4. Canada and the Democratic Charter: Lessons from the Coup in Honduras

A Samaritan State Revisited

“…25 No wonder, then, that when Pakistan floated a vague idea for an undefined program of aid for South and Southeast Asia in the months leading up to the January 1950 Commonwealth foreign ministers' meeting in Colombo, the Department of External Affairs rejected it out of hand. 26 Pearson advised the Canadian high commissioner in London, Dana Wilgress, that "you should make it clear that the Canadian Government would not be prepared to encourage the establishment of a new Commonwealth organization for the promotion of economic development and investment." 27 Canadian officials were well aware of the pressures that the postwar economy placed on the government of the United Kingdom.…”

“…25 Cavell delighted Ottawa audiences by claiming that Gandhi had even called him a "whiskey-swilling swashbuckler." 26 Cavell was known too in the Department of Trade and Commerce. He knew C. D. Howe, the powerful Liberal minister, and Fred Bull, his deputy, as well as several senior officials.…”

“…The UN and the Urriolagoitia government had "imposed ignominiously upon us a foreign mission which came to govern us with extraordinary powers to place the Bolivian economy at the entire disposition of imperialist military plans," one labour-oriented newspaper wrote. 26 The MNR won the 1952 election, prompting a military coup, then an MNR-led protest movement that finally brought the party to power. Although it briefly froze the admission of new advisors and nationalized tin mines, a step that Keenleyside's mission had called "wholly impractical under present conditions," the MNR government soon saw value in the UN presence.…”

“…Dubbed the Winegard report after its chair, William Winegard, the report insisted that aid should serve "the needs of the poorest countries and people." 26 This expression of altruism as aid's purpose hardly reflected Canadian aid policy, but as funds disappeared, the theme became increasingly dominant and was formally entrenched in the Official Development Assistance Accountability Act of 2008. 27 Winegard's strong support for Canadian foreign aid reflected the public reaction to the Ethiopian famine during the early 1980s.…”

Rethinking Canadian Aid: Second Edition

“…It is notable that Canada and the United States were the only countries in the western hemisphere to recognize the legitimacy of Porfirio Lobo as the new president of Honduras after his conservative National Party won the highly contested elections in the wake of the coup d'état. For some, this signified a stamp of approval on the coup and the elections, made worse by the fact that the majority of the Honduran population boycotted the election, which was held under conditions that could not be certified as meeting international standards of democratic fairness and freedom (Cameron and Tockman 2012). The wave of electoral successes of left-of-centre parties all over Latin America throughout the 2000s meant that Harper was increasingly isolated politically in the region and was looking for new partners in the hemisphere, which he found in post-coup Honduras.…”