional integration with the newly expanded ALBA.

Before the phoney end of the Cold War in 1991, when the Soviet Union deceptively dismantled itself, the Caribbean Basin, like other areas of the globe, was a target for communist subversion, particularly from the revolution’s hemispheric headquarters in Havana. Between 1979 and 1983, for example, Grenada suffered under the Soviet/Cuban-backed Marxist dictatorship of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. Under the auspices of Operation Urgent Fury, President Ronald Reagan dispatched the US Armed Forces and allied militaries from the OECS to depose Bishop's New Jewel regime and rescue US medical students at St. George's University. In recent months Grenadian Prime Minister Tillman Thomas has once again allied the country with Havana, effectively negating the liberation that came to his island 25 years ago.

On May 29, 2009 Thomas' government officially renamed the Point Salines International Airport in St. George's in honor of slain coup-leader Bishop. A Cuban delegation, led by Vice President Esteban Lazo Hernandez, was in attendance. The Cuban media reports: "Cuban constructors played a decisive role in the construction of the airport, a project begun by Bishop Revolutionary Government." The same source continues: "Also present were relatives of Maurice Bishop, with whom the Cuban Vice President met and shared memories and experiences of the close ties between Bishop and Fidel Castro." St. Vincent and the Grenadines counterpart Ralph Gonsalves, now a proud member of ALBA, gave the feature address at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The CIA Makes Life Uncomfortable for Comrade Hugo

In a related story, Chavez is once again weaving intricate fantasies about Washington DC’s attempts to whack him. This time Comrade Hugo contends that infamous Cuban-born Venezuelan citizen and ex-CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles was behind a plot to kill him while attending the June 1 inaugural ceremony of Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes. It was on this pretext that Chavez and sidekick Evo Morales, Bolivia’s Trotskyist president, refused to attend the installation of El Salvador’s first Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front government. Communist Cuba, no doubt rejoicing that its proxy has finally taken over the small Central American country, sent a high-level delegation to San Salvador, which promptly restored long-severed relations with Havana.

Nicaragua’s past/present Marxist dictator, President Daniel Ortega, first announced the alleged assassination plan during his speech at the ceremony when he said both presidents could not attend for “security reasons.” Staunch Soviet ally Ortega, who trooped to Moscow last December in his first post-Cold War pilgrimage, refused to divulge details. Later, Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Nicolas Maduro identified the “ultra-right” (meaning “fascists”) as the murder plot’s organizers: “Ultra-right wing assassination groups in Venezuela, linked to ultra-conservative coup sectors, together with the international ultra-right were involved in the possibility of an assassination.” Talking to the press after Funes’ installation, Maduro specifically accused Alejandro Esclusa of masterminding the plot. Esclusa is apparently a Venezuelan rightist who has worked with the US Central Intelligence Agency on “numerous occasions” and was in El Salvador advising the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) government in its campaign against Funes.

On June 2, back in Venezuela, Chavez acknowledged that he received word of the assassination scheme--which consisted of blowing the president’s airliner out of the sky with SAMs--from fellow commie thug Ortega. “It was information with a lot of weight that motivated the suspension of our travels,” Chavez stated, adding:

In this case the information was very precise, it indicated that they were going to launch one or several rockets at the Cubana airline plane that was ready to leave from Maiquetia airport in Venezuela.

We have to remember that there, in El Salvador Carriles lived and did what ever he felt like…and they were preparing this attack against us…when we were to be arriving or leaving San Salvador.

I accuse Luis Posada Carriles and I demand that President Barack Obama bring about justice and comply with the law…send us this terrorist…to put him where he should be, in prison.

Daniel Ortega knows the details …some Venezuelan coup plotters entered San Salvador two weeks ago. And I know them…they have sworn to me that they were going to kill me, because they say its my fault that they lost their jobs and didn’t reach the highest military ranks.

The government of the United States is behind all of this. And I’m not accusing Obama. No. As Fidel [Castro] has said, I think Obama has good intentions, but beyond Obama there is a whole empire: The CIA and all its tentacles, is alive and kicking… President Obama, it’s time to dismantle all this machinery of terror.

