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The Honduran Coup is Still a Coup: But Where Was Everybody Before?
June 29, 2009
by Christopher SabatiniLet me say upfront, unequivocally: what occurred on June 28, 2009, in Honduras was a coup and should be condemned for the violation of constitutional, democratic rule that it is. And unlike the street coups that removed Presidents Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada (Bolivia) or Lucio Gutiérrez (Ecuador), this one was positively 1970s-style retrograde: the marching of military officers into President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales’ residence, his forced removal (or kidnapping as he called it) at gun point, his being placed by military brass on a plane to be flown out of the country, and the swearing in of a new president, Roberto Micheletti—the speaker of the Honduran Congress. But let’s be clear. This event has been brewing for some time and regional governments and multilateral institutions have sat on the sidelines. Their reaction now—while correct—underscores their passiveness earlier, and turns a President who had been bent on steamrolling the checks and balances of power to secure re-election into an unnecessary victim.
Despite the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court’s superficial efforts to give this a constitutional fig leaf, the sacking of President Zelaya represents a genuine threat to the shared democratic vision and system of governance that most of the region has enjoyed for over two decades and violates the body of regional law and precedent defending democratic governments from the “interruption of the constitutional order.” In short order, as they should have done, the governments of the region have denounced President Zelaya’s removal and called for the restoration of democratic government.
The Organization of American States (OAS) has also joined the fray, holding a special meeting of the Permanent Council at the request of Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, denouncing the coup and calling for an ad-hoc meeting of the General Assembly on June 30, 2009, in Washington, DC. In a press release, the Permanent Council cited the OAS 2001 Democratic Charter.
Since 1991 and the OAS’s Santiago Declaration, the hemisphere’s regional body has been committed to defending democratic governance. And the declaration has worked; in places like Guatemala, Haiti, Peru, and Paraguay the OAS has sprung into action when constitutional governments have found their mandates interrupted.
But then, in reaction to the lack of engagement of the OAS in the slow-motion de-institutionalization of Peru under President Alberto Fujimori in 1999 and 2000, the OAS General Assembly meeting in Lima, Peru approved what become known as the Democratic Charter, on September 11, 2001. The newly muscular charter was supposed to provide the means for the OAS to weigh in and protect democratic governments, institutions and rights when threatened by their erosion, by detailing and committing the OAS to defend the checks and balances of representative democracy and minority rights.
But in cases like Venezuela, and now Honduras, it has proven toothless. In the case of Honduras, President Zelaya passed over the head of the Congress to call for vote on June 28 that would have allowed a national referendum in October on a series of unspecified-constitutional reforms, including the removal of term limits to allow him to run for re-election. President Zelaya’s plan was constitutionally questionable from the beginning, bypassing the Congress and opposed by the Supreme Court. When the head of the army expressed his disapproval he was removed, even though the Supreme Court called for his restoration.
Each of these actions to tear down checks and balances and consolidate executive power should—in theory—have triggered the consideration of the OAS under the Democratic Charter. But they didn’t. And now we’re left with an OAS that is—rightly—condemning a coup that could have possibly been averted and forced to call for the return of a President who himself had done little to respect his own constitution.
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Where was everyone?
In Chávez' back pocket, of course. The whole thing has been blown out of proportion and intentionally provoked by this evil man. He began loudly calling it a "coup" days before the actual overthrow of Zelaya, just based on the courts' resistance of Zelaya's intentions. Zelaya is no saint, obviously, but he is incapable of strategizing all this on his own. Micheletti is no saint either, but I pity the poor people of Honduras who have suffered so much already, and now are being used as pawns, and eventually even "martyrs" for the cause of someone thousands of miles away. Do Chávez and Zelaya really care for the poor? No more than did Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Kim Jong-Il, and all the others that used the poor to gain power.
