Military Coup Against Democratically Elected President of Honduras

It appears, looking at the actual facts here, there was a coup by the President, followed by a coup to overthrow him.

Initially, the President disregarded orders by both the Supreme Court and Congress, and took control of the military to force a referendum that wasn't legal. When the military refused to cooperate with the illegal order, he fired the leadership there and found leaders that would. Coup #1.

Then, the military (acting under orders from the Supreme Court? that seems unclear at this point) performed their own coup throwing out the President, and then installing the person who's next in line in succession into that position. Coup #2.

I find it amusing that some people here are ardently against Coup #2 but seem to have no problem with Coup #1.

 

Perhaps it's because one "coup" was an attempt to align the governing prinicples of Hondurus with the will of the people, while the other removed by force a leader duly elected by the people.

 

Overriding the rule of law and constitution of the nation because it's the will of the people? That makes it OK?

 

Wait - what exactly was the will of the people? Congress is elected by the people, you know.

 

No problem. I'm glad you figured it out.

 

I spent 2 weeks in Honduras on a Humanitarian mission with the Episcopal Church back in 94. Coups are as common in Honduras as Bananna Plantations, highway bandits and crushing poverty. When we went to a small town in the northern part of the country, Corinto, to finish a free clininc and bring supplies, we crossed British Expiditionary Force temporary bridges that were built in 1948! I hope that whomever is now in charge, be it a military cabal or a diposed president, can reach out for more international aid.
The poorest parts of Mexico, which I have volunteered in as well, look like Club Med compared to the slums of Honduras. Honduranos are some of the most beautiful people I have ever had the pleasure to meet, inside and out. We should all hope/pray/act that this country can even begin to recover.

 

The referrendum was to ask whether the constitution serves the people in the first place. And if it didn't, the Hunduran people are supposed to just suck it up in favor of some abstract notion of "the rule of law"?

And what role does the military play in all of this? Do they get to pick and choose which branches of government they take orders from? What is their agenda if they're willing to depose a democratically elected president?

And, Major, what of the legistlature? What do they have to gain by fabricating a false resignation letter and supporting a, by all accounts, illegitimate replacement to Zelaya?

The Honduran constitution is not the same as the US Constitution. It was written at a time where US intervention into Latin American politics was reaching a zenith. It very well may not be appropriate today, when many Latin American nations are seeking to become more autonomous, despite enourmous resistance from entrenched oligarchic interests and their US backers.

 

If the people don't like the Constitution, they can vote in new lawmakers (ie, Congress) to initiate a process of making amendments. Again, odd that you seem to support one illegal coup but not the other.

 

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0702/p09s03-coop.html

As stated before, I'm not an expert or even a neophyte with respect to Honduras but this is the best explanation I've read for the case that President Zelaya violated the Constitution and that his removal was legal:

[rquoter]
Under our Constitution, what happened in Honduras this past Sunday? Soldiers arrested and sent out of the country a Honduran citizen who, the day before, through his own actions had stripped himself of the presidency.

These are the facts: On June 26, President Zelaya issued a decree ordering all government employees to take part in the "Public Opinion Poll to convene a National Constitutional Assembly." In doing so, Zelaya triggered a constitutional provision that automatically removed him from office.

Constitutional assemblies are convened to write new constitutions. When Zelaya published that decree to initiate an "opinion poll" about the possibility of convening a national assembly, he contravened the unchangeable articles of the Constitution that deal with the prohibition of reelecting a president and of extending his term. His actions showed intent.

Our Constitution takes such intent seriously. According to Article 239: "No citizen who has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President. Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform [emphasis added], as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years."

Notice that the article speaks about intent and that it also says "immediately" – as in "instant," as in "no trial required," as in "no impeachment needed."

Continuismo – the tendency of heads of state to extend their rule indefinitely – has been the lifeblood of Latin America's authoritarian tradition. The Constitution's provision of instant sanction might sound draconian, but every Latin American democrat knows how much of a threat to our fragile democracies continuismo presents. In Latin America, chiefs of state have often been above the law. The instant sanction of the supreme law has successfully prevented the possibility of a new Honduran continuismo.

