The nations of the world, following the leads of President Obama and the OAS, are working to isolate the coup leaders in Honduras and to get elected Honduran president Manuel Zelaya restored to office:
Two senior Obama administration officials told reporters that U.S. diplomats had warned in recent days against a coup, but that Honduran military leaders stopped taking their calls. They said the administration is now working to ensure Zelaya’s safe return."
I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter," Obama said in a statement.
For those conditions to be met, Zelaya must be returned to power, U.S. officials said.
Now, what was that about Obama not opposing the coup?
But wait, there’s more:
The president of Latin America’s largest nation, Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, said on his weekly radio program that his country will not recognize any Honduran government that doesn’t have Zelaya as president "because he was directly elected by the vote, complying with the rules of democracy."
[...]
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Rio Group, which comprises 23 nations from the hemisphere, also condemned the coup and called for Zelaya’s return.
By the way: Reuters managed to correctly identify the vote as non-binding (even as their story’s headline tried to imply that only lefties are in the OAS, as well as implying that their opinions don’t count):
The coup followed a week of tension when Zelaya, a Chavez ally who took office in 2006, angered the Honduran Congress, Supreme Courtand army by pushing for a public vote to gauge support for changing the constitution to let presidents seek re-election beyond a single four-year term.
In previous English-language accounts, the public vote — which Zelaya said all along was a non-binding vote — was depicted as an actual vote or referendum to change the Constitution.
If Zelaya’s so horribly unpopular, as the US news accounts imply, then why did his political foes need to launch their coup to thwart the holding of a non-binding vote? Why not let the vote happen and show the world that everyone hates Zelaya’s guts?
Answer: Because, of course, it’s simply not true that everyone in Honduras hates Zelaya’s guts. If they did, there would be big parades and the coup plotters would be broadcasting pics of smiling happy Hondurans to the world. Instead, they’re going Full Metal Khameinei and shutting down not just the phone lines, but even the electrictity, so that it’s difficult for Hondurans to tell the outside world what’s happening — and the few pictures that are getting through are not showing smiling and happy Hondurans.
An indication of just how difficult it’s been to get the word out has been the conflicting reports concerning Honduran congressman and Zelaya ally Cesar Ham. He was originally reported to have been killed by pro-coup forces, but now indications are that he is still alive, albeit in hiding from the coup forces.





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Didn’t the legislature and the courts both say that the referendum was unconstitutional? Doesn’t the Honduran Constitution have a provision for amendment?
Thanks for the clarifications. I found the news stories very confusing. It is all very murky. I hope the FDL legal team can explain the Honduran legal and constitutional issues to us.
Even if the nonbinding referendum that Zelaya was attempting to hold were illegal, it is difficult to see how a coup and exile would be anything near the best way to preserve the rule of law and the constituional order (I guess, if it were not the the various ideological camps trying to game public perceptions, we could insert the phrase “Well, Duh” right here).
I am wondering exactly how “illegal” this nonbinding referendum was.
FDL would be a very appropriate site to really do the best and most accurate legal analysis (or at least find it for us and post the links)!
I don’t know the specifics of Honduran law. But, given the country’s recent history and the curious political role that the constitution seems to grant the army, I suspect that the army may well have written the constitution itself, selected the justices, and provided at least some of the legislators. No doubt a weak, one-term civilian executive is a good thing if you are nervous about the popular vote and its effect on an army’s freedom of action and an oligarchy’s hold on the economy.
And what real constitution makes a violent military coup the standard way of resolving differences between branches of government?
The idea that a coup was needed to avert an unconstitutional referendum wouldn’t make much sense even if the president had indeed claimed it was binding. In that case, the president would have claimed the right to run again, the supreme court would have denied it to him, and his term would run out.
So clearly the army just did not want what amounted to a massive exercise of free speech and a petition for redress.
The possibility of Hondurans having a voice in government was what the military opposed. That was what the referendum was supposed to be about, viz., a sea change in political involvement against the standards currently set there and historically upheld by the U.S.
Regarding the statements from the Obama admin:
A military coup surely wasn’t needed, but the Honduran supreme court declared the referendum illegal, the Honduran legislature voted against it, and the president ordered the military to set it up anyway.
That doesn’t much feel like democracy either.
excellent catch and thanks for the link. actions speak.
just a quick drive by, but recommend also this post from jeremy scahill: A Few Thoughts on the Coup in Honduras
Great there goes any Cred Obama might have had in South America unless the Coup goes South on its own.
Help! What ”military activities”?
”US suspends military activities with Honduras: Pentagon”
”The United States has suspended all military activities with Honduras until further notice, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday, days after President Manuel Zelaya was deposed in a coup.
’”We’ve postponed any activities in Honduras right now while we are assessing the situation,” Bryan Whitman told reporters, adding that he was referring to relations between the armed forces of both countries.”
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/U…..12009.html