Source: TheGrayzone.com
The leftist government of Honduras is on the defensive since its diplomatic dustup with Washington. Our investigation reveals a network of US government-backed regime change assets is driving the attacks, and using lawfare tactics to manufacture scandal ahead of next year’s elections in Tegucigalpa.
The Honduran government has slammed the US for attempting to initiate a “coup d’etat” in the Central American country, after the media outlet Insight Crime released decade-old footage appearing to show the current president’s brother-in-law negotiating a payment with men who later confessed to trafficking drugs.
The tape was leaked amidst a diplomatic spat with the US over the Honduran government’s friendly relations with Venezuela following its disputed elections in July. Days before the footage emerged, Honduran president Xiomara Castro hinted at its release while announcing an end to a longstanding extradition deal with the US: “I will not allow the instrument of extradition to be used to intimidate or blackmail the Honduran Armed Forces.” For many of those who support the left-wing president, the timing speaks for itself.
In legacy media outlets, the move to circumvent a coming political assault from Washington was framed as an act of corruption. One outlet ran with the headline: “Honduras’ Castro May Be Part of the Narco-Corruption She Vowed to End.”
Yet an investigation by The Grayzone reveals that key figures in the diplomatic power play are directly linked to the US government, including Insight Crime, which is funded by the State Department. Our probe indicates the tape was strategically deployed in an effort to rein in an increasingly independent-minded Castro administration.
The video was reportedly captured in 2013 by a narco-trafficker working as an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and its release came as diplomatic tensions boiled over on August 28 after a meeting between the military chiefs of Venezuela and Honduras led the American ambassador to publicly accuse the Honduran official of “sitting down with a drug dealer.” Carlos Zelaya maintains he had no idea who the men were and never accepted any money from them, but has since stepped down from his post in Congress, pending the results of an investigation.
Within the Castro administration, the US ambassador’s aggressive statement was seen as a shot across the bow, and an undeniable precursor to a color revolution-style regime change attempt. The timing was particularly conspicuous, they say, because they believe Insight Crime has had possession of the footage since at least 2022.
Elected by a wide margin in 2021, the administration of Xiomara Castro represents a return to social democracy after 12 years of what Hondurans widely referred to as the “narco-dictatorship” — a dark period ushered in by the US-backed 2009 coup d’etat which saw Castro’s husband, Manuel Zelaya, removed from the presidency by military force. In June 2024, the most visible face of that narco-dictatorship, former president Juan Orlando Hernandez, was sentenced to 45 years in a New York federal prison. However, as The Grayzone reported in a multi-part investigation, the US government had protected Hernandez for years, looking the other way as he made good on his stated promise to “stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos.”
Though it initially appeared willing to tolerate the government which replaced him, the US is now launching its first broadside against the Castro administration….