Obama Should Support Honduras Coup

John R. Thomson: What Happened Was Not A Standard Coup, And Zelaya's Return To Power Would Only Be A Victory For Chavez

(National Review Online)  Written by John R. Thomson.

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Beware the coup d’état. They often cause more problems than they solve and are never totally peaceful; indeed, they typically trigger bloodshed either during or after the event.

So what should be our view of Sunday’s ouster of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya? We should support it.

The automatic response condemning President Zelaya’s removal by many political leaders in the region reveals the appalling degree to which they have ceased defending democracy. As Roberto Micheletti, chosen by the Honduran Congress to complete Zelaya’s term, observed, “What was done here was a democratic act. Our constitution continues to be relevant, our democracy continues to live.”

This was not the usual whitewash coming from the usual coup leader. Interim president Micheletti was president of the Honduran Congress and is a member, as was Zelaya, of the ruling Liberal party. Micheletti, the Congress, and the Supreme Court are all committed to national elections scheduled for November 29. Those who know Roberto Micheletti confirm that he has no intention of staying in power beyond the end of the current presidential term.

As retired career diplomat George Landau - the former U.S. ambassador to Chile, Paraguay, and Venezuela - observes, “This was not a military coup. The military blocked an attempted civilian coup by Manuel Zelaya, as he defied Honduras’s Supreme Court, its Congress, and his own political party. Instead of calling for his reinstatement in office, we should congratulate the Honduran government on removing the president peacefully.

“So far, Washington and most of the world have missed what is happening in Tegucigalpa. This was a power play by Hugo Chávez and his ALBA colleagues. [‘ALBA’ is a leftist bloc led by Venezuela. Zelaya made Honduras a member in 2008.] We are faced with a battle between democracy and leftist autocrats who have manipulated themselves into permanent power in their countries and want to add Honduras to the list.”

What happened in Honduras was not a standard coup. The Supreme Court ordered the army to remove Zelaya from office. The Congress, albeit after his detention and exile, voted unanimously for his removal and confirmed his constitutionally mandated successor to fill the remainder of his term in office.

Prior to his exile, Zelaya had insisted on a referendum to allow for his reelection in direct violation of the Honduran constitution. In other words, he set out to perpetuate himself in office. Roger Noriega, a former Bush administration official and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, puts it clearly: “Zelaya brushed aside every other institution of the state in insisting on a referendum that would benefit his selfish interests.”

Shredding constitutional prohibitions to presidential reelection has become a popular political ploy in several Latin American countries in recent years. To date, leftist regimes in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela have scrapped constitutional presidential term limits, each time using extralegal ploys to do so. Most recently, Washington’s best friend in the region, Álvaro Uribe of Colombia, has sought a constitutional change to extend his presidency for a third term, but so far he is working within the law.

Supporters call such moves vital for their nation’s peace and well-being; opponents say they reflect presidential hubris and greed. Call the penchant to scrap presidential term limits what you will: The efforts have clearly negated each and every country’s constitution.

In the case of Honduras, President Zelaya stood alone among political, legal, economic, media, and military leaders. Backed by a noisy rabble and funded by Venezuela’s ever-meddling autocrat, Hugo Chávez, Zelaya’s campaign was seen as a way to reverse the defeat of the pro-Chávez candidate in Panama’s recent presidential election.

The ballots for Sunday’s suspended referendum were actually prepared in Venezuela. On Saturday, Zelaya made an abortive effort to storm and steal the ballots from the Honduran military base where they were stored.

President Obama’s statement that Manuel Zelaya “remains the president of Honduras” is his latest foreign-policy gaffe. So far, the U.S. position, reiterated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is largely the same as that of such governments as Argentina, Cuba, Ecuador, and Venezuela - none of them supporters of democracy and the rule of law.