The Supreme Court and the attorney general ordered Zelaya's arrest for disobeying several court orders compelling him to obey the Constitution. He was detained and taken to Costa Rica. Why? Congress needed time to convene and remove him from office. With him inside the country that would have been impossible. This decision was taken by the 123 (of the 128) members of Congress present that day.

[/rquoter]

 

There is certainly no clear evidence that the president did not have the power to hold a referendum or evidence that he could not fire an army chief. There is no clear evidence that the S. Ct. had the power to forbid the president from doing either. Extrapolating from our law is not convincing.

To arbitrarily define the president's actions as a coup, when Obama and apparently most if not all of the Latin American and many European leaders do not see it that way is peculiar.

 

That's why there is a thing called politics.
people are divided by groups.......that's the only consistency in politics.

The same person will support coup number one and will condemn coup number two. It depends on which group gets the advantage, noting related with law, democracy, people's will, God's will, mom's will ..... all those are **** and tools.

 

I've been coming around as things get a fuller explanation. It doesn't seem like either group has done a good job of staying legit in the process. And, there's obviously a large dose of realpoliticking here. But still, it sounds like the president was getting into some stuff he shouldn't have and the rest of the government didn't have an effective way to reign him in without getting a little unseemly.

 

You're treating this situation as if it were in the context of US politics, where we have a stable, longstanding constitution in place. The Honduran constitution is less than 30 years old and provides structural protection for the wealthy elite's political interests.

By framing the situation as being between two equivalent, extra-legal actors, you gloss over the class struggles that underlie the constitutional crisis. You're confusing symptoms with disease.

 

This is an attempt at subtle irony, right? This article shows precicely why using the rule of law as a standard to evaluate the justification of the actors in this situation is completely inappropriate. There is no rule of law if there is no due process.

 

How would this referendum have helped the people of Honduras? Giving one person control of a country indefinitely is a strange way to run a country for the sake of the people IMHO.

 

Imagine that the President of the USA decided to violate the constitution - say he wanted to suspend the first amendment - and the Supreme Court ordered him not to it? And then imagine that he went ahead anyway and planed to violate the orders of the Supreme Court and over the express objection of congress. Then say he went ahead and did something of an unconstitutional equivalent to what Zelaya tried to do when he tried to fire the head of the army - say he tried to fire a Supreme Court justice. What would happen then?

I would hope that at the very least the President would at least be arrested. Probably in the USA he would get a trial and be impeached. I guess perhaps this is where the biggest problem with the handling of Zelaya lies. But it appears that if he really wants to force the issue and have a trial, he will be able to do so if he returns to Honduras. Perhaps this would be the best option all around - Zelaya returns to Honduras, is impeached, and thrown in jail. Then the "rule of law" would have been followed, right? In the impeachment that they did hold without him present, the outcome was basically unanimous. I'm going to imagine that having him present to try and defend himself won't alter the outcome to that large a degree.

 

Fine - then let's not make them equivalent actors. If anything, a legislature is almost always going to be overall more representative of the people as a whole than a single executive. In this case, the legislature considered the President's actions illegal (as did everyone else involved - the Supreme Court, the Attorney General, etc)

The two actors in this weren't equivalent. The President was acting on his own vs the rest of the country's legal bodies, including the publicly elected legislature. If the people really wanted this change, you'd think they'd have elected public officials that saw things the same way - but they clearly didn't.

So the question is - what evidence is there that the President's illegal actions were done with the support of the people?

 

I agree. It is certainly only the oligarchy/conservatives that see the referendum that way.

 

I'm neither elite nor wealthy yet. Given the choice between a tin-pot socialist regime and the wealthy elite, however, I'm going with the wealthy elite. At least there is a *chance* to get ahead instead of no one ever getting ahead. Lesser of the two evils in my opinion.