Libre, Soberana E Independiente
Honduras’s military acted under judicial orders in deposing President Manuel Zelaya, Supreme Court Justice Rosalinda Cruz said, rejecting the view of President Barack Obama and other leaders that he was toppled in a coup.
“The only thing the armed forces did was carry out an arrest order,” Cruz, 55, said in a telephone interview from the capital, Tegucigalpa. “There’s no doubt he was preparing his own coup by conspiring to shut down the congress and courts.”
Cruz said the court issued a sealed arrest order for Zelaya on June 26, charging him with treason and abuse of power, among other offenses. Zelaya had repeatedly breached the constitution by pushing ahead with a vote about rewriting the nation’s charter that the court ruled illegal, and which opponents contend would have paved the way for a prohibited second term. ~Bloomberg
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. ~Octavio Sanchez
I would like to think that these reports would make advocates for Zelaya’s reinstatement think again, but whenever the magic word of democracy is invoked it seems as if even those who are otherwise the most skeptical, critical thinkers become like groupies cheering for their favorite musician. Crucially, there has been a stunning absence of Honduran voices condemning the actions of the military and the transitional government. I don’t rule out that there are many Hondurans who oppose Zelaya’s deposition, but it is getting harder and harder to credit that the Honduran military acted without orders from duly constituted legal authorities. The way Honduras is being treated by the rest of the world is a disgrace, and neither U.S. interests nor regional stability is being served by the isolation of Tegucigalpa.
More from Bloomberg:
Cruz acknowledged that the interim government faced a “very difficult” task trying to sway the U.S. and other countries to recognize its authority.
“But as a sovereign and independent nation, we have the right to freely decide to remove a president who was violating our laws,” she said. “Unfortunately our voice hasn’t been heard.”
Honduras is learning the bitter lesson that so many small nations have learned in the last twenty years and in the century before that: small nations are never really sovereign and independent if some grander scheme requires them to be trampled on. It is shameful that Washington is participating to the extent that is in the mistreatment of Honduras.
7 Responses to “Libre, Soberana E Independiente”
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Can you offer any explanation as to why so many Governments (who presumably have reasonably accurate intelligence on the Honduran crisis) as opposed to commentators (who clearly do not) have supported Zelaya’s ‘coup’ narrative? What is their interest in backing Zelaya?
Plenty of states in the OAS have clear ideological and political motives to support Zelaya in defense of their own plans for extending their own presidential terms or pursuing left-populist agendas. Others want to use the most superficial, easiest explanation as a pretext for moral handwringing and demonstrating their devotion to democracy. Still others have no stake in either side and so have chosen to go along with the rest. What intelligence do these governments have? If it’s as good as the intelligence they have on internal affairs in Iran right now or Iraqi weapons programs c. 2003, I’ll take my chances with my humble opinion over government “intelligence.” I never assume that governments have reasonably accurate intelligence about anything, and I certainly don’t assume they pay attention to it when they do. Why would you think that is the case?
“Honduras is learning the bitter lesson that so many small nations have learned in the last twenty years and in the century before that: small nations are never really sovereign and independent if some grander scheme requires them to be trampled on.”
Nice
Alvaro Vargas Llosa is no fan of how Zelaya was deposed, but he did have some comments on the international response that are worth considering here:
I suppose it is this two-faced approach by the OAS that bothers me more than any specific sanction being taken against Honduras. It’s a bit like the people who had no problem partitioning Serbia, but were suddenly horrified at the violations of Georgian sovereignty later the same year (and, of course, they could not see that the one had led more or less directly to the other). Last month few of these people were terribly interested in the contents of the Democratic Charter. Today it is holy writ. It’s a little hard to take their newfound devotion seriously.
Daniel,
Your position vis-a-vis the OAS does not appear to take into account such anti-Chavista governments as the ones in Mexico and Colombia. President Calderon of Mexico has issues one of the strongest statements of any in the region, and he is not only decidedly of the center-right and anti-Chavez he is limited to one term and has not even breathed a word about extending his stay in office, so I am not sure what his motivation would be apart from recognition that Zelaya’s ouster was democratically problematic and legally dubious.
Perhaps Calderon is genuinely interested in enforcing the Charter to the letter. I don’t know if he would have any ulterior motive. Uribe has his own term-extending plans that would not be served by siding with the opponents of a president who wanted to have a second term. The secretary-general of the OAS is viewing all of this through his experience as a former member of Allende’s government, which is bound to make him see this as another 1973, which means that he is misreading the situation badly. It also means that he, as a former leftist exile from Chile, is bound to be sympathetic to an exiled leftist. As the quote above indicates, the Chavistas are dominating the debate right now and taking the initiative; the anti-Chavistas are being dragged along with them. Even if some of the governments condemning the coup are doing so entirely in good faith and have taken a consistent position vis-a-vis Cuban membership, that does not seem to be what is driving most of the OAS at the moment.
I don’t know much about politics, but as a mexican, I don’t know what is Calderon thinking by supporting Zelaya, at least so openly. Until the year 2000, Mexico was living under a horrible single party rule, disguised as a democracy, that lasted 70 years. One would think this would make him think twice about supporting such characters.
Or maybe he, like many politicians in Mexico, just doesn’t like the idea of people ousting officials once the ruling class’ plans become unfavorable for most of the population. “Why let the people get in the way of our plans?”