You exact words were that the army had impounded the materials, implying they had taken them from someone else who previously had possession of them and further implying that they were taking a courageous stand against Zelaya’s purported strongman tactics.
Entirely untrue. The army were given possession of the materials by Zelaya before Congress passed the law; if Vasquez had any compunctions about the polling why did he wait until after the law was passed to refuse to distribute? Why did he accept them in the first place?
ETA BrainGlutton, the army’s function as election materials distributor is probably a holdover from the military junta days. At least, I wouldn’t be surprised to find it was so.
You don’t have to take something to “impound” it; you can already be in possession of it.
And I implied nothing about “courage” at all. You are simply reading into what I said things that are not there. May I suggest not putting words in my mouth?
And your statements make no sense. Until the law was passed, there was no reason to legally object to the materials in question. Once the law was passed, that changed. You are trying to have it both ways here.
I’m not sure why it is that some of the participants in this thread see me as some sort of apologist for the military here. I’m not. I’ve said more than once that what they did was wrong. But that doesn’t make everything they did in the runup to this wrong, nor does it make what President Zelaya did prior to the coup “right.” Those arguing on his behalf would do better for him if they understood this, and confined the argument to the issue at hand.
From what I’ve been reading, the constitution explicitly prohibits any attempt to modify term limits. The act of polling for a constitutional convention was itself unconstitutional.
The military was tasked with safeguarding the constitution, and when the Supreme Court ruled that the poll was unconstitutional, they acted to stop it. I think in a lot of these countries, which have a history of Chavezes and other strong men running roughshod over the constitution, the military is one of the more trusted institutions.
This article, written by a Honduran, and quoting relevant parts of the constitution, seems to back that up.
And that does not explain properly the crimes I described. He just invents justifications on the fly and not based on the constitution regarding the expulsion of the president. Just by omitting dealing with the “resignation” paper one can confirm that this lawyer is just saying industrial strength bullshit.
Even more when one has to realize the army, senate and courts plotted this. No, the coup was done as to avoid to attempt to justify the criminal actions to get rid of him, all the world would had laughed at their justifications.
And for what I have been reading (in Spanish also)
The constitution makes it hard or impossible to impeach the president, just for the immediate future it is really crazy to follow the limitations of a constitution that was made under the watch of the dictatorships of the past. Just on this item one can see that the Honduran constitution needs to be changed, constitutions that do not allow for any changes under no circumstances will cause problems like this again.
However, the change should be initiated at the ballot box, not at gun point.
“His actions showed intent”. Not at all sure I buy that. Intent to what? Ask the opinion of the populace at large? I’m having a hard time seeing that as somehow “illegitimate”, especially to see it as a crime so heinous that only the instant removal of the President can suffice.
But I am also troubled by the “tone” of this editorial. It is one hundred percent black and white, it is all perfectly clear, nothing to see here, move along. We are already presented with sufficient evidence that such is not the case, there is much smoke and mirrors. For instance, why does he ignore the issue of the (possibly) forged resignation? A reasonable man would at least acknowledge the existence of other evidence, even if he makes no effort to refute.
Hence, I am left with the conclusion that this is a very partisan, slanted view. Nothing wrong with that, so long as it is not presented as being objective and free from partisan slant.
And one question remains which I find puzzling regardless: how can anyone be so brain-dead as to put a Constitution in place which cannot be amended? Indeed, a Constitution that not only cannot be amended, but that places a criminal sanction on the very suggestion of emendation. Our Constitution, it is famously remarked, is not a suicide pact. Why is theirs?
Sam, instead of echoing right wing chambers spouting non-sense, why don’t you apply some common sense to this whole issue? Constitutions are not akin to Commandments written in stone, much less one written under the vigilant eye of a Military Junta dedicated to defending the rights of the oligarchy that put them there in the first place. Sure, right wingers can play the “unconstitutional” game, but for that matter so can those that are opposed to the coup. Again you come in here with a one sided argument and fail to take into account what has been posted before – for if you had you’d also be blaming the clearly unconstitutional way Zelaya was exiled; might as well also forgo any kind of trial where he could defend himself against the bogus charges brought against him. Never mind that NO constitution in the WORLD is set in stone. In fact, name ONE that’s been in effect for over twenty years that hasn’t been revised…you won’t find any. In a democracy anyway. WTF are they so afraid of in a NON-BINDING referendum? That the people might be heard? :::gaasp!:::
But nooo…fair and balanced in your world means propagating all sorts of lies in order to find some semblance of justification for a bunch of thugs who deposed a legally elected representative of the people and are currently using the Army to quash any and all civil liberties in the country…unless of course, you happen to back them. Meanwhile we have martial law in effect, a total media blackout and suspension of due process (starting with the coup itself), ad hoc “laws” made out of whole cloth and capricious decisions such as deposing legally elected majors in favor of Pinochetti’s family.
