I believe that what the US government is doing is indeed supporting the people of Honduras. I think that a policy in support of the “coup” would have raised the ire of thousands of Mr. Zelaya’s supporters and would have resulted in dozens, maybe hundreds of deaths, by now. Because of the traditional negative image of the US in Latin America, the US government is always an easy pawn for those like Mr. Chavez who want to stir up public sentiments for their causes. In this case, the US didn’t fall for it, and thus the crisis has been contained. Remember when the Honduran drug lord Matta was captured and taken to the US back in the 1980s and mobs of Hondurans burned the USAID buildingin Tegus? The US government and particularly the US embassy in Tegus remembers that incident very well. That is the kind of escalation to which the US is extremely sensitive about avoiding.
Avoiding escalation
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