When challenged at a press conference last week about its support for the people who have deposed the elected president of Honduras, the IMF didn’t appear to have an opinion. No decision has been taken as yet, its spokesman declared, as though the coup had taken place the day before. In fact, we are almost three months into the crisis and the IMF has just forked out the equivalent of $163 million to boost the country’s reserves.

Sri Lankans may find this indifference quite peculiar. When Mahinda Rajapaksa was trying to negotiate a loan, the public was led to believe that the IMF was deeply concerned about human rights, democracy, the rule of law and other such commendable principles. It didn’t want to risk its funds being used to help prosecute a war, I distinctly remember hearing people say, rather boringly often. That’s why the agreement wasn’t signed until July, more than half a year after the need for what is supposed to be emergency assistance was first identified.

Perhaps it was just bluster. It occurred to me at the time that this interpretation of the delay might have been put about by the Government to distract attention from its inevitable difficulties in reconciling the economic policy it wished to follow with that of the IMF.

An interesting piece by Harsha de Silva in The Financial Times of September 9th highlights the key issue. While the IMF has an unshakeable belief in cutting the budget deficit, the Government isn’t so convinced. It is explicitly rejected in the President’s election manifesto, and Harsha de Silva claims that a senior adviser to Mahinda Rajapaksa regards the approach as outdated.

I guess that Sri Lankans will find out in time, given that a team charged with assessing progress towards the benchmarks set out in the Letter of Intent is in Colombo as I type. The Government will have to persuade them that it is at least trying to comply, because figures just released by the Central Bank demonstrate that the budget deficit is a long way from cut.

If the expressions of concern about lending to Sri Lanka were genuine, I am sure that they came from elsewhere. The IMF has financed just about every brutal dictator from Pinochet to Mobutu and Suharto. It didn’t matter that they were murdering their citizens and stealing all the money. They could do whatever they pleased, so long as economic policy remained on track. The IMF simply didn’t care. It wasn’t affected by the dawn of the 21st century either. When Hugo Chavez was briefly ousted by his Armed Forces just a few years ago, the IMF demonstrated that it hadn’t changed a bit. It made an offer of full support to the illegitimate regime within hours of the takeover.

The fact is, the IMF is controlled by the Americans and Europeans. Our governments don’t usually find it convenient to confront nasty leaders, but they always invoke commendable principles like human rights, democracy and the rule of law when they want an excuse to intervene in a country, whether or not such a course of action is justified.

Hillary Clinton spent months parroting the line about it not being an appropriate time to give money to Sri Lanka, despite the Central Bank admitting that reserves were fast approaching zero, and both the Americans and Europeans abstained when the loan finally came up for approval in the Executive Board. Our great David Miliband looked as though he agreed with everything his pal across the water said, as he tries to ensure is always the case.

Honduras is a somewhat different issue, to be sure. The $163 million isn’t a loan. It is part of an effort to support all members of the IMF in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. They have been given what are called Special Drawing Rights, which can be traded with other countries in exchange for hard currency. The assistance isn’t directed solely at Honduras, but it hasn’t been excluded from the initiative, and the funds provided can be used at minimal cost and come without any tedious conditions.

That said, the IMF has a much greater chance of effecting change by taking a stand than it ever did in this country. Mahinda Rajapaksa was fighting to conclude a desperate battle with a terrorist organisation that had posed a very real threat to the state for the best part of a generation, and nothing less than West Point’s finest storming Temples Trees would have made him so much as blink. Calling a halt to the military offensive for lack of money simply wasn’t going to happen, even if the Government had to send its diplomats out to beg on the streets of their duty stations. The Tigers had made it clear that they weren’t interested in compromise. It had become an existential struggle for Sri Lanka.

There is a very reasonable deal on the table in Honduras. If the people who overthrew the president and appointed the Speaker of Congress in his place allow Manuel Zelaya to come back and form a government of national unity, they will be given an amnesty for crimes committed during the coup and presidential elections scheduled for November will be brought forward by one month. Manuel Zelaya will not be able to stand, as there is a one term limit in Honduras. He would return to no more than a few weeks in power.

It is worth noting that the rationale given for the coup was that Manuel Zelaya had violated the Constitution by calling for a referendum on setting up a Constitutional Assembly. When the Supreme Court ruled this illegal, on the basis that such a move was outside his remit and might be interpreted as an attempt to get rid of the one term limit, he decided to hold a non-binding consultation on whether such a question should be added to the ballot paper for the presidential elections. This should have assuaged fears, because the result would have come too late for the president to try for another stretch at the top, but it didn’t. The Army refused to cooperate in organising the poll, and the Supreme Court found against Manuel Zelaya when he sacked its Chief. He was promptly arrested and sent into exile.

Just to clarify, for the benefit of those who might have got lost in the details, the elected president was deposed for trying to hold a vote asking his people if they would like to have a referendum.

Hillary Clinton agrees that this was a bit excessive, but she has appeared somewhat reluctant to make her condemnation too strong. She doesn’t insist on returning the elected president to his post, but calls instead for all parties to commit themselves to resolving political disputes through negotiations. That’s funny, because I thought that only one side had resorted to storming the Presidential Palace. That’s the same side that is now rejecting a deal. Come on, Manuel Zelaya, do be flexible. She also insists on noting in every press statement she makes that the events leading up to the coup were awfully complicated, factually and legally speaking. Let’s hope she hasn’t offended any of the plotters with such harsh words, because they might refuse to cooperate.

David Miliband, meanwhile, is still looking for Honduras on the Foreign Office globe. There is no special relationship cemented by decades of colonial exploitation to remind him to stick his nose into the problem, I suppose.

It seems to me that both the Americans and Europeans would react in exactly the same way in the fortunately very unlikely event of the Army rising up against Mahinda Rajapaksa here. They don’t like him, and that’s what really matters. Human rights, democracy, the rule of law and other such commendable principles just aren’t taken seriously. After a carefully worded protest and some token gestures of rebuke, they would shrug their shoulders at the precarious nature of politics in the Third World and get back to work on their imaginary empires.

The IMF would be delighted, fantasising about cutting the budget deficit.

Next time the organisation has a press conference, somebody ought to tell its spokesman that there is more to life. Honduras needs our solidarity. The IMF shouldn’t be giving the people behind the coup any kind of support, even potential access to $163 million.