Honduras Defends Its Democracy

Honduras Defends Its Democracy

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124623220955866301.html

Hugo Chávez's coalition-building efforts suffered a setback yesterday when the Honduran military sent its president packing for abusing the nation's constitution.

It seems that President Mel Zelaya miscalculated when he tried to emulate the success of his good friend Hugo in reshaping the Honduran Constitution to his liking.

But Honduras is not out of the Venezuelan woods yet. Yesterday the Central American country was being pressured to restore the authoritarian Mr. Zelaya by the likes of Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Hillary Clinton and, of course, Hugo himself. The Organization of American States, having ignored Mr. Zelaya's abuses, also wants him back in power. It will be a miracle if Honduran patriots can hold their ground.

That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.

But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.

The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.

Calculating that some critical mass of Hondurans would take his side, the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court's order.

The attorney general had already made clear that the referendum was illegal, and he further announced that he would prosecute anyone involved in carrying it out. Yesterday, Mr. Zelaya was arrested by the military and is now in exile in Costa Rica.

It remains to be seen what Mr. Zelaya's next move will be. It's not surprising that chavistas throughout the region are claiming that he was victim of a military coup. They want to hide the fact that the military was acting on a court order to defend the rule of law and the constitution, and that the Congress asserted itself for that purpose, too.

Mrs. Clinton has piled on as well. Yesterday she accused Honduras of violating "the precepts of the Interamerican Democratic Charter" and said it "should be condemned by all." Fidel Castro did just that. Mr. Chávez pledged to overthrow the new government.

Honduras is fighting back by strictly following the constitution. The Honduran Congress met in emergency session yesterday and designated its president as the interim executive as stipulated in Honduran law. It also said that presidential elections set for November will go forward. The Supreme Court later said that the military acted on its orders. It also said that when Mr. Zelaya realized that he was going to be prosecuted for his illegal behavior, he agreed to an offer to resign in exchange for safe passage out of the country. Mr. Zelaya denies it.

Many Hondurans are going to be celebrating Mr. Zelaya's foreign excursion. Street protests against his heavy-handed tactics had already begun last week. On Friday a large number of military reservists took their turn. "We won't go backwards," one sign said. "We want to live in peace, freedom and development."

Besides opposition from the Congress, the Supreme Court, the electoral tribunal and the attorney general, the president had also become persona non grata with the Catholic Church and numerous evangelical church leaders. On Thursday evening his own party in Congress sponsored a resolution to investigate whether he is mentally unfit to remain in office.

For Hondurans who still remember military dictatorship, Mr. Zelaya also has another strike against him: He keeps rotten company. Earlier this month he hosted an OAS general assembly and led the effort, along side OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, to bring Cuba back into the supposedly democratic organization.

The OAS response is no surprise. Former Argentine Ambassador to the U.N. Emilio Cárdenas told me on Saturday that he was concerned that "the OAS under Insulza has not taken seriously the so-called 'democratic charter.' It seems to believe that only military 'coups' can challenge democracy. The truth is that democracy can be challenged from within, as the experiences of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and now Honduras, prove." A less-kind interpretation of Mr. Insulza's judgment is that he doesn't mind the Chávez-style coup.

The struggle against chavismo has never been about left-right politics. It is about defending the independence of institutions that keep presidents from becoming dictators. This crisis clearly delineates the problem. In failing to come to the aid of checks and balances, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Insulza expose their true colors.

How is the overthrow of a democratically elected government in another country a "setback" for Chavez?

What a ridiculous concept.

Point fingers and criticize Chavez claiming he's a dictator .. then celebrate when democratically elected governments are overthjrown.

.. amazing
 
In the end, not only will Zelaya be restored to the presidency but he will gain from the attempted takeover of the government and Latin America will continue its slide to the left.

But even deeper .. the School of the Americas .. America's terrorist training camp .. must be closed ...