Keeping in mind that this story was published at the pro-Chavez Venezuelanalysis.com website, it serves the Latin American Red Axis’ cause of dethroning US influence in the region and promoting communism.

USSR2 File: Voronin meets Medvedev, Putin in Moscow; Russia extends US$500 million loan to Moldova; CPRF plasters Stalin's mug on billboards

This past Monday Russia threw its weight behind Moldova’s outgoing President Vladimir Voronin, a communist who formerly played the part of Soviet Interior Ministry general, by extending a US$500 million loan to Chisinau. Moldova is Europe’s poorest country, even lagging behind places like Albania. Voronin has held the presidential office since 2001 but is barred from running for a third term. He dissolved parliament last week and called an early election for July 29 after deputies twice failed to elect a new president, lacking just one vote to approve Voronin’s candidate, the current prime minister. The Communist Party of the Republic of Moldova triumphed in an April parliamentary election, but the results sparked violent protests by anti-communists and Romanian irredentists.

“Of course, I would like to tell you that we supported and support the measures taken by Moldova's leadership to restore constitutional order,” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev assured Voronin during their meeting in the Kremlin. Medvedev continued: “These are difficult times now, very difficult from the economic point of view. We should give it some thought and decide what else needs to be undertaken to develop trade and economic ties at a time of crisis.”

Voronin, alluding to Romania’s alleged involvement in the post-election riots, replied: “I am very grateful that in these hard days of political uncertainty and attempts to destabilize our country ... Russia was the first and probably the only country that advocated Moldova's lawfully elected authorities.” Although now a putative ally in the North Atlantic Alliance, the Romanian president, Traian Basescu, is an “ex”-communist, indicating that Bucharest, too, is playing along with the Soviet strategic deception.

Voronin continued his rant against the West: “We should call a spade a spade ... they aimed to carry out a ‘coloured revolution’ in our country, but I believe our coordinated actions and your unambiguous position should discourage the organizers from any such plans. This had nothing to do with a people's revolution. This was an organized group of hirelings who ... attempted to carry out this coup d'etat.”

After meeting with Medvedev, Voronin was received by Russia’s KGB-communist dictator, Vladimir Putin, who soothed: “We are considering your request to extend to Moldova a state credit of $0.5 billion. We consider this possible.” Putin indicated that the first tranche worth US$150 million could be disbursed within six to eight weeks. He offered no other details related to the conditions of the loan.

Pictured here: A Georgian man kisses a portrait of Joseph Stalin in front of the monument to him in the town of Gori, on December 21, 2008.

Strategically sandwiched between NATO member Romania and NATO aspirant Ukraine, the neo-Soviet leadership has a vested interest in keeping Moldova (not to mention Romania and Ukraine) under its thumb. The virus of communism is not only alive and well in the former Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, but also Russia itself, as a recent incident in the southern city of Voronezh proves.

Last December the local section of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation purchased space on 10 billboards throughout the city to display former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s mugshot with the cheery proclamation: “Victory will be ours!” The pro-communist advertisements coincided with the 130th anniversary of the birth of ethnic Georgian Stalin, who ruled the Soviet Union during the Second World War and dispatched millions of people to their deaths in prison camps during political purges in the 1930s.

Now the communications department at Voronezh City Hall is pondering whether the billboards could be classified as “improper advertising” since they are of a political nature and no election is underway. “Under the law, a billboard should be used for advertising purposes only, including social advertising. The billboard can not be used to display any other information. This is where I see the violation,” a city official intoned. The sincerity behind such objections is questionable. For nearly 20 years Russians have argued whether to remove Vladimir Lenin’s mummy from Red Square, but the corpse of the Soviet Union’s founder has yet to receive a proper burial (physically or ideologically).

“The exact number of those killed or imprisoned during Stalin-era repressions is not known,” huffs state-run Novosti, “but according to research conducted by British historian Robert Conquest, more than 14 million people are estimated to have passed through the Gulag from 1929-1953 and an additional 6-7 million people were deported and exiled across the Soviet Union.” Russia’s embattled human rights groups, the same source admits, are “still concerned” that many Russians view the genocidal communist tyrant as a “statesman.” Indeed, we don’t mind saying that that is a very appropriate concern. As of 2008, by the way, the Soviet gulag system was still in operation, according to impeccable sources like the Wall Street Journal, which calls them “Putin’s torture colonies.” Did Lenin’s mummy twitch just now?