It is unfortunately understandable that the Organization of American States (OAS) should roundly condemn Zelaya’s removal from office. Under the leadership of Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, the OAS has moved steadily toward embracing the autocratic Left. In its recent annual meeting, held (perhaps prophetically) in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, Insulza and Zelaya collaborated to end the organization’s suspension of Cuba, despite that country’s blatant disregard of basic OAS charter support for democracy and human rights.

That United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon should stand in support of Zelaya and call for an emergency meeting of the General Assembly underscores once again how feckless the world body has become.

Not one informed Honduran - including members of the media - has opposed Manuel Zelaya’s removal from office. While many regretted the need to do so, all said the move was both legal and necessary, a position supported by Honduran attorney general Luis Alberto Rubí, who had threatened to prosecute Zelaya if he actually held some form of referendum.

American John Park, the former Anglican archdeacon of Honduras and a resident of the Central American country for more than 17 years, summarized the situation succinctly: “What has happened can be called democracy in action. It was not a military coup, but just as a U.S. court may order the arrest of a citizen, the Honduran army acted on the orders of the Supreme Court to arrest a citizen who . . . was flouting the law and the constitution.”

Manuel Zelaya’s attempt to perpetuate himself in power was a naked bid to join the ranks of leftist Latin autocrats. Despite his claims to the contrary, he sought to undermine his country’s constitution in a manner made notorious by his mentor and financier Hugo Chávez. Just as cynical and hypocritical has been reaction of “world leaders,” most notably senior Obama administration figures.

From Caracas, Roberto Bottome, the founder of Veneconomia - which for 30 years has been the country’s leading economic, political, and social analytical group - observed, “The knee-jerkers who have called for Zelaya to be restored as president of Honduras could have taken the time to find out what was really happening. Perhaps, just perhaps, they might have reacted differently once they learned it was Zelaya who was violating his country’s law and the constitution while all Honduran institutions, including the Supreme Court and Congress, had acted in strict observance of those laws and that Constitution.

“Zelaya defied the laws and constitution of his country. He was barred by the constitution - and the Courts - from holding a referendum on any subject in the six months prior to an election. Even so, he pressed ahead with his proposal for a referendum on a constitutional convention that would have allowed him to succeed himself as president.”

Let’s hope that someone at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or the State Department will recognize that Manuel Zelaya’s return to office would be an endorsement of chicanery, not a victory for democracy, and that Zelaya’s reinstallation as president would be seen as a major victory for Chávez and his cohorts.

[Mercury73]

As many may recall the Deomcrats stopped Ronald Reagan from helping democracy in Latin America. They supported the communist. Ollie North did an (illegal) end round on the Dems. Eventually the people voted for freedom. Since they have voted in the communist. But they did get to VOTE.

[angelonieves]

Este mensaje te lo manda:angelo [[e-mail]]

Por favore Omar lo escucho todos los dias, io estoy muy de acuerdo con muchas cosas del Taliban. Bueno hoy he tratado de mandarle a Enrique y Joe pero sus correos me han sido devueltos. por favor si me lo envia se lo agradecere. Gracias y demoles a Hunduras su apoyo. Ayer aparecieron en las fotos de hunduras cubanos y nicaraguenses con una camiseta con El Che guevara. Que le parece. Y si se acuerdan que dijo que era christiano y con el crucifijo en sus manos, bueno Este novo senor quiere tratar la incredivilidad de ese pueblo. Apollemos a Hunduras., mio espanol no es muy bueno escolto a todos por su ayuda. angelo


Omar Moynelo - Con Luisa Fernanda en "El Arañazo"
Omar ahora con la bella Luisa Fernanda, en ?El Arañazo? todas las tardes de 4 a 7 pm por La Kalle 98.3.

