The military coup that overthrew Honduras' elected president Manuel Zelaya brought unanimous international condemnation. But some country's responses have been more reluctant than others, and Washington's ambivalence has begun to raise suspicions about what the U.S. government is really trying to accomplish in this situation.
The first statement from the White House in response to the coup was weak and non-committal. It did not denounce the coup but rather called upon "all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter."
This contrasted with statements from other presidents in the hemisphere, such as Lula da Silva of Brazil and President Cristina Fernandez of Argentina, who denounced the coup and called for the re-instatement of President Zelaya. The European Union issued a similar, less ambiguous, and more immediate response.
Later in the day, as the response of other nations became clear, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a stronger statement, that condemned the coup - without calling it a coup. But it still didn't say anything about Zelaya returning to the presidency.
The Organization of American States, the Rio Group (most of Latin America), and the United Nations General Assembly have all called for the "immediate and unconditional return" of President Zelaya.
The strong stances from the South brought statements from anonymous State Department officials that were more supportive of President Zelaya's return. And by Monday afternoon President Obama finally said, "We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras . . ."
But at a press conference later on Monday, Secretary of State Clinton was asked if "restoring the constitutional order" in Honduras meant returning Zelaya himself. She would not say yes.
Why such reluctance to openly call for the immediate and unconditional return of an elected president, as the rest of the hemisphere and the United Nations has done? One obvious possibility is that Washington does not share these goals. The coup leaders have no international support but they could still succeed by running out the clock - Zelaya has less than six months left in his term. Will the Obama administration support sanctions against the coup government in order to prevent this? The neighboring governments of Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador have already fired a warning shot by announcing a 48-hour cut-off of trade.
By contrast, one reason for Hillary Clinton's reluctance to call the coup a coup is because the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act prohibits funds going to governments where the head of state has been deposed by a military coup.
Unconditional is also a key word here: the Administration may want to extract concessions from Zelaya as part of a deal for his return to office. But this is not how democracy works. If Zelaya wants to negotiate a settlement with his political opponents after he returns, that is another story. But nobody has the right to extract political concession from him in exile, over the barrel of a gun.
There is no excuse for this coup. A constitutional crisis came to a head when President Zelaya ordered the military to distribute materials for a non-binding referendum to be held last Sunday. The referendum asked citizens to vote on whether they were in favor of including a proposal for a constituent assembly, to redraft the constitution, on the November ballot. The head of the military, General Romeo Vasquez refused to carry out the President's orders. The president, as commander-in-chief of the military, then fired Vasquez, whereupon the Defense Minister resigned. The Supreme Court subsequently ruled that the president's firing of Vasquez was illegal, and the majority of the Congress has gone against President Zelaya.
Supporters of the coup argue that the president violated the law by attempting to go ahead with the referendum after the Supreme Court ruled against it. This is a legal question; it may be true, or it may be that the Supreme Court had no legal basis for its ruling. But it is irrelevant to the what has happened: the military is not the arbiter of a constitutional dispute between the various branches of government. This is especially true in this case, in that the proposed referendum was a non-binding and merely consultative plebiscite. It would not have changed any law nor affected the structure of power; it was merely a poll of the electorate.
Therefore, the military cannot claim that it acted to prevent any irreparable harm. This is a military coup carried out for political purposes.
There are other issues where our government has been oddly silent. Reports of political repression, the closing of TV and radio stations, the detention of journalists, detention and physical abuse of diplomats, and what the Committee to Protect Journalists has called a "media blackout" have yet to draw a serious rebuke from Washington. By controlling information and repressing dissent, the Honduran de facto government is also setting the stage for unfair elections in November.
Many press reports have contrasted the Obama administration's rejection of the Honduran coup with the Bush administration's initial support for the 2002 military coup that briefly overthrew President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. But actually there are more similarities than differences between the U.S. response to these two events. Within a day, the Bush administration reversed its official position on the Venezuelan coup, because the rest of the hemisphere had announced that it would not recognize the coup government. Similarly, in this case, the Obama administration is following the rest of the hemisphere, trying not to be the odd man out but at the same time not really sharing their commitment to democracy.
It was not until some months after the Venezuelan coup that the State Department admitted that it had given financial and other support "to individuals and organizations understood to be actively involved in the brief ouster of the Chavez government."
In the Honduran coup, the Obama administration claims that it tried to discourage the Honduran military from taking this action. It would be interesting to know what these discussions were like. Did administration officials say, "You know that we will have to say that we are against such a move if you do it, because everyone else will?" Or was it more like, "Don't do it, because we will do everything in our power to reverse any such coup."? The administration's actions since the coup indicate something more like the former, if not worse.
The battle between Zelaya and his opponents pits a reform president who is supported by labor unions and social organizations against a mafia-like, drug-ridden, corrupt political elite who is accustomed to choosing not only the Supreme Court and the Congress, but also the president. It is a recurrent story in Latin America, and the United States has almost always sided with the elites. In this case, Washington has a very close relationship with the Honduran military, which goes back decades. During the 1980's, the U.S. used bases in Honduras to train and arm the Contras, Nicaraguan paramilitaries who became known for their atrocities in their war against the Sandinista government in neighboring Nicaragua.
The hemisphere has changed substantially since the Venezuelan coup in April of 2002, with 11 more left governments having been elected. A whole set of norms, institutions, and power relations between South and North in the hemisphere have been altered. The Obama administration today faces neighbors that are much more united and much less willing to compromise on fundamental questions of democracy. So Secretary of State Clinton will probably not have that much room to maneuver. Still, the administration's ambivalence will be noticed in Honduras and can very likely encourage the de facto government there to try and hang on to power. That could be very damaging.
This column was published by The Guardian Unlimited on July 1, 2009.
