Thoughts on Honduras
All of the facts that can be gleaned through the news media indicate that the OAS (Organization of American States) is acting irresponsibly. They have called the ousting of former Honduran President Zelaya a “military coup” when the facts clearly indicate that the Honduran Supreme Court ordered the military to remove Zelaya after he insisted on pushing for a referendum that could have removed the current one-term limit for the presidency and allowed him to run for reelection.
Excerpts from a BBC background article on the situation in Honduras:
“Mr Zelaya planned to hold a non-binding public consultation on 28 June to ask people whether they supported moves to change the constitution.
This would in practice have meant holding a referendum at the same time as November’s presidential election on setting up a body charged with redrawing the constitution.
Mr Zelaya’s critics said the move was aimed at removing the current one-term limit on serving as president, and paving the way for his possible re-election.
The consultation was ruled illegal by the Supreme Court and Congress, and was opposed by the army.
“. . . tension had been brewing in Honduras over recent months. Mr Zelaya sacked the head of the armed forces, who refused to give logistical support for the 28 June vote. The Supreme Court overruled him, saying the army chief should be reinstated.
When Mr Zelaya insisted the referendum would go ahead, Congress voted to remove him for what it called “repeated violations of the constitution and the law”, and the Supreme Court said it had ordered the president to be removed from office to protect law and order.
“. . . Mr Zelaya, who came to office in 2006, had been moving the country steadily leftwards, enjoying the support of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other left-wing leaders in the region.
This appears to have alarmed certain sectors in Honduras, who decried his plans for constitutional change as an attempt to stay in power.
For his part, Mr Zelaya argued that the consultation on Sunday would merely have been a survey: a canvassing of public opinion, not a legally-binding election. He told the BBC that legal disputes and political differences were no excuse for staging a coup.
So we have the Honduran Congress, the Honduran Military and the Honduran Supreme Court in one corner — doing what they felt was the right thing for the country — and in the opposite corner we have the OAS, Latin American dictators and almost all the other mostly socialist countries in the world, including our own socialist-leaning president Barack Obama, insisting that the Congress and the Supreme Court of a sovereign country were wrong and should bend to their will.
Something about the whole thing stinks. Perhaps it’s Zelaya’s politics!
Read this BBC profile of Zelaya and you’ll see what I mean; here are just a couple excerpts:
“Despite his centre-right credentials, the former businessman moved Honduras away from its traditional ally the US, winning the support of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other leftist leaders.
Mr Zelaya campaigned for office on a law and order ticket but, Reuters news agency reports, it remains a major drug-trafficking transit point, overrun by street gangs and violent crime.
. . .
“He pledged to tackle gang warfare and poverty in one of Central America’s poorest nations.
But food prices rose and violent crime continued.
Publicly backed by such leftists as Mr Chavez, Bolivian President Evo Morales and former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Mr Zelaya began to lose the support of his own party.
In May 2007, Mr Zelaya ordered all of the country’s TV and radio stations to carry government propaganda for two hours a day, accusing them of giving his government unfair coverage. “
A plague of unkept promises, a burgeoning relationship with dictators and then a typical leftist move to stay in power after he would have been removed by the country’s Constitution.
I do believe the current Honduran Government did the right thing.
3 users commented in " Thoughts on Honduras "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackOur media has sided with Chevez, Castro, Ortega, and the socislist Obama, I beg you Americans, rise up against these brutes, or we are doomed. Stand up for freedom for Iranians, Hondurans, Venesulians, Iraqi’s, and all freedom loving people worldwide.
BREAKING NEWS
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.
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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.
Why was the supreme court and Congress so opposed to a non-binding opinion poll? No quotes of the wording of the poll that I can find refer in any way to removing the limit on presidential terms, supposedly the offending intention of Zelaya. So what was it that they objected to so much? The democratic will of the majority of the population?
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