[angelonieves]

We all hope Mrs. Cllinton, changes her opinion about Hunduras, I hope she will be able to understand really what was going on. I have never made a comment before and for over 50 years, but my father was in the intelengency before Castro got in the goverment, was a lot of data where showing the effort to take over of all south america. Today he has Chaves, who is the dicipule and have the money. Now they can take over aws what is really doing now. Mrs Cllinton we have to stop Chavez and they group. You must understand what really happened in Hunduras have been a motion against the cumunist in south america.
We ask Mrs. Clinton help to became a Democratic goverment in Hunduras, if you looks some of the pictures, cubans Nicaraguences and venezolanos are today in Hunduras to kill and made a caos so the new goverment been taking off. I can belive we are making the same mistakes as 50 years ago. Please Mrs. Cllinton if you willing to have a personal discusion I will be glad to do so. I pray to the Lord to support you and give you the power with our support to said NO to Zelaya. Zelaya comment as Fidel try to used the same filosofic of they are Christian, but we all know what is behiend. I hope some one can send you my comments and for you to made the right dicession. Sorry I am sick and I lost how to made better comments.
angelo

[piBen11]

Can you scare us any more than this? Castro, Chavez, Zelaya are coming to take over USA, lets get our guns and blow them out of the world. Nonesense!It must be a neo. Why can't you see that due process was not followed by the Hondurans who kicked Mr Zelaya out of office? Think, think people!!

[rocketjl]

I trust our institutions, even though we have a lot of self-serving nuts in office. My biggest concern is that some of my suspicions about President Obama are beginning to surface. Though he has done some borderline things since he got into office, this position makes me think that I really should not trust him, any of those he has put around him, nor any of the 'pie-in-the-sky' claims he makes.

[robrob791]

About as close as you can come. He better be thinking about a coup here.

[Aberantman]

The point here is... The Rule of Law did not prevail. If Zelaya broke the law, as the Honduran congress and courts say he did, the chief legal authority should have him arrested. Or the congress should impeach him. He should stand trial for his crimes in a court of law and the public provided with evidence of his crimes - and he with a vigorous defense.

Rather than arrest or impeachment, he was deposed and exiled... this is not a democratic process.

It is not a matter of guilt; nor if he is a good administrator or not; or if he is ?right wing? or ?left wing? politically. It is a question of due process - of which he was denied. That is the issue.

In a broader sense, Obama, and many other democratic governments are indeed obliged to object on these grounds alone. Left unchallenged, this type of behavior returns us to the hypocritical and deceitful practices of Viet Nam, Iran, the Cold War and Iraq. Wherein the overthrow or disposition of any leader that did not suit our national interests was seen as acceptable ? without regard to form of government ? democratic or otherwise.

[piBen11]

I concur totally. You are the only reasonably thoughtful one I have come accross

[beachbug1vw]

One of our own Democrats introduced a Bill in the House of Rep on Jan 29, 2009 to change our Constitution to end the two terms our own President can hold!
Don't worry, Obama and his Robots already have plans to follow the lead of Chavez!

[azure13]

To hell with Honduras. We need to worry about the U.S.A.

Some of you people on these boards seem to think that our president should run every country. You same people go on and on about having small government. Quite the oxymoron.

We need to concentrate on home.

[Ceres6]

I am sure you consider yourself the undisputable American Rambo in the new millennium. You wake up singing the National Anthem. Your pajama, jacket, jeans, shirt, eyeglasses, socks, shoes, and belt have the U.S. flag. And every few minutes, you say to yourself how a great American you are. After you exercise, it is amazing the incredible amount of patriotism coming out of every pore in your body. It is true, people like you will send millions of Honduran people to hell, and if they become slaves of the tyrant Hugo Chavez, it is not important.

[fred-mertz]

"Call the penchant to scrap presidential term limits what you will: The efforts have clearly negated each and every country?s constitution." -- Thomson

If scrapping term limits "negated each and every country's constitution", why the hell didn't Thomson object when Dubya illegally wiretapped every american citizen, squashed free speech by creating "free speech zones" (cages to prevent protesters from begin able to "peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"), lied to Congress and the People to get approval to launch an illegal war which killed almost 5,000 US soldiers, etc., etc. ?

[ffoulkes-2009]

Fred...You can't find a legitimate argument on the present situation, so you keep falling back on Bush. Bush is gone. Deal with the here and now. Here and now, Honduras did what needed done to protect their Constitution.

