Iran’s Green Movement Defies Its Government, the World Battles a Swine Flu Pandemic and Honduras’s Coup Divides the Americas

Jamaica Homes Global Conflict & Caribbean Impact Review | Published 3 October 2009 | Reporting Period: 3 July – 2 October 2009

Quarterly Briefing

• Iran’s Green Movement continues to demonstrate against the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; weekly post-prayer marches and confrontations with the Basij militia have persisted through the summer; opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi remain under informal surveillance; the regime shows no sign of conceding the election was fraudulent but the protest movement has not been extinguished.
• The World Health Organisation’s H1N1 swine flu pandemic, declared in June, continues to spread globally; the southern hemisphere’s winter season produced a second wave of infections significantly more severe than the spring outbreak; a vaccine is in development but will not be widely available until October at the earliest; global health authorities are tracking whether a major northern hemisphere autumn wave is imminent.
• Honduras’s military coup of June 28, which ousted President Manuel Zelaya, has produced the Americas’ most serious constitutional crisis in years; the OAS suspended Honduras in July; Zelaya re-entered his own country on September 21 and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa; the de facto government under Roberto Micheletti shows no sign of reversing the coup.
• The G20 Pittsburgh Summit on September 24-25 formally elevates the G20 as the premier forum for international economic cooperation, displacing the G8; leaders agree on a Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth and commit to gradually phase out fossil fuel subsidies.
• President Obama reveals at the Pittsburgh G20 that Iran has been secretly constructing a second uranium enrichment facility at Fordo, near Qom; the disclosure — made jointly with France and Britain — dramatically intensifies international pressure on Tehran and raises the prospect of additional UN sanctions.
• Afghanistan’s contested presidential election on August 20 produces an outcome marred by widespread fraud; preliminary results show President Karzai likely to win but a runoff is being demanded by the runner-up, Abdullah Abdullah; General McChrystal’s classified assessment, leaked to the Washington Post, warns that the war will be lost without additional troops.

Prologue: Democratic Crises Across Three Continents

The third quarter of 2009 presented three separate crises of democratic legitimacy: in Iran, where a disputed election had produced a protest movement that the regime was suppressing with violence; in Honduras, where a military coup had removed an elected president whose own conduct had been constitutionally questionable; and in Afghanistan, where an election held to provide democratic cover for continued international military support had been corrupted by the incumbent’s own supporters. Each raised different questions about the conditions under which democratic processes could be held to legitimate political authority. For the Caribbean, the Honduras coup was the most immediately relevant: it happened in the neighbourhood, involved a regional organisation to which most Caribbean states belong, and tested the norms of democratic solidarity that CARICOM has collectively affirmed.

Honduras and Caribbean Democratic Solidarity

The removal of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya by military force on June 28 — just before our reporting period begins — produced a swift and nearly unanimous international condemnation. The OAS invoked its democratic charter and suspended Honduras. CARICOM’s member states aligned with the regional consensus demanding Zelaya’s restoration. The United States, after initial hesitation, called the removal a coup. The de facto government under Congress-appointed President Roberto Micheletti refused to yield. It argued, with some support from Honduras’s supreme court and attorney general, that Zelaya had himself violated the constitution by attempting to hold a referendum that would have extended presidential terms.

Zelaya’s dramatic return to Honduras on September 21, crossing the border from Nicaragua and taking refuge in the Brazilian embassy, transformed the crisis’s dynamics. The de facto government imposed a curfew and suspended civil liberties. Zelaya supporters gathered outside the embassy and clashed with security forces. The OAS, CARICOM and most of Latin America found themselves in the position of demanding action on behalf of a president sheltering in a foreign embassy in his own capital, with presidential elections scheduled for November that the de facto government intended to proceed with regardless.

H1N1 and the Caribbean Tourism Economy

The swine flu pandemic declared by the WHO in June had immediate economic consequences for Caribbean tourism. A disease characterised by respiratory symptoms and spread by person-to-person contact created deterrents to international travel. The Caribbean Tourism Organisation reported significant booking cancellations across the spring and early summer; cruise line itineraries were adjusted. While the mortality rate of H1N1 appeared, in most populations, to be lower than initially feared, the uncertainty — particularly whether a more virulent autumn wave would emerge, as happened in the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic — kept both travellers and health authorities anxious. Jamaica and other Caribbean health ministries had been working intensively on pandemic preparedness; the health systems of small island states were particularly poorly equipped to handle a surge of severe cases.

Iran’s Green Movement and Regional Geopolitics

The Green Movement that emerged after Iran’s disputed June 12 presidential election had by July developed into the most significant challenge to the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy since 1979. Its leaders — Mousavi, Karroubi and former president Khatami — were themselves products of the revolutionary system, not liberal Westernisers; the movement’s demand was for the election’s results to be honestly counted, not for the system’s overthrow. The supreme leader, Khamenei, had personally endorsed Ahmadinejad’s re-election; backing down would have undermined his own authority. The regime’s response — post-election arrests, show trials of reformist politicians and media figures, and ongoing street harassment of protesters — had reduced protest frequency but not ended popular anger.

The revelation of the Fordo enrichment facility — built in secret inside a mountain near Qom, with a capacity apparently sized for a weapons programme rather than civilian power generation — was disclosed at the Pittsburgh G20 precisely to maximise diplomatic pressure. The facility had been under construction for years; Western intelligence agencies had known of it for some time but chose this moment to reveal it publicly. The Iran nuclear issue was entering a new phase: diplomacy had not stopped the enrichment programme; the Israeli government’s warning that it could not indefinitely accept an Iranian nuclear capability was becoming more audible.

Looking Ahead

Afghanistan’s election crisis will need to be resolved before the international community can proceed with the strategy review that General McChrystal’s leaked assessment has made urgent; the question of whether to add 40,000 troops, as the military has requested, is now at the top of Washington’s agenda. Honduras’s November elections will test whether a vote conducted under a de facto government can command regional legitimacy. The H1N1 vaccine programme, beginning to roll out in October, will determine whether the autumn wave is manageable. Iran’s nuclear diplomacy enters a critical phase following the Fordo revelation; the next round of talks in Geneva will test whether the disclosure has changed anything. For the Caribbean, the swine flu’s impact on the critical pre-Christmas tourism booking season will be watched anxiously.

Jamaica Homes Global Conflict & Caribbean Impact Review is published quarterly, examining how wars, geopolitical tensions and major international crises have shaped Jamaica, the Caribbean and their economies.

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