HONDURAS COUP

There has been a coup in Hondouras. Do we thereby conclude that the President could not be corrupted, or was it that the local wealthy elite merely acted on their own?

Since 1975, Australians can identify with the overthrow of an elected government.Al Jareeza sets out some general facts about Honduras:

• Second largest country in Central America
• Population of 7.2 million
• Second poorest country in the region
• Economy forecast to grow less than two per cent this year
• Relies on money from Hondurans in the US for more than 25 per cent of its gross domestic product
• Former Spanish colony gained independence in 1821/blockquote>

The BBC described events in Tegucigalpa:

Troops in Honduras have detained the president and flown him out of the country after a power struggle over plans to change the constitution.
President Manuel Zelaya was flown to Costa Rica from an air force base outside the capital, Tegucigalpa. Mr Zelaya, elected for a non-renewable four-year term in January 2006, wanted a vote to extend his time in office. His arrest came just before the start of a referendum ruled illegal by the Supreme Court and opposed by Congress. There was also resistance within Mr Zelaya’s own party to the plan to hold the vote. Reuters news agency reports that police fired teargas at about 500 supporters of Mr Zelaya who had gathered outside the presidential palace.

The United States, it seems, has opposed the coup which would have happen earlier if they had supported. The most plausible explanation is that the coup was organized from within Honduras without external support.

Deposed President Zelaya has asked his supporters to mount “peaceful resistance”.

Honduras would appear to be the classic banana republic. Military coups occurred in 1963 and 1975 with the government returned to civilian rule in 1981.

THE DAY AFTER:

Roberto Micheletti, the former was sworn in as President Zelaya until November this year.

The case against Zelaya according to al Jazeera:

The supreme court said it had ordered his removal in order to protect law and order in the nation of about seven million people.

“Today’s events originate from a court order by a competent judge,” it said, adding that the armed forces “acted to defend the state of law”.

Congress said it had voted unanimously to remove Zelaya from office for his “apparent misconduct” and for “repeated violations of the constitution and the law and disregard of orders and judgments of the institutions”.

The supreme court said it had ordered his removal in order to protect law and order in the nation of about seven million people.

“Today’s events originate from a court order by a competent judge,” it said, adding that the armed forces “acted to defend the state of law”.

Congress said it had voted unanimously to remove Zelaya from office for his “apparent misconduct” and for “repeated violations of the constitution and the law and disregard of orders and judgments of the institutions”.

Despite the claims made for legality, it strikes me as an odd procedure that the army is used to banish the President of the country.

ELSEWHERE:

Roberto Lovato at Alternet argues that Obama can do more in relation to Honduras than wring his hands, and in fact he should given the atmospherics in Latin America:

The big difference between Iran and Honduras? President Obama and the U.S. can actually do something about a military crackdown that our tax dollars are helping pay for. That Vasquez and other coup leaders were trained at the WHINSEC, which also trained Augusto Pinochet and other military dictators responsible for the deaths, disappearances and tortures of hundreds of thousands in Latin America, sends profound chills across a region still trying to overcome decades of U.S.-backed militarism.

Hemispheric concerns about the coup were expressed in the rapid, historic and almost universal condemnation of the plot by almost all Latin American governments. Such concerns in the region represent an opportunity for the United States. But, while the Honduran coup represents a major opportunity for Obama to make real his recent and repeated calls for a “new” relationship to the Americas, failure to take actions that send a rapid and unequivocal denunciation of the coup will be devastating to the Honduran people — and to the still-fragile U.S. image in the region.

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