[fred-mertz]

"Call the penchant to scrap presidential term limits what you will: The efforts have clearly negated each and every country?s constitution." -- Thomson

If scrapping term limits "negated each and every country's constitution", why the hell didn't Thomson object when Dubya illegally wiretapped every american citizen, squashed free speech by creating "free speech zones" (cages to prevent protesters from begin able to "peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"), lied to Congress and the People to get approval to launch an illegal war which killed almost 5,000 US soldiers, etc., etc. ?

[beachbug1vw]

Obama still has protest free zones and if you don't believe it, just ask Congressman Lewis and the muslim congressman from Minnesota. They were arrested 2 months ago because they crossed out of their caged area in DC when protesting for Health Care for all Americans and ALL Illegals Immigrants and any criminal that can manage to sneak into our country!
And, Obama just announced they will continue the Wire Tap program and are meeting with AT&T to be the lead TeleCom company to do it!

[jschmidt27]

your old accusations are getting pretty tiresome. You have no evidence at all to support anything. And the Homeland Security and patriot act seems to have protected your --- very well the last 8 years. So you might want to get a new tune, such as something about Obama's war against business in the US, or his lackluster condemnation of Iran but his strong condemnation of the suppossed coup in Honduras. It seems he is supporting the wrong govts. Many of us are tired already of his appology tour, his big govt proposals that will bankrupt the US and his disregard for stockholders and bondholders as evidenced by the GM and Chrysler bankruptcy. So find another song, I don't have a violin that small.

[Ceres6]

Thirty years ago, President Jimmy Carter made some terrible decisions involving the countries of Nicaragua and Iran. For that reason, many Americans considered him a weak person, and decided to elect Ronald Reagan, a Republican. I hope today we don't have a similar situation. The position taken so far by the Obama Administration about the Honduran crises, is one of weakness. Not to support the brave actions of the Honduran people, which prevented the country to become a pawn of the tyrant Hugo Chavez, through the puppet of Manuel Zelaya, is just perplexing.

After 30 years, Americans are still paying the price of the decisions taken 30 years ago. If Honduras becomes a dictatorship, I have no doubt that what happened to Mr. Carter will also happen to Mr. Obama.

[USSAmerikan]

Obama could become the next Carter if he continues at this pace. Ignorance and adherence to leftist principles led Carter to support the overthrow of the Shah, the fall of Afghanistan (we are still paying with American blood for that on with American blood). In fact, one could argue the point that without Carter's weakness, we would not be dealing with the prospect of a nuclear Iran or with 9-11.

[TryTakingMyMoney]

Putting himself in their shoes, our liberal socialist messiah supports the leadership in Iran for stomping out a revolution for freedom, and he now stands arm and arm with Chavez protesting a "legal" overthrow of the Honduras leftist thug president. He supports everything opposite of what America was founded on. AMERICA! WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO WAKE UP!!!!!!

[rocketjl]

It is pretty clear that there is much more to this than those people are willing to tell the world.

On this matter and at this point President Obama does not speak for me.

[johninpennsyl]

Since when did Americans start worrying about the Honduran constitution?
Nobody in the goverment here gives a tin whistle about ours.

[wdh3007]

It sounds as if the Supreme Court and Military helped the rest of this nations people by freeing them from a marxist dictator who is in line with Chavez. It's hard to see the crime here especially if Zelaya himself was a criminal. This situation might be an exception to the rule for a poor country in having a peaceful & physical removal of a president with just means.

[bajajohn1]

When there is hunger in the land, people ususally make a left turn to seek help.

[andylance1]

Honduras is one of the poorest nations in the hemisphere, and yet their political leaders and institutions acted with courage and good intentions. The cabal of pro-Chavez nations have usurped democratic ideals and institutions in their own lands and in the case of Bolivia have split their nation in two.

The international community and media has seriously misjudged events in Honduras and have behaved like predatory jackals with crocodile tears.

