Actually, IIRC, when the coup happened, and President Chavez was blustering, it was pointed out that Honduras actually got relatively little oil or oil products from Venezuela, limiting the influence of Venezuela economically in the situation. Do you happen to know what imports of oil were?
ETA: Not that it matters much, if all the world refuses to supply oil.
Really, what I see the right in the USA doing in this case is only an effort to avoid dealing with the current issue, IMHO if Zelaya returns he needs to be taken to task or with the understanding that he will call off any efforts to change the constitution.
And as it happened in Ecuador after the negotiations, the deposed president did not return to power but the coup plotters had to give up. The vice president (that was chosen by the deposed president) took over.
What I’m saying here is that while I consider your points irrelevant because they are not the crime at hand, it is very likely that items like the accusations from the courts against Zelaya are going to be even **more **irrelevant after the negotiations.
Well, El Salvador and Honduras fought against each other back in 1969.
Because Honduras removed both documented and undocumented Salvadoreans from Honduras there was war, because of the exiled coming back to El Salvador we got one of the seeds of the revolution in the 80’s in El Salvador. (The other seeds being electoral fraud and repression)
Then the Sandinistas took over Nicaragua and the US and the Honduran army supported the contras.
So there is an explanation why there is an army, but one can indeed ask why it remains so influential when there are now no revolutions or territorial conflicts in the area since the 90’s.
Either by the negotiations causing the charges to be dropped, or by Zelaya taking over Honduras thanks to the international and the internal pressures.
One more thing, what I said are things that will be dismissed if there are negotiations, IMHO the coup plotters are really deluded if they think they will get a better deal if they refuse to negotiate in good faith. Because in reality it is not clear that all Hondurans are in favor of the coup.
(I do not swallow everything from the opposition, they claimed 500,000 Zelaya supporters on the way to the airport, but more likely they were 30,000)
What I do think is that pressure is needed, not only to make the coup plotters negotiate, but also to prevent them from making even more repressive moves against the people in Honduras.
Once again, the big crime was the coup, even if one could make the point that it was a popular thing to do (and I doubt that) the right in Honduras will have to swallow their democratic medicine, just like the left in Ecuador had to in 2000.
The other big crime was the President overreaching his office, and allying with a foreign nation in an attempt to grab more power and possibly install himself as President for Life (like Chavez).
The procedural mistake was exile using masked military instead of having police arrest and hold impeachment proceedings (or whatever the equivalent is in the Honduran Constitution).
I think, that we all can agree that the current Honduran government lost any legitimacy when forged the President resignation letter and then kidnapped him and dumped him in other country in the middle of the night.
However, Zelaya was found to be in violation of Honduran law by the country’s supreme court(whenever we think of them in light of their actions, they are the interpreters of Honduran law)
Since the Honduran Constituition has no impeachment procedures (ooops!) I think he should return and be judged by Honduran law.
Wether or not he returns to his post is, I think, a matter impossible to decide after what happened, but the current government should not profit from their coup, perhaps a new election should be called?
Unfortunately IIRC the Honduras constitution makes it almost impossible to impeach the president. You see, the Honduras constitution was made during the era of dictatorships. Had to protect the military thugs of the past don’t you know.
Of course a solution would be to change the constitution, but because the de facto rulers scream that they can not change it and acted to prevent any changes… well, that is why all governments outside Honduras are not swallowing their points. And more importantly, not all in Honduras do it either.
Once again, he is just implying that the resignation document that magically appeared and allowed the congress to vote for him was valid.
The army had no order to expel Zelaya from the country.
Finally, Micheletty just comes to me as a coward for not realizing that if Zelaya does not agree into following any negotiated conditions for his return, it will be then Zelaya going against the world and the Honduras army.
