Hands Off Honduras
posted at 5:54 am on July 2, 2009 by Legal Insurrection
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The Obama administration’s actions towards Honduras continue to defy logic. On the one hand, Obama states that he is for the rule of law. Yet Obama meddles in the worst possible way in Hondurans’ attempt to protect their country from a Chavez-style tyranny. Read Fausta’s Blog for a full round-up of what Honduras was facing from this deposed dictator-in-the-making.
A Justice of the Honduran Supreme Court has released a statement confirming that the military acted on orders of the judiciary, as reported by Bloomberg:
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.
She compared Zelaya’s tactics, including his dismissal of the armed forces chief for obeying a court order to impound ballots to be used in the vote, with those of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
“Some say it was not Zelaya but Chavez governing,” she said.
While Obama improves relations with Venezuela, Obama has cut military ties to Honduras, is considering a cut-off of all aid, is doing nothing to stop loan suspensions by international organizations over which the U.S. has substantial influence, and is supporting international efforts to isolate Honduras.
Poor and tiny Honduras faces the full wrath of the United States, United Nations, and much of the rest of the world, while nothing is done about Iran. On Iran, Obama and the world acted with the utmost deference, and there were no efforts by the Obama administration at international action. None.
But Honduras, enforcing its own laws against a renegade wannabe President-for-life, for some reason warrants the full force of the United States government and international community. Honduras gets condemnation from Obama, while Chavez gets hugs and Ahmadinejad gets deference. Wonderful. No, horrible.
Cross-posted with updates at Legal Insurrection Blog
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The Obama Administration’s zeal to support a renegade Chief Executive in Honduras says something about out Commander in Chief, and it isn’t good.
Obama’s ambivalence about making a clear statement of condemnation or support regarding Iran’s sham election was at least defensible in terms of realpolitik. His fierce moral urgency to prop up a power-mad Executive in Honduras is not equally defensible. It betrays a sense that our President sees the aggregation of political power as a positive social good, whether it is done extra-Constitutionally or not.
The people and the Constitutional institutions of Honduras deserve our support at this time. They do not need the Chief Executive of the United States aligning himself with the worst of this hemisphere’s thug leaders.
The UN has exposed itself once again as an organization that defends the power of national leaders (regardless of the legitimacy of their power) over the inherent rights of the people to govern themselves.
It is a horrible situation, but it is also a teachable moment for those with eyes to see.
cruadin on July 2, 2009 at 6:53 AM
News agencies need to start reporting all of the facts, and the governments around the world need to do their own research. Under the Honduran constitution: (1) the president is limited to one term, and even attempting to try for a second results in immediate suspension from office (Article 239); (2) there is no constitutional mechanism for removing elected officials comparable to our impeachment process, so the Honduran officials have had to ‘wing it;’ and (3) the Honduran military is specifically tasked under the constitution with enforcing the one-term limit (Article 272). Given these facts, how can anyone in the world other than Chavez and his cronies be calling this a coup?
zerosheep on July 2, 2009 at 8:24 AM
Honduras sufferes from a public relations problem more so than a constitutional problem.
Kid from Brooklyn on July 2, 2009 at 8:34 AM
Just read your latest…blogging from Tegucigalpa…
Need to keep the word going and out there. Honduras will disappear this week with all the adulation of Jacko and Obama’s tet-a-tet with the Russians.
Dropped a letter to my Congressman on Friday. If we can’t stand with Honduras, then what is the point of standing for anyone?
coldwarrior on July 5, 2009 at 7:23 PM