It all seems so cut-and-dried. The United Nations, the Organization of American States, Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, and Barack Obama — all as one demand that Manuel Zelaya be reinstated as president of Honduras. And they call his ouster illegal.
But there’s a history here. Like many heads of state, Zelaya hates presidential term limits, provided for in the Honduran constitution. To escape them, he sought a referendum to ask voters whether a constitutional convention should be called to replace the existing constitution. But he bypassed the country’s congress, which by law must approve any such referendum.
The Honduran high court ruled that the referendum would be illegal. Zelaya tried to proceed anyway. He even fired the chief of the armed forces for refusing to help carry out this illegal referendum. Impeachment of Zelaya was briefly considered, but then the court, in cooperation with the congress, ordered his ouster.
Now, I don’t assert Zelaya should have been deposed as he was. If the same procedures for dealing with power-grabbing rascals were prevalent in the U.S., the Watergate crisis would have been briefer, with Nixon quickly carted off to Canada.
But I do say that Zelaya’s own drastic coup attempt against his country’s constitution precipitated the response to it. Discussions of what happened to Zelaya should not omit or downplay the circumstances that led to his job loss.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
5 replies on “The Pre-Coup Coup Attempt”
You are absolutely right with your assessment. It is puzzling the USA will not recognize the new government even thought it was put in place according to Honduran law. How can Obama take a stand on the events in Honduras and choose to not take a stand on Iran?
The Honduran government has several times run a TV special that details the events leading up to Zelaya’s ouster, and quotes the appropriate Honduran law that accompanied the ouster and the events shortly thereafter. Who in the press or at the State Department will show definitively that the Hondurans did, or did not, act according to their laws? It’s a mystery why NO ONE in Washington will stand up for Honduras.
Thank you for the backgrounding, which has been annoyingly absent from news coverage. I’d been wondering all along what had precipitated the events involving Zelaya’s ouster, and now the whole thing is clearer.
Liberals, including the media, are apoplectic that a leftist was ousted. They ignore his attempts to trample on & destroy a constitutional government. Of course, they also want to ignore ‘our’ constitutional government. Obama has appointed
“Czar’s” to act for almost every federal agency, over the Senate confirmed Secretaries. Now why is it we are paying two salaries for people to run an agency?
Leftists have an upper hand right now. But as their duplicity becomes more & more obvious, the time will come when freedom lovers will stand up & have regained control of our ‘representative’ government. When that day comes, I hope many are called to account for their deliberate & perhaps illegal actions to circumvent our laws & Constitution in favor of the “new national socialism’ many on the left are promoting & forcing on Americans.
im convinced barrac was so wpset over Honduras because he plans on eliminating term limits here and setting himself up to run again and again and again. as long as acorn is running elections he can keep on “winning”