A bunch of thugs so inept that they have the unmitigated gall to send an arrest order for Zelaya to Interpol – are they really so fuckin’ dense not to realize that any and all “decisions” made by this illegal de facto Government have absolutely no legal bearing whatsoever? Never mind that those very same gorillas were the ones that sent Zelaya into exile! And FORGED a resignation letter to boot! For shame. For even greater shame that a so-called supporter of democracy backs them
Finally, even if you don’t speak spanish, I would urge to stream TeleSur* in order to watch the widespread repression against a vast swath of mainly low to middle class Hondurans that are fighting to restore democracy in their country. It’s as disgusting as reading post such as yours looking to justify the unjustifiable.
“Democratic coup” alright. AKA fascism.
You must be proud.
*Just saw the Army shoot the tires out from a number of buses filled with Zelaya’s supporters on their way to Tegucigalpa and the ensuing panic the actions caused. Bet that’s OK too in your Book Of Rightwing Democracy.
Zelaya broke the law (since the supreme court say so, this is tautologically true, even if we think that the SC is full of cronies of past military governments).
His removal was illegal and inconstitutional (should have been made by impeachment, or other non-military measure)
The correct way to restore constitutional order to Honduras would be for Zelaya to resume his post, the congress to impeach him, the VP to accede to the presidency, and things go on from there.
This is a good example of when someone doesn’t know very much about either history or political science, or potentially both.
Yes, in a parliamentary democracy it is very common to have an elected Head of State (a President, or some other such title) and then an unelected “Head of Government” such as a Prime Minister. In most systems the Prime Minister is a member of the legislative branch and is “appointed” by the Head of State, most of the time the Head of State has little “choice” in their appointment because the Prime Minister is typically the head of a legislative coalition or the head of a party that controls the legislature outright.
Because of the way such a system of government works, even though the Head of State may have a “theoretical” power to appoint anyone they want to the office of Head of Government, in practice they typically have to appoint whoever controls the legislature. If they don’t, then the government grinds into gridlock and absolutely nothing gets done.
To his credit Hindenburg despised Hitler by all accounts, and resisted calls to appoint him Chancellor on several occasions. When Hitler was ultimately appointed Chancellor it was because his party had over 30% of the seats of the Reichstag. Without making Hitler Chancellor the government could not function. Prior to this point no party in Weimar Republic Germany had ever held such a command of the legislative branch and it meant that President Hindenburg truly had few options at hand.
In 1932 when Hitler’s Nazi party only held something like 37% of the seats in the Reichstag Hitler demanded the Chancellorship and when Hindenburg refused he had to dissolve the government (government could not function with the Nazi Party refusing to participate in any sort of legislative coalition.) Dissolving the Reichstag didn’t work though, the Nazis just gained more seats. They kept gaining more seats because it was who the people wanted in power.
Despite the fact that Hindenburg had defeated Hitler in a direct election for the Presidency, the Nazi party was so powerful and so popular that ultimately it came down to either appointing Hitler chancellor or seeing a grave systemic collapse of government. The Nazis had already walked out of the Reichstag a few times in protest of the fact that their party leader was not being appointed to the post of Chancellor.
Once Hitler was appointed Chancellor (indeed appointed but it was a very democratic process, he was given the appointment due to his party’s overwhelming popular support and number of seats in the Reichstag) he began to do things that several other once-democratic leaders have done throughout history in order to seize absolute power. There was actually one more “democratic” election after Hitler was appointed Chancellor. I say “democratic” because it certainly was just as “free and democratic” as any election that happens under a Latin American strongman-leader, meaning you can in theory vote for whoever you want at the ballot box but in practice party functionaries of the opposition have been harassed, sometimes imprisoned, and generally disrupted so much that their political effectiveness was vastly diminished. Hitler’s primary actions in the early days of his Chancellorship were decreasing the political effectiveness of his most powerful opponents–the Communists, once he had successfully neutralized them politically he simply used the superior popular appeal of his party to crush the resistance from the more moderate parties who sought to stop Hitler from making sweeping constitutional changes. Very little of what was done could be deemed “unambiguously undemocratic”, much like say, Venezuela.