[abbe91]

These are declassified documents which show why we have to be so proud of what we did for Chile.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8i.htm

[abbe91]

On 26 May 1973, Chile?s Supreme Court unanimously denounced the Allende régime?s disruption of the legality of the nation in its failure to uphold judicial decisions, because of its continual refusal to permit police execution of judicial resolutions contradicting the Government's measures.
On 22 August 1973 the Christian Democrats and the National Party members of the Chamber of Deputies voted 81 to 47, the resolution titled Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile?s Democracy that asked the military to put an immediate end to breach[es of] the Constitution . . . with the goal of redirecting government activity toward the path of Law and ensuring the Constitutional order of our Nation, and the essential underpinnings of democratic co-existence among Chileans.


There wasn't really a coup in Chile either and Nixon was definitively right to support it, ordering the CIA to depose President Allende ... in 1970.
Of course we know what happened next. A perfect democracy under Pinochet.

[bajajohn1]

Used to be called Gunboat Diplomacy. Now the world has changed and President Obama won election to a job that no sane person would want, if he really knew the extent of the mess on the table before he won that job.

[R_Casco]

Well said!

We, the people of Honduras feel abandoned by the international community! We have just acted to defend our laws, our freedom, our democracy. No coup has taken place here, but a lawful destitution of a corrupt megalomaniac who used socialism as a crutch to support his ultimate goal of staying in power indefinitely under strict compliance of Chavez's so-called socialist franchise!

Long Live Democracy, Long Live our Freedom, long Live the Rule of Law.... Long Live The Republic of Honduras!

[hondurancitizen]

It is very dissapointing for us hondurians who actually have lived all the injustice and excesses of our former president to see how the international community is reacting to what happened on sunday. i cannot say I like what happened on sunday, but it was necessarty, Zelaya's attitude took the country there, there was no other choice. If that wouldn't have happened, right now we would be another country under Chavez. We may be poor but we want our freedom. United Nations and OAS are all communists, leftparties lovers, that is the reason they are against our freedom, but is is very surpriding and dissappointing to see how Obama and american government are reacting to this, they seem to be other Chavez lovers and do not support democracy. President Obama, I was a fan of you but not anymore, if you cannot see that this was for our freedom, then you can run to your dear friend Chavez, you rforeign policy is totally confused and it seems you are not capable.

[noloyalisti]

It turns out it the right wing military and the big corporations who they support who are against our freedoms. How else would you explain the imperialistic and racist wars of the United States all over the world. The US stands for anti-democratic ideals by supporting wars for big business. No where else is this more apparent than Central America.

[ffoulkes-2009]

Noloyalisti, so move if you don't like the US. And if you already have moved, shut the heII up as you have no voice here.

[beachbug1vw]

Most Freedom Loving Americans are with you! Don't worry about our Democrats here in the US who are against you (Obama and his robots), they will not be in power after Jan 2013. As a Democrat all my life, I willl never be fooled again by these Socialists who are on the FAR LEFT!! Every Democrat I know feels exactly the same!
We are a right center country with most clear thinking Democrats saying they are somewhat conservative!
Obama LIED and he will never get re-elected!

[piBen11]

hondurancitizen:
In my opinion you are very unreasonable or undemocratic in your views. You talk about your freedom, but fail to respect the rights of Mr Zelaya, the democratically elected president of your country-Honduras. By Mr Obama, the democratic way of removing Mr Zelaya is though proper impeachment process, which gives him the opportunity to defend himself by the Honduran congress or senate. Taking or forcing him out early in the morning by the military on the orders of the Supreme Court is not the proper process. At least, here in the USA, the Supreme Court could not give such an order, it would be illegal. Only Congress can sack or impeach the president if found wanton. So, I wish you could be reasonable to see that Mr Obama only wants things to be done properly and democratically. Mr Obama seems to be agreeing with Mr Chavez because, in this case Mr Chavez is right - Mr Zelaya was forced out undemocratically, without due process.