Roberto Lovato has been arguing that the U.S. should ramp up its response. The savvy expert on U.S. relations with Latin America writes:

President Obama and the U.S. can actually do something about a military crackdown that our tax dollars are helping pay for. That Vasquez and other coup leaders were trained at the WHINSEC, which also trained Augusto Pinochet and other military dictators responsible for the deaths, disappearances, tortures of hundreds of thousands in Latin America, sends profound chills throughout a region still trying to overcome decades U.S.-backed militarism.

Hemispheric concerns about the coup were expressed in the rapid, historic and almost universal condemnation of the plot by almost all Latin American governments. Such concerns in the region represent an opportunity for the United States. But, while the Honduran coup represents a major opportunity for Obama to make real his recent and repeated calls for a "new" relationship to the Americas, failure to take actions that send a rapid and unequivocal denunciation of the coup will be devastating to the Honduran people -- and to the still-fragile U.S. image in the region.

Recent declarations by the Administration -- expressions of "concern" by the President and statements by Secretary of State Clinton recognizing Zelaya as the only legitimate, elected leader of Honduras -- appear to indicate preliminary disapproval of the putsch. Yet, the even more unequivocal statements of condemnation from U.N. President Miguel D'Escoto, the Organization of American States, the European Union, and the Presidents of Argentina, Costa Rica and many other governments raise greatly the bar of expectation before the Obama Administration.

There is no question that Obama must be outspoken. This is a time when clarity is essential, and potentially influential.

There is also a role for members of Congress, who need to examine the timing and character of this coup -- which was carried out by military officers trained in the U.S. at the School of the Americas/Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), in a country with a substantial U.S. military base (home to roughly 500 troops and air force combat planes and helicopters) in Soto Cano. It is difficult to imagine that the Honduran military would have moved against Zelaya without notifying U.S. military officials -- a prospect that, considering the sordid history of Washington's entanglements in the region, ought to be reviewed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Honest players on that committee, such as Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold, have a right and a responsibility to ask tough questions about the removal of a democratically-elected leader whose most serious "crime" appears to have been a determination to challenge the corrupt status quo in his country.

Zelaya, a businessman with a record of activism on behalf of decentralization of power and respect for indigenous peoples, was elected in 2005 as the relatively moderate candidate of the country's historically powerful Liberal Party.

Photographed in genial conversation with former President George Bush, he was not viewed as a particularly radical player when he took office. But Zelaya's left-leaning economic and social policies earned praise from labor unions and civil society groups, and he had forged regional alliances with the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, which Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other elected leaders in Latin America established as a counter to the neoliberal trade and security policies pushed by the U.S. under Bush.

That made relations with the U.S. somewhat more tense, especially as Zelaya wrangled with conservative forces over media, presidential succession and constitional issues.

Chavez has suggested that U.S. meddling -- and a Central Intelligence Agency tie -- enabled the coup.

School of the Americas Watch is following developments closely, and well -- lots of fresh photos and blogging on its site.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/theb..._pose_challenges_questions_for_obama_congress
 
Last edited:
And the REALLY good news is this saves the Honduran Tobacco crops from nationalization and homogenization. The military will hold the country until such time as election can be held. BUT if they assist in installing their own dictator like Samoza, then I hope that the right in here will call for another coup.
 
I have to say that i am most impressed, and somewhat surprised, at the sheer depth of knowledge many of our posters display on the machinations of the Honduran constitution and Honduran politics.

On other, less prestigious, boards this issue would merely be used to justify the poster's own political stances but, thankfully, we're a cut above here.


No shit. The poster formerly know as Grind is apparently an expert on Honduran Constitutional Law and can summarize the relevant portions of the constitution that allow for the military to remove the President in the dead of the night (and detain his supporters) and ship him off to Costa Rica.

One question I have for the poster formerly known as Grind is where in the Honduran Constitution does it provide for the the President of the Honduran Congress to take over as President as opposed to the Vice President.

.
 
Left-wing democratically elected leaders .. BAD

Right-wing dictators and military coups ... GOOD

Such is life in the Matrix
 
Left-wing democratically elected leaders .. BAD

Right-wing dictators and military coups ... GOOD

Such is life in the Matrix

again, what the displaced 'president' tried to do was illegal according to their constitution, so the rest of their government did what was legally required, why is that wrong?
 
again, what the displaced 'president' tried to do was illegal according to their constitution, so the rest of their government did what was legally required, why is that wrong?

Was kidnapping the elected President and dumping him in Costa Rica in the constitution as well?

If it was i'm getting me a copy of that bad boy 'cos i bet it'll be a cracking read.
 
Was kidnapping the elected President and dumping him in Costa Rica in the constitution as well?

If it was i'm getting me a copy of that bad boy 'cos i bet it'll be a cracking read.

you'd have to post the entire decision of their court and then whatever their congress said to do with him.
 
you'd have to post the entire decision of their court and then whatever their congress said to do with him.

I know absolutely nothing about Honduras but i just thought that seeing as an election was coming up in November they could let the President do what he liked regarding referenda abolishing term limits, ignoring any result as invalid and then replacing him with the winner of the next election, without going through the bother of dumping the current chap in Costa Rica with nothing but his pajamas on.

But that's just me.
 
Left-wing democratically elected leaders .. BAD

Right-wing dictators and military coups ... GOOD

Such is life in the Matrix
Bad that it had to happen, and very bad if they do not install the newly elected President at the next election. What would we have supported if Bush decided to continue in office regardless of the Constitution? I know I would support his forced removal at that point.
 
the guy that replaced him was from his own party....

I think he was originally elected as a bit of a right-wing sort and gradually changed his position to embrace a more left-wing stance leaving him at odds with many in his own party.
 
I know absolutely nothing about Honduras but i just thought that seeing as an election was coming up in November they could let the President do what he liked regarding referenda abolishing term limits, ignoring any result as invalid and then replacing him with the winner of the next election, without going through the bother of dumping the current chap in Costa Rica with nothing but his pajamas on.

But that's just me.

well, I understand that in England they don't value highly the enforcement of constitutions, and the US appears to be not too far behind that, but Hondurans might be a bit more touchy about their elected representatives violating theirs.
 
well, I understand that in England they don't value highly the enforcement of constitutions, and the US appears to be not too far behind that, but Hondurans might be a bit more touchy about their elected representatives violating theirs.

Kidnapping and deporting - the mark of the strong constitution there.
 
Kidnapping and deporting - the mark of the strong constitution there.

how would you feel if they just executed him?

As others are saying, if Bush had tried to force a referendum on term limits and was forcibly removed by the military, i'm sure they would have exiled him as a despot as well.
 
No shit. The poster formerly know as Grind is apparently an expert on Honduran Constitutional Law and can summarize the relevant portions of the constitution that allow for the military to remove the President in the dead of the night (and detain his supporters) and ship him off to Costa Rica.

One question I have for the poster formerly known as Grind is where in the Honduran Constitution does it provide for the the President of the Honduran Congress to take over as President as opposed to the Vice President.

.

didn't the vice president resign...
 
how would you feel if they just executed him?

As others are saying, if Bush had tried to force a referendum on term limits and was forcibly removed by the military, i'm sure they would have exiled him as a despot as well.

I find it quite hard to get exercised over Honduras anyway.

However, for it to be beyond the realms of possibility that a State could adopt another course of action, other than execution or kidnapping and deportation, strikes me as a little limited, no?
 
I find it quite hard to get exercised over Honduras anyway.

However, for it to be beyond the realms of possibility that a State could adopt another course of action, other than execution or kidnapping and deportation, strikes me as a little limited, no?

you have to look at it in your own terms, of how your own government handles these issues. Here in the US, if Bush were to try to force something like that, the congress and senate would have to impeach him, then the USSC would have to order the course of action. Not too dissimilar from Honduras at this point.
 
I find it quite hard to get exercised over Honduras anyway.

However, for it to be beyond the realms of possibility that a State could adopt another course of action, other than execution or kidnapping and deportation, strikes me as a little limited, no?

so if bush decided to stay in office, you would not support military action to remove him?

this guy was doing everything he could to make it so he could stay in office, going so far as ordering the military to conduct illegal activities in furtherance of his illegal goals
 
Back
Top