A Fear for Chavez in Honduras
As part of the strategy of the coup’s organizer, they are striving to present Chavez as Satan and have without any real fundament said that Zelaya is trying to stay in power and turn Honduras into a new Venezuela. These gossips and media misused have created fear among Honduran population. There are two fundamental things that we must remember: International community is condemning a coup against president Zelaya (this is right, he should be sent back and given his people given right) that is democracy!!! If they had legal orders against him, they should have taken the CORRECT legal procedure. I honestly refuse to believe that a law in my country allows for this behaviour. The illegal actions of last Sunday have left the country divided, whichever the outcome will be. Honduras democracy has been severely damaged, laws and information misused and the people of this country seriously demoralized. I will urge my countrymen to start working for Honduras, stop making of our internal problems a personal quest and an international circus. Please stop violence against protester and have equilibrium in presenting the information. God bless Honduras!!
Respect of our constitution
Democracy is allowing military dictators to stay in powers by deceiving the poor masses of latin countries. In Honduras we dislike Chavez and his hate for USA and Israel, we hate his rethoric of communism coming from Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. I can't believe that the USA have turned their back on us. We the about 8 million people from Honduras are friendly to USA in fact, we have an American base in Honduras trying to stop communism brought to Central America by Daniel Ortega the now President of Nicaragua he hates the USA and has been influencing Mel Zelaya to do the same tactics that Hugo Chavez is telling them. Chavez can dictate wherever he is allow to but not in HONDURAS. We respect our constitution, love freedom and we are tired of corrupted Presidents who don't take care of our country's problems.
oligarchic constitution in a democracy...
ultimately, the question is how does a democracy address deficiencies in a constitution designed to preserve the powers of an oligarchy. IMHO, the Supreme Court went well beyond its purview in declaring a non-binding referendum unconstitutional. The fact that the Honduran Congress had to pass a law on June 24th making such referenda illegal 180 prior to a binding election -- in other words, making the referendum illegal in an ex poste facto manner -- tells us that this was an effort to prevent the voice of the people from being heard on the most fundamental question of democratic government in a constitution -- whether that constitution should be reconsidered. This coup was neo-fascism in action -- designed to prevent the voice of the Honduran people from being heard in a non-binding resolution. Even had the resolution passed, and even had the question of a constitutional assembly appeared on the fall ballot, and even had that provision passed, it still would have been impossible for Zalaya to remain in office because the fall elections for a new president would take place under the current constitutional framework. In other words, the question of Zalaya's "second term" is a red herring. What's really at issue is preservation of the Honduran oligarchy....
Finally someone hits the nail in the head
I am a Honduran living in Tegucigalpa. I am not a member of any political party or belong to any of the ruling families of this country. Just an average tax paying Joe. Yes this was a 1970's style coup, and yes it is a big step back in our democratic process, but hey did you really want another Chavez so close to home? It was going to happen. Where were the cries of outrage from OAS when Zelaya squandered billions of dollars in political propaganda? How about when Switzerland, Japan, Taiwan and Germany suspended foreign aid for Honduran projects citing corruption? Ca we forget when Zelaya associated with Chavez and proclaimed that the Honduran state was part of the ALBA initiative? In 2004 Honduras benefited from an 85% reduction on our foreign debt. Five years later our debt is higher than in 2004 with no significant investment in health care, education, or security. Honduras is a gateway for drugs into the US and this President is a facilitator. What has the OAS said about all this? All of what Zelaya says about social inequities in Honduras is true. He has had almost 4 years to try and solve these problems with zero success. Rather he has plunged the country into one of the worst crisis in recent history. Is reforming 7 articles out of the 279 of the Constitution an answer? Shame on the OAS.
Agreed
I couldn't agree more. Who would defend Hondurans once the reelection of Zelaya has already taken place? ....also, what would have been the correct mechanism for Hondurans to remove a President ?perhaps the Congress would have requested the opinion of the OAS before acting but I doubt the OAS would dare to state something different than satus quo...
Interpretations of the Democratic Charter
The Democratic Charter of the Americas should be read carefully as to its intention. The only action mandated is when a democratically elected government is overthrown, as just happened in Honduras.
Evolution within an elected system that changes the nature of its democracy is more complicated. Intervention could contradict the primary OAS constitutional document, its Charter, which is quite explicit about respecting sovereignty and