However it was a clear case of a popular faction using its manpower to out-muscle the political opposition and essentially enshrine permanent power. It doesn’t matter under what guise such a thing happens it is clearly undemocratic, no one argues that it wasn’t undemocratic when Hitler did it because Hitler is so rightly reviled by everyone. For some reason people do not seem to view it with the same ambiguity when talking about Latin American leaders or (even a better example) someone like Vladimir Putin.
While it is a bit of an aside, another thing to keep in mind is that under a properly functioning democratic government neither Hugo Chavez or Adolf Hitler ever would have been able to even stand for political office–both men had attempted to overthrow their respective governments by military coup before attaining office legitimately. In a mature democratic country like the United States, Canada, or the United Kingdom any person who had attempted such a thing would most certainly never be able to stand for public office for the rest of their lives.
For the record though I do think that Chavez is worlds better than Hitler. I think that domestically Chavez enacts policies he genuinely believes to be to the benefit of his people, and many of them are. I think he genuinely is more interested in Venezuela’s prosperity than his own self-aggrandizement, but I also think he suffers from “strongman syndrome” in which he thinks only he knows best and in which he doesn’t feel anyone else is fit to run the country. Unfortunately such a person is always going to be against the best interests of democracy, even though they can act in the best interests of the country itself.
I don’t think anyone doubts that Chavez is the President Venezuela wants, but I also don’t think a neutral observer can doubt that he used methods (the worst U.S. modern example) Nixon would blush at attempting on such a wide scale in order to maintain a strong backing of the population. On the other hand Chavez’s opposition has also used methods in trying to remove him from power that would be unthinkable in the United States and which are more or less equally undemocratic. This is the sign of a country that is plainly not a mature or properly functioning democracy. Just because the most popular man in the country runs things does not mean it is a properly functioning democratic government.
BG, check out the throng of Zelaya backers marching to the OAS as we speak – while being closely “monitored” by anti-riot police. Meanwhile the “supporters” of the coup march under an impressive security display including free transportation, and tanks and helicopters for their protection – with a number of high ranking officers urging them on with empty sloganeering such as:
Meanwhile Interpol denies receiving any kind of arrest order while also stating that it would be ignored anyway as it would have to come from the International Court of Law as it involves a sitting President. Fat chance of course.
Constitutions are social contracts, and their validity comes either through common consent or the use of force, depending on the level of social conflict.
Whether an action is constitutional or unconstitutional is an insufficient basis for judging it. Saying something is ‘constitutional’ or ‘unconstitutional’ is not the same thing as saying something is (im)moral, (un)just, or (un)democratic. Eliminating the ability to amend a constitution, even in part, while constitutional, is certainly not democratic.
Zelaya’s poll would have had no effect on his ability to either run for a second term or extend his current term under the present Honduran constitution. What it would have done, however, is given the Honduran population more of a say in how their country is run. The coup against him eliminated the possibility of that poll and therefore denied the Honduran people that say. There was no guarantee he would have won the poll and thus had the backing for a referendum, but Hondurans deciding they didn’t want a referendum is much more democratic than the Honduran government telling them they can’t have one.
The coup can use the constitution as a defense for its actions but the outcome is an attack on democracy. Zelaya’s poll may have violated the Honduran constitution but its outcome would have been a defense and an expansion of democracy. The coup must be condemned and Zelaya, for all his shortcomings, should be immediately reinstated as president of the Honduras and the poll allowed to proceed.
Simple, it was a constitution made by the [del]gorillas[/del] military tugs of the recent past in Honduras.
That is one of the reasons why there are convenient features like making impeachment next to impossible. The reason of the magically produced resignation document was because they had to get an official resignation so as to have a way to hurry up the process and make the next step of selecting the [del]fettuccine[/del] Machelletti puppet.
That resignation is magical X2 as no one as mentioned where in the arrest or expelling order from the courts was the army told to get that document, the efforts to justify that document are evasive and nonsensical.
Also, what was in the order of his arrest still remains a contradictory mess as either the army or the courts broke the law based on the results.
Seems to me it’s worked just fine. They got rid of another potential Chavez and are preparing democratic elections to replace him.
And I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the hot air wafting from Washington and European capitals. By taking the moral high ground, yet doing nothing concrete to reverse the coup, the West has the best of both worlds while they sit back and wait for the democratic process in Honduras to work itself out and for the spotlight to move on to the next story.
Does anybody seriously think that the West wants Zelaya back in power?