My girlfriend, who was born and raised in Honduras, called me at 7:30 this morning. She is very upset with the coverage of the coup in Honduras and expressed her opinion that Zeyala is nothing more than another Hugo Chavez in waiting. She wholeheartedly supports his removal from office and claims that the vast majority of Hondurans want him out as well. FWIW.
It was clear that in Ecuador the majority of the people was in favor of the Coup and they were leftists. It was still the wrong thing to do and it failed.
As opposition media was shut down in Honduras it is harder to say this in the Honduras case.
Anyhow, an error is an error, even if a million people fall for it.
Does she explain what happened? Apparently, this guy was elected, so the populace at large has undergone a profound shift in sentiment, if this is so.
And if the vast majority of Hondurans wants him out, why bother with the coup?, why not wait for the elections?, something is missing
I do not find it strange, I see cowardice in most of the right in Latin America, they could not wait even 5 more months to get rid of him at the ballot box. The sad thing is that I do think Zelaya was losing support and it was clear to me that there was very little chance for his referendum to pass and even less for any reelection ideas.
This coup looks even worse when one notices that even he did agree that he could not be reelected right away. He would have to wait at least 5 more years to try again.
What i was trying to say was there is something missing from the logic in the “vast majority of Hondurans wants him out” affirmation, if it is true, no need for a coup with the elections coming.
I think a lot of it has to do with the propaganda.
When most of the media is in the pocket of the right (Imagine if almost all the press and the TV newscasts was made of guys like Glenn Beck) A good chuck of the population will take as the truth the day in and day out demonization of the president, eventually the demonization does create a sense of urgency.
If anyone still thinks that we should leave the Hondurans alone, I can mention that in a Salvadoran Forum where I go, there are locals that are reporting that the losing right wing ARENA party is getting restless, and with the right wing media they are beginning to make noises: like how nice it would be to do something similar in El Salvador.
The coup plotters can not be allowed to succeed. I still think a compromise needs to be done so as to avoid a bigger disaster.
Let’s give some balance to the other point of view here.
From some sources, this is what happened:
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Zelaya tried to hold a referendum that would modify the constitution to allow him to stay in power indefinitely.
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The Supreme Court in Honduras refused his request to do this, and orderedhim to stop.
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Zelaya went to the army, and demanded that they back him up. The commanding general of the army refused, and was fired.
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The Congress condemned Zelaya’s actions, and also demanded that he follow the law. Zelaya refused.
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Because he could not get support from his government for his referendum, he solicited the help of Chavez, and Venezuelan planes were used to fly ballots to the varoius cities. Some reports say that Zelaya was also intimidating voters, telling them they would not have medical care if they didn’t sign in his favor.
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The Honduran Congress sought approval from the supreme court to relieve Zelaya of his office, and the Supreme Court granted their request. They then legally chose a replacement (the speaker of the house, who is legally next in line for succession, and as I understand it, a member of Zelaya’s own party. So the speaker was declared the new President, Zelaya was removed from office, and the new government immediately re-affirmed that the next election would be held on schedule in November.
If these facts are even close to being correct, then this was not a ‘military coup’. It looks more to me like the President was trying to set himself up as a Chavez-like President for life, and the rest of the government refused to go along, so Zelaya broke the law, ignored the Congress and the Supreme Court, and therefore violated his terms of office and was removed. I’m having a hard time seeing Zelaya as the good guy who was protecting Democracy. Rather, it seems that he had been systematically attempting to undermine it, and the government stopped him.
Here’s Gwynne Dyer’s take on what happened.
This editorial from Investor’s Business Daily takes a decidedly different tone from this thread.
Fair and balanced as always, Sam.
Brilliant refutation.
I’m actually interested in hearing rebuttals to this telling of the events. I’m still trying to sort out exactly what happened.
Close, but no banana republic 
He could run again in 4 years at the most, and with the big if of getting the referendum to pass and then to vote for the change in the next elections. Very unlikely to succeed.
Not clear that it was the supreme court.
Not clear, but it seems he had the right to do so.
They had also the right to make a better legal argument for his removal rather than pointing a gun at him.
This sounds to me as just pointing out that more doctors would come if they remained close to Venezuela.
Here is the real BS.
If it was supposed to be a removal, that order was nowhere close to order a de facto coup. There is no explanation for the resignation document and the date shows it to be fraudulent.
Again, close but no banana republic.
As a person that came from Central America I have to say that the writer of the IBD article would had been happier if he could move to a right wing banana republic.
Because they are in short supply nowadays I guess the writer is just trying to make his wish come true.
A president was supposed to be arrested and put on trial and face the evidence and his accusers.
The powers that be just said “fuck it, we will make a coup and cover the evidence”.
Check it out, Sam’s auditioning for Fox News!
Are you referring to other sources besides the two opinion pieces you linked to at the end of your post? If so, what are they?
We’ve already been through most, if not all of these points. Zelaya tried to hold a non-binding poll to determine if people thought it was a good idea to have a referendum on Election Day in November on the question of convening a Constitutional Assembly to address the issue of single-term limits for the presidency - and given the chronology RedFury and I have shown in detail, it would have no effect on Zelaya’s current term of office. Nor has it been definitely shown (by either side) that the removal of the single-term limit means the removal of all term limits. It’s possible that they’d just raise it to a two-term limit. Or maybe that’s too dangerous a notion? God knows how any sort of democracy would function within that kind of framework.
