http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miam…y/1126603.html

Quote:
In an interview with The Miami Herald and El Salvador’s elfaro digital news site, army attorney Col. Herberth Bayardo Inestroza acknowledged that top military brass made the call to forcibly remove Zelaya — and they broke laws when they did it.

It was the first time any participant in Sunday’s overthrow admitted committing an offense and the first time a Honduran authority revealed who made the decision that has been denounced worldwide.

`THERE WAS A CRIME’

”We know there was a crime there,” said Inestroza, the top legal advisor for the Honduran armed forces. “In the moment that we took him out of the country, in the way that he was taken out, there is a crime. Because of the circumstances of the moment this crime occurred, there is going to be a justification and cause for acquittal that will protect us.”

Zelaya was ousted in a predawn raid at his home Sunday after he vowed to defy a court order that ruled a nonbinding referendum to be held that day was illegal. The wealthy leftist rancher had clashed with the attorney general, the Supreme Court, Congress and the military he commanded.

But instead of being taken to court to stand trial for abuse of power and treason, the military swept him out of bed at gunpoint and forced him into exile.

Inestroza described weeks of mounting pressure, in which a president allied with Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez used soldiers as ”political tools.” The attorney general’s office had ordered Zelaya’s arrest, and the Supreme Court, Inestroza said, ordered the armed forces to carry it out.

So when the powers of state united in demanding his ouster, the military put a pajama-clad Zelaya on a plane and sent him to Costa Rica. The rationale: Had Zelaya been jailed, throngs of loyal followers would have erupted into chaos and demanded his release with violence, Inestroza said.

”What was more beneficial, remove this gentleman from Honduras or present him to prosecutors and have a mob assault and burn and destroy and for us to have to shoot?” he said. “If we had left him here, right now we would be burying a pile of people.”

This week, Deputy Attorney General Roy David Urtecho told reporters that he launched an investigation into why Zelaya was removed by force instead of taken to court.

Article 24 of Honduras’ penal code will exonerate the joint chiefs of staff who made the decision because it allows for making tough decisions based on the good of the state, Inestroza said.
I have great sympathy for how difficult a decision this was, but when a Central American military willfully acts unconstitutionally (and against international law) by dumping a problem on their neighbor to punish unconstitutional acts it is a sure fire way to bring international criticism.

END QUOTE

I completely support the constitutional removal of Zelaya from office. However, It appears the Supreme Court expected him to be arrested and the military made the call on their own to exile him. It was the military acting on it’s own to dump Zelaya in his pajamas in neutral Costa Rica that necessitated international action. If they had simply kept this within their own borders all this drama could have been avoided.

The AG is now investigating why the military acted on it’s own because forced exile is against Honduran and international law.