Sauce on Cohen's Lawyer Lanny Davis
"If you want to understand who the real power behind the [Honduran] coup is," says Robert White, president of the Washington-based Center for International Policy, during a recent interview, "you need to find out who's paying Lanny Davis."
Davis, an ally of the Clinton family who is best known as the lawyer who defended Bill during the presidential impeachment proceedings, was recently on Capitol Hill lobbying members of Congress and testifying against exiled President Manuel Zelaya before the House Foreign Relations Committee. White, who previously served as the United States ambassador to El Salvador, thought that such information about Davis' clients would be "very difficult to find."
But the answer proved easy to find. Davis, a partner at the law firm Orrick, Herrington, & Sutcliffe, openly named them – and his clients are the same powerful Hondurans behind the military coup.
"My clients represent the CEAL, the [Honduras Chapter of] Business Council of Latin America," Davis said when reached at his office last Thursday. "I do not represent the government and do not talk to President [Roberto] Micheletti. My main contacts are Camilo Atala and Jorge Canahuati. I'm proud to represent businessmen who are committed to the rule of law." Atala, Canahuati, and other families that own the corporate interests represented by Davis and the CEAL are at the top of an economic pyramid in which 62 percent of the population lives in poverty, according to the World Bank.
For many Hondurans and Honduras watchers, the confirmation that Davis is working with powerful, old Honduran families like the Atalas and Canahuatis is telling: To them, it proves that Davis serves the powerful business interests that ran, repressed, and ruined Honduras during the decades prior to the leftward turn of the Zelaya presidency.
"No coup just happens because some politicians and military men decide one day to simply take over," White says upon hearing for whom Davis is working. "Coups happen because very wealthy people want them and help to make them happen, people who are used to seeing the country as a money machine and suddenly see social legislation on behalf of the poor as a threat to their interests. The average wage of a worker in free trade zones is 77 cents per hour."
"The tragedy," adds White, "is that the Canahuatis and the Atalas and the other big businesspeople don't understand that it's in their best interest to help to do things like help people make a decent living, reduce unemployment, and raise the minimum wage."
Davis disagrees. He believes that the tragedy of Honduras lies with Zelaya and that the president brought the coup upon himself. "It is an undisputed fact that Mr. Zelaya has violated the constitution. It's my job to get the facts out."
Asked if he had qualms about representing businesspeople linked to a coup government denounced and unrecognized by the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and many countries across the globe (including the United States), Davis responded, "There are facts about Mr. Zelaya that the world community may not be aware of. I'm proud to represent clients who support the decision of Secretary of State [Hillary] Clinton to back the mediation of President Arias in the conflict [between Zelaya and coup leaders]. But my biggest concern is safety and security of the Honduran people." Read the rest here: https://prospect.org/article/our-man-honduras#.W1iQYKsobK8.twitter