WW4 File: N. Korea to launch ICBM on 4th of July, Pentagon beefs up anti-missile defenses around Hawaii, top US general: DPRK insurgent tactics likely

- North Korea’s Next Leader and State Security Chief Kim Jong Un Implicated in Murder Plot against Older Half-Brother Exiled in Macau; Kim Jong Nam Closely Allied with Beijing

- Former ROK President Roh “Committed Suicide” Two Days before DPRK’s Second Atomic Bomb Test

I believe we will face IEDs [improvised explosive devices] and insurgent forces, in addition to large conventional attacks.
-- General Walter Sharp, commander of US forces in Republic of Korea, June 23, 2009

Pictured above: South Korean soldiers bow their heads at the National Cemetery in Seoul on June 25, 2009.

On June 23 the Japanese media revealed that North Korea plans to hold a live-fire military drill off its east coast between June 25 and July 10, coinciding with a long-range missile launch over the Pacific Ocean, possibly targeting Hawaii on the 4^th of July. This revelation follows bans issued in the past month by Pyongyang prohibiting civilian ships from entering its waters in the Yellow Sea (west coast) and Sea of Japan (east coast). According to CNN, the Stalinist regime’s hydrographic department emailed this information to Japan’s coast guard on Monday. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) did not specify the consequences for ships entering those waters during the drill, but the North issued a similar notice before it tested a long-range rocket on April 5. On May 25 the DPRK tested its second atomic device in three years.

On June 17 the Korea Times confirmed that North Korea’s “missile train,” which transported an ICBM to a launch site in Tongchang-ri, North Pyongan province in May, recently moved from a missile research center in Sanum-dong, Pyongyang to another launch site in Musudan-ri, North Hamgyong province. Analysts in Seoul and Washington speculate that the North might simultaneously launch missiles from both sites. Alternately, the train could be a “smokescreen” to confuse observers. The DPRK apparently has three or four ICBMs, and may be keeping one or two more at the research center in Sanum-dong.

Since May, Pyongyang has considered almost any international resistance to its nuclear bomb and missile programs a “declaration of war.” This includes United Nations Security Council sanctions and South Korea’s participation in the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative, which seeks to interdict the transportation of WMDs on the high seas. Last Thursday, a senior US official disclosed that the navy is tracking a North Korean ship, Kang Nam, which left port on June 17 and is believed to be carrying illicit weapons or technology. Two days later the Kang Nam was spotted off the east coast of Mainland China. Earlier this month, Pyongyang in reprisal convicted two US journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, of illegally entering the country via the People’s Republic of China, and planning to conduct a smear campaign against the regime. Lee and Ling were sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp.

The DPRK was established by Kim Il Sung, father of the regime’s current head of state, Kim Jong Il, at the end of the Second World War, under the aegis of Soviet occupational forces. At the same time, in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula US forces, fresh from their victory over the Japanese Empire, supported the new Republic of Korea. The North’s invasion of the South in 1950 led to the three-year Korean War and an armistice that Pyongyang scrapped last month. The Korean Demilitarized Zone is the most heavily fortified border in the world and a stark reminder that the Cold War has not ended on this part of the planet. However, according to a recent public opinion poll, most young South Koreans have little personal knowledge of that conflict more than half a century ago.

In response to North Korea’s pending missile launch, the US military has positioned more missile defenses around Hawaii, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates assured reporters last Thursday. “We do have some concerns if they were to launch a missile to the west in the direction of Hawaii,” Gates admitted. Without divulging details, he explained that a ground-based mobile missile system has been deployed in Hawaii and a radar system positioned nearby. “Without telegraphing what we will do, I would just say ... we are in a good position, should it become necessary, to protect Americans and American territory,” Gates said. Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper hypothesized that Pyongyang might launch the missile on July 4, which is Independence Day in the USA. The newspaper cited an analysis by Japan’s Defense Ministry and intelligence gathered by US spy satellites. Is Crazy Kim’s communist nuthouse crazy enough to attack Hawaii? We're watching . . .