No - the Supreme Court stepped in on Tuesday, June 23 to declare the poll unconstitutional, well after the poll setup process had begun.
No, Zelaya was demanding that the army, in accordance with their function, deliver the ballot boxes already in their possession to the polling places. General Vasquez used the Supreme Court’s last-minute law to justify his refusal and got fired - which Zelaya, as commander-in-chief, was entitled by law to do.
If the law were on the books before the polling setup process had begun, and not passed at the last minute as a direct response to the polling process itself, the Supreme Court might have had a leg to stand on with this.
You got cites for any of this? “Some reports say” might work if you’re half-listening to Fox News on TV, but this is GD and I know you know better than that.
And used 60 soldiers to break into the presidential palace, arrest him in his skivvies, beat him, and dump him in Costa Rica.
Who is also adamantly opposed to the poll and has been an opponent of Zelaya’s in general for some time now.
After shutting down most of the media, cutting off electricity to most of the country, and arresting, detaining, and beating other governmental officials (including, apparently, ambassadors from neighboring countries) who supported Zelaya.
I won’t argue that you have no grip on the facts, but your interpretation is wildly inaccurate. It’s a coup, military or otherwise.
Would you have some evidence to back that up? I do agree that the exile part of this is the most baffling. I suppose this was done out of worry that he would incite violence or something. I would have thought he would simply have been removed from office and sent home, unless he carried out criminal acts, in which case he should have been arrested and tried.
But do you dispute any of the facts mentioned? That he was flagrantly disobeying the direct orders of both the Congress and the Supreme court? That the government’s actions (other than the exile) were the exact remedies called for in their constitution in such cases? The new president was the constitutionally-defined successor. The military had an order of congrress and approval of the supreme court to remove him.
If so, this looks almost more like Zelaya was attempting to take over through an extra-constitutional mathod, and the government stopped him and defended the laws of the country.
Here’s what the National Review has to say about it:
Are any of the facts stated in this editorial in dispute? If so, could you cite some examples of those who have a different point of view?
Sam, as mentioned before, committing a bigger crime to combat a lesser one will not fly in cases like this.
This coup is affecting the stability of the Central American neighbors, being against the coup plotters does not mean an automatic support of the deposed president, most likely like in Ecuador a compromise will be reached that will limit or still keep the removed president out, but also the coup plotters out of power.
Save the commentary for someplace other than Great Debates. It’s not even clever.
You did notice that I did not post them as facts, right? I was saying, “These are what these editorialists are saying. Does anyone have information to refute them?”
Quite frankly, much of this has struck me as fairly lame rationalization, and not hard fact.
So, just a poll, like a Gallup poll, huh? Why, exactly, would a leader put the country to that effort just to get the lay of the land? He could just hire Gallup to take a poll for him.
My guess is that there’s a little more to the ‘non-binding’ part. How is it not binding? What needed to take place to prevent it from happening? What was in the small print?
Wait, I thought you said it was just a non-binding poll? And Chavez started by getting one term limit removed. Now he’s talking about ruling until 2030.
So? Is there a time limit? Some rule that says once you begin something, the Supreme Court can’t stop you?
Now, wait a minute… He wasn’t using the Supreme Court as ‘justification’ - as I understand it, he was sworn to uphold the constitution and the Supreme Court had just ruled Zelaya’s actions unconstitutional. Helping Zelaya anyway would have been a violation of his oath. Are you suggesting that he was out of line for refusing to help Zelaya?
This was a new law that was passed? Which law? Who passed it? The Congress? In the U.S., the Supreme Court does not pass laws. If the Supreme Court declares Bush’s interrogation policy unconstitutional, and Bush ordered the military to continue interrogating, which side would you support? What would you say about a military officer who agreed to continue interrogating after the Supreme Court had spoken? What would you say to someone who said that the Supreme Court had no right to say anything, because the process had already started?
Yes. The issue at hand concerns a non-binding poll to determine if a referendum should be held in November, not the referendum itself. The materials held by the army were ballots for that poll. The National Review article is confusing two separate events and making it seem like Zelaya was trying to get the referendum through before the election. This is factually incorrect.
Perhaps because Gallup polls don’t cover as much of the population as a nationwide poll organized by the government? It’s a little easier to make a case for or against a referendum when the poll has a base of several million rather than <10,000 or so.
Simply put, the Honduran Congress would be under no obligation to take action according to the poll results. Support for the November referendum might have been overwhelming but Congress still wouldn’t have to do anything.
I did say it was a non-binding poll. The subject of the poll is not removal or alteration of term limits but the desirability of a referendum in November. The subject of the November referendum is not removal or alteration of term limits, but the desirability of a call for a Constitutional Assembly. It is only the Assembly itself whose subject would be removal or alteration of term limits.
Yes, on Tuesday. (I erred when I wrote “Supreme Court” in my previous post. That should have been “Congress”.)
The rule of law in and of itself is morally neutral - it is the purposes for which the rule of law is used that renders it beneficial or odious. When you make an ironclad case morally equating the stopping of torture with the thwarting of direct participatory democracy, I’ll address this particular question.
The side that broke into the White House before dawn, threatened to shoot Bush if he didn’t drop his cell phone, marched him in his pajamas to an airport, and dumped him on the runway of an airport in another country. Duh.
It is a testament to the idiocy of this nation’s Left thatg I can no longer tell if this was a joke.