Coup Government Blames United States for Honduran Economic Woes but Continues to Pay US Lobbying Firms

According to Micheletti, the hiring of Washington firms like the Cormac Group and Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Associates is completely consistent with “what the law says we can do” and is not so much a campaign as a presentation of information his government thinks the US should know. As for domestic projects currently being pursued in Honduras, these include a promise made by Micheletti to improve press room conditions at the presidential palace and a Forbes.com article by Claudia Rosett reproduced on page 10 of the October 10 edition of La Tribuna along with the specification “Paid political advertisement” in the top right corner.

Distraction from the specification is provided by stylistic inconsistencies in the layout out of the article, such as that its English title “Win Over Washington One Nuke at a Time” has merely been halfway translated as “Una victoria sobre Washington Nuke At A Time.” Readers casually scanning the paper might thus misinterpret the victory over Washington and the sizable photograph of Zelaya and Micheletti shaking hands on a couch to mean that Micheletti’s 400,000-dollar lobbying campaign has produced a Honduran solution to the Honduran problem.

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