Democracy is a vote. it is transitory in nature. What follows it is *not* democracy if it doesn't follow both the will of the people *and* the law. Zelaya was losing the support of the people and was flaunting the law. This is not democracy, nor is forcing Zelaya back into office against the will of the Honduran congress and supreme court.
If this is *really* about democracy, then the socialist 'pro-democracy' group should pressure the Hondurans to have a referendum on whether to put Zelaya back in power for his final months. FINAL months. Per the constitution. I don't see the point, since the so-called 'coup' was a legal action to *preserve* democracy for November, rather than see it slip away as in Venezuela.
http://www.radiolaprimerisima.com/noticias/general/56179
Those who lived through the dirty war of the 1980's in Central
America will feel the blood freezing in their veins to hear the news
that the "ministerial advisor" to the coup president is named Billy
Joya Amendola.
Examining the "work history" of Joya Amendola is indispensable to
understanding the political culture of the coup junta led by Roberto
Micheletti.
During the 1980's Billy Joya Amendola was one of the principal
leaders of Military Intelligence Battalion 3-36, in charge of the
kidnapping and disappearance of opposition politicians, and founder
of the death squads "Lince" and "Cobra". While in charge of this
task he became one of the principal figures involved in kidnappings,
tortures, and assassinations in Honduras, and he was accused of
participating personally in at least eleven
executions under the pseudonym of "Doctor Arranzol". Also, he was
accused of the kidnapping and torture of six students.
There is evidence that he worked in
Argentina under the orders of one of the principal oppressors there,
Guillermo Suarez Mason, known among other things for being the
principal organizer of the kidnapping of children during the last
dictatorship.
Later, from 1984 until 1991, he served as a go-between for the
honduran army, argentine oppressors, and the gringos during the dirty
war.
Today he is the right hand man of Roberto Micheletti.
(Any errors in translation are mine. Greg McDonald)
In a perfect world, it would be unnecessary for these leaders to take unlawful or unconstitutional measures, but how else to ensure that true progress can occur? How else to prevent that, in the next election, a millionaire land owner with business connections and backing from international investors seeking to exploit the country and its people will not pay his way victory and undo the necessary social-minded changes that these visionary leaders are fighting tooth and nail to enact?
Zelaya, Chavez, et al. are far from perfect, and I do not agree with every single one of the steps they have taken or the policies they have pursued. But they are paragons of justice compared to many of the right-wing dictators and pseudo-dictators that preceded them, who thought nothing of making thousands of people disappear for the slightest dissent. I most certainly hope that none of these countries return to those days, and if a few laws and constitutions must be trampled to ensure the greater good, so be it.
Obama is definitely no idealist, but a realist, and I doubt very much if he has any notions that America has some kind of special mission to spread democracy and free enterprise all over the world. He is also far more concerned about our domestic economic problems that foreign affairs,which is easy to understand given that the whole system may yet crash completely.
Of course no one trusts the US in Latin America, unless they are completely naive and know nothing of our history there. I do think this government may yet turn out to be different from most, even though its beginnings Democracy has always been weak in most countries there for lack of a middle class to support it, corruption and poverty are rampant, and there is always a danger of dictatorship from the left or right--usually both. Because of this depression, we can expect to see more dicatorships of various kinds all over the world, as democracy in many countries is going to prove too weak to weather the crisis,
America's government (not most of it's people) care nothing about democracy - they only care about dominance. They'll back any totalitarian regime that allows them to maintain their dominance, destabilize any country for access to their natural resources and find a way to dispose of any leader who doesn't toe the line.
J
It had plenty of legal basis for the ruling. The Honduran constitution is quite clear on this. And it is NOT irrelevant.
By his actions, Mr. Zelaya is in danger of being stripped not only of his presidency, but of his Honduran citizenship. Their Constitution also states that calling for a change to allow for the re-election of the President is enough basis to take away citizenship.
What probably made the coupsters jump the gun was the fact that a decree was ready to be published after the aborted referendum took place to dissolve Congress and Convene a consituent assembly to modify the constitution. These assemblies can only be called by a 2/3 majority in Congress, and not by the president. What is obvious is that Zelaya wanted to apply the Chavez playbook. What is also obvious, is that they were having none of that.
So while they showed poor form in the way they got rid of Zelaya, they most likey feel they chose the lesser of two evils by getting him out of the country before he copuld decree any more authoritarian idiocies.
As the President in Honduras was ousted for trying to change the constitution so he could become a dictator like Chavez, Obama immediately meddles in their affairs calling it a coup.
Reality is that the congress and the supreme court the two checks on the presidents power in a true democracy defended the constitution and ousted the dictator. Again Obama chooses the side of the dictator and not the side of the people while stating that America must again apologize for the sins of her past. I am getting sick of hearing how bad America is or has been and if its bad now, well look who controls congress and the white house.
Roberto Micheletti, de facto president, is of the same liberal party and house speaker who already says he will not run for president in the coming election, hardly the defintion of junta imposed coup. Zelaya's "nonbinding" referendum was entirely unconsitutional even saying such a referendum should strip the proponent of cease their public office (Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution) and the same constitution gives the legislature no ability to impeach the president thus the military acted on behalf of the legislature and judiciary as a Honduran version of checks and balances. Furthermore, Zelaya had an approval rating of around 25% as of April 2009 according a Mitozsky opinion poll . Zelaya has no political capital to run the country and has been masterful in courting international favor onto his angle of the situation.
The situation isn't perfect and Obama should not take decisive action as seen with Iran. Diplomacy works best in gray areas we need not revert to Bush's diplomatic playbook of alienation through decisiveness particulary in these times.
Obama proves to the world we are here to stand for your common good but not for uncommon opportunists.. .
Obama proves to the world we are here to stand for your common goods but not for uncommon opportunists.. .