In a related story, reported by Seoul’s Yonhap News Agency, General Walter Sharp, who commands US forces in the Republic of Korea, warned South Korean army personnel that North Korean commandos could use explosive devices against both civilians and troops in rear areas, among other insurgent tactics, should war break out on the peninsula. “I believe we will face IEDs [improvised explosive devices] and insurgent forces, in addition to large conventional attacks,” Sharp said on Tuesday, adding:

The IEDs could target civilians as well as US and South Korean forces who should strengthen preparedness to tackle such threats. Realistic training ensures that the Republic of Korea is fully prepared for a thinking enemy, an enemy that will use IEDs, hide among the population and strike our rear forces and civilians. This enemy will require us to use our weapons much more precisely, to reduce civilian casualties and collateral damage.

A white paper published by the ROK’s defense ministry contends that the North’s 180,000 special warfare troops have expanded their capability to wage night-time combat, as well as mountain and street warfare. About 680,000 South Korean soldiers, equipped with the latest military technology and bolstered by 28,500 US troops, confront the North’s largely outdated 1.2 million-strong People’s Army. It can be surmised that whatever modern military hardware Pyongyang possesses, it must originate, openly or covertly, from Moscow and Beijing.

Meanwhile, political machinations within the North’s ruling Korean Workers’ Party regime continue. According to the Korea Times, close aides of Kim Jong Un, 26-year-old third son and heir apparent of Jong Il, last week attempted to assassinate the leader’s first son Jong Nam, who lives in Macau, a Special Administrative Region in the PRC. Citing Red Chinese government sources, the Korea Times elaborated: “Aides to Kim Jong-un planned to assassinate Jong-nam, who lives in Macau, after first eliminating his close aides in North Korea. The sources said, ‘It seems they tried to assassinate Kim Jong-nam without telling Kim Jong-il.’” Beijing foiled the plan by warning Pyongyang about the murder plot and by sending intelligence and military officers to escort Jong Nam to safety. The Korea Times’ government sources in Red China explained that the PRC is protecting Jong Nam because he has been developing friendships with high-ranking Communist Chinese officials for a long time. In fact, Jong Nam may seek asylum in Mainland China.

This is not the first time that North Korea’s ruling Kim dynasty has been involved in assassination plots. In 1983 Seoul accused Jong Il of ordering the murder of South Korean President Jeon Du Hwan, then visiting Rangoon, Burma, now known as Myanmar. A bomb exploded at a mausoleum, killing 21 people, including South Korean cabinet members. Jeon narrowly escaped death. In 1987 Seoul accused Jong Il of ordering the bombing of Korean Air Flight 858, which killed 155 crew and passengers. DPRK agent Kim Hyon Hui confessed to planting the bomb aboard the airliner and admitted that Jong Il personally directed the operation. In the 1980s Jong Il had yet to succeed his father as head of state, but occupied senior posts in the Korean Workers’ Party’s Politburo, Military Commission, and Secretariat.

The fact that Jong Il recently placed his youngest son in charge of the State Security Department as a prelude to handing over control of the regime may have some bearing on Jong Un’s reported attempt to murder his half-brother. The Kims visited the headquarters of the State Security Department in March, at which time “Dear Leader” ordered the communist security chiefs to “uphold” his third son as head of the department. The State Security Department, reports the Korea Times, is the backbone of the Kim dynasty’s iron rule over North Korea. Pyongyang’s equivalent to the KGB monitors bureaucrats, soldiers, and civilians for any signs of dissent, as well as engages in espionage abroad.

On May 23, 2009 former South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun jumped to his death from a mountain cliff. Roh’s centrist Yeollin Uri Party, which ruled the ROK between 2004 and 2007, holds a conciliatory “Sunshine Policy” toward the DPRK, prompting opponents to label party members as communist sympathizers. Roh’s alleged suicide does not appear to have a North Korean connection but, in the context of the current escalation of tensions between the two Koreas since April, is somewhat suspicious. Roh died two days before Pyongyang carried out its second underground atomic bomb test. Coincidence? Maybe, or maybe not . . .