Another Fine Mess - Coup Rocks Honduras

Perhaps you've seen pictures of Zelaya showing up in Costa Rica in his PJs, but if not I don't know why you would accept one story as the truth and the other as a lie.

Do you really believe that all that there is to be known about this event is known?

I have mixed feelings on this subject (and it's one of the few times my wife and I have disagreed throughly).
I dislike Zelaya, a right wing populist turned Chavista because of Venezuelan oil dollars (he was bought off, to say it bluntly), and he wanted to follow the Chávez-Evo route to eternal power with his fake referendum.
Yet I think that, since the Honduran Supreme Court and Congress were against his intentions, they could have declared illegal the referendum results, and Congress could have tried to impeach him. Instead, we have a military coup, and we don't really know how much autonomy from the military has been left for the lawmakers and the judges. Not much, I fear.
So I'm against the coup.

As for the US position, in Latin America it was felt like fresh air, even if -in an afterthought- Obama and Clinton could have been a little slower in their reaction.
In any case, the US administration is not alone in the Chávez-Evo-Ortega company. ALL Latin American and Caribbean nations condemned the coup, and in the UN 192 countries out of 192 asked for Zelaya to return to the Presidency.

I've not said anything about the version wherein he agreed to be exiled being a lie. I said that if it is true, that he agreed at gunpoint is bad enough. The undisputed facts of this case are enough for me to condemn it.



I don't know where I might have implied that. But if this was your country is this how you'd want this handled? Would you want to wake up one day with your president in another country, with the news being blacked out?

Of course you wouldn't. You want your country to have much more transparency in this kind of proceeding. A dawn raid and an impromptu exile aren't disputed and that is bad enough, PJs or not.

The proposed referendum was illegal.



Based on the Supreme Court's ruling the Honduran attorney general said that the proposed referendum was illegal and said that he
would arrest anyone attempting to carry out the election. Zelaya was arrested by the military and was escorted out of the country.

The US should fully support the rule of law.

Here's the way I see it:

This notion that Zelaya was seeking to be re-elected seems dubious. His attempts to amend the Constitution in Congress were rejected so he was organizing a national referendum on whether a Constitutional Assembly should be called to reconsider the one term limit on the executive branch. The question on the poll was roughly:

""Do you agree that, during the general elections of November 2009 there should be a fourth ballot to decide whether to hold a Constitutional Assembly that will approve a new political constitution?"

Thusly, if the poll had a Yes verdict the ballot in question wouldnt even be up for actual approval until the elections in November... you know the ones that Zelaya can't legally run for. Therefore the ballot initiative could not help him gain any power. He would be out of power even if a "Yes" to this Constitutional Assembly came back.

Secondly, this referendum was non-binding and was probably a political attempt to show that there was support for such a measure (longer presidential terms). The backing of the survey, though rejected by the Congress, had been petitioned by I believe over 800,000 honduran citizens (I believe roughly 12-15% of the population).

Thirdly, the Honduran Constitution does not forbid asking a referendum to convene a Constitutional Convention. Article 239 in the Constitution does forbid elected officials from seeking the abolition of term limits. However it is not a criminal act (only the stripping of his powers is called for). I've yet to see (not to say it does not exist but still I've yet to see) any transcript of any speech or communication by Zelaya that has violated this Article and sought the outright abolition of term limits. The Honduran Supreme Court to my knowledge has never RULED that Mr. Zelaya has broken this Article either (and a midnight military coup is hardly a legal ruling).

The Honduran Supreme Court is not given the right to command the military at any juncture (and if I read correctly Article 312 forbids it), which is what it appears they have done here. Barring a criminal offense (of which Zelaya has not actually been accused of) the military does not have the right to exile or imprison any elected official (or person for that matter). Laughably Article 81 FORBIDS exile as a use of punishment since that article guarantees that every citizen has the right to exit and enter the country freely. Article 2 declares that usurping popular sovereignty and supplanting constituted powers are treason against the state. Seem to me that illegally removing the elected Head of State would violate that Article as well.

Even if I have misinterpreted this situation and President Zelaya was in some kind of gross misstep of the law, this does not in any way condone the midnight removal by the military under alleged urging of the Supreme Court of the Head of State and his exile and the subsequent cut of communications in the capital and the crackdown on journalists. This passes all the tests in my book of being a coup. It's also sad that Conservatives are immediately attacking Zelaya because he is allies with Chavez and obviously since Chavez seeks indefinite presidential reign therefore his allies must as well (Morales agreed he would not seek a way to be reelected for a third time in 2014 btw). I believe the Conservative factions of the Western Hemisphere are getting worried that now every Latin American Nation has a democratically elected leftist ruler (some 16 countries or more) except for I believe Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia.

I understand that's exactly what they did.


May I ask how, if at all, the Honduran constitution provides for impeachment, what conduct is impeachable, etc.? I tried to Google it, but found only a Spanish version of the document.

Welcome back, El-Diablo. Long time - no see.

No they did not declare the referendum results illegal because they abducted the President on the day of the referendum.

I can't find too much mention of impeachment in the Honduran Constitution (reading in Spanish, which I'm admittedly not fluent in). However I fail to see how these whole series of events by the military and Supreme Court didn't violate about 4-5 of the Articles of the Constitution (see previous post).

Gotcha. I hadn't paid attention to the word "results" in fbaezer's "referendum results". But what difference would that make? The Supreme Court had already declared the referendum illegal. Doesn't that mean the results are automatically illegal, too?

yeah the whole thing is a tad strange. I guess normally I would side with the Supreme Court of a country making the correct rulings, but when **** seems to hit the legally dubious fan under their watch as it has the past few days I start to question who is power of the Supreme Court and whether there hasn't been fierce politicization of their previous rulings. I haven't really any clue how their legal system works. Some of their Constitutional provisions seem so strange, that any elected official who proposes reforming Articles on presidential term limits is to be stripped of his power means to me that the Constitution can never be amended since the only people traditionally with power to do so are elected officials (a big wtf). Taking it further this could mean that even a Constituional Congress wouldn't be allowed to amend the Constitution. It's all kinda harsh and strangely planned out to me. I've spent the past year in Nicaragua, so I'm very aware of the shady legality that Latin American rulers and governments sometimes resort to, and I'm sure Zelaya is doing the same kind thing. That said he has nothing out of the ordinary wrong (for that region of the world), calling for referendums is like a national past time of modern Latin American rulers and truth be told it's not a terribly evil one at that, so I don't have too much problem with it. Certainly nothing Zelaya has done should warrant his (illegal by my interpretation) capture and exile.

good to see you again diablo...thought hurricane Wilma had blown you away

haha no I been living this place and that place the past year and haven't really kept up with the internet all that much. Spent the last 6 months in Managua and definitely would not say internet there is conducive to casual browsing.

I was listening yesterday to the spokesman of the Honduran Supreme Court and he was saying something about "Stone Articles" of their Constitution that cannot be amended, ever, and calling Zelaya "traitor to the Motherland" for trying to change them. I do not really know what they're about.

I used the word "impeachment". In several Latin American countries the term is "political trial". Every country has a legal way to get rid of a reckless President. They didn't go through legalities in Honduras. First they abduct him, sent him outside; then they press to "legalize" a fait accompli.

--

The ongoing joke here is:
"Why are the Americans so pissed off about the Honduras coup?"
"Because they didn't get to stage it".

I'll be honest with you H2O. At this point I can't really debate you on this matter. Fact is, I just don't understand the way the balance of power is set up in Honduras.

I tried reading their constitution, and got an instant headache. I'm guessing that you're against the US supporting the return of Zelaya and I think Hillary is withholding judgment too. The State Department issued a statement saying that they are waiting for developments and are not at this point calling the Honduran political upheaval a coup.

I'd be interested to hear how you found Nicaragua...that country has gone through some hell.

My understanding of it is that it is ambiguous as to impeachment.

it was quite a fascinating country. Very beautiful and very poor. I always feel that good governance is the best path towards a nations success and on my stay there I actually saw seeds of that. Ortega and the FSLN are a polarizing bunch inside and outside Nicaragua, but for all their sometimes dubious intentions for certain things, in my eyes at the end of the day they really do have the peoples interest at heart. In one episode a local NGO was trying to construct a public school on land that a pastor had given for its use. Secretly the pastor planned to take over the building after construction and use it as a private school to make money, but was found out. I was with the NGO when they went to the local FSLN government office to protest this and was pleasantly suprised by the decision they made. They ended up buying land nearby, as well as donating all the materials to the NGO and agreed to pay the local men in the community to help with construction. This kind of thing is happening throughout Managua and Nicaragua too. Sometimes the eccentricities and shadiness of the executive ruler obscures the good that his party and government have done or are doing. I have a feeling this is the case in Honduras as well.

thanks diablo-you know I envy you. I traveled a lot when I was in my twenties;even lived in different countries. I wish I could do it now

Here is the situation:

On the one hand we have Zelaya

On the other hand we have the Supreme Court, The Attorney General, The military, the unanimous Congress, and the new president who is a member of Zelaya's party.

At this point, I don't believe we can gauge the reaction of the Honduran people or its media.

Here is the Honduran constitution - unfortunately I cannot read Spanish well enough to rely on my translation, nor can I find an English translation

http://www.honduras.net/honduras_constitution2.html

The following is excerpted from a blog reprinted in the New Republic



http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2009/06/29/fetishizing-the-presidency.aspx

If the above citation of the Honduran constitution is accurate, then it would seem that its authors were very concerned about the Executive Branch overreaching its constitutional powers and doing just what Zelaya attempted to do.

The notion that Zelaya was simply attempting to gauge the population's interest in possibly amending the constitution is dubious at best.

While an argument can be made that the removal of Zelaya was too hasty and that other legal means should have been used to deal with his offences, it will be interesting in the weeks and months ahead if we can learn what the reasoning of the Supreme Court, the Congress and the Attorney General was for so quickly taking the action they took.

In any case we are certainly not dealing with a classical coup d’état by a military strongman determined to protect and extend his own corrupt interests.

I can find no mention of loss of citizenship anywhere in the Honduran constitution (search for "ciudadano" or "ciudadanía" and nothing surrounding losing either is mentioned). It says elected officials who violate this are to be relieved of their duties. However, as my previous post covers this aspect.

I have no doubt that Zelaya is probably a shady figure and may secretly want to run again. That being said even by his own poll and machinations, that WOULD NOT be possible. I refuse to believe that a popular survey in support of a Continental Congress which would then look into amending the constitution is in fact unconstitutional in and of itself. If that is the case then the Honduran constitution is a betrayal of its citizens.

On one hand we have Zelaya, a political turncoat who I fail to see could run again in November even by his own survey.

On the other we have the rest of the government including the Supreme Court who has urged the military (who is supposed to be under command of the president, but is also headed by a graduate of the School of Americas so it's not like ethics is a big deal to him) to abduct and illegally exile the President. Afterwards this same government cuts off communications and journalists and forges a resignation letter of Zelaya.

But some think Zelaya is the problem here. A man asking for a non-binding popular survey that Congress and the Supreme Court felt could violate the constitution (no ****, it was to call an assembly to amend it), is held in contempt and exiled.

This was not a coup by the military but, from what i can tell, by the Supreme Court and Congress who had grown fed up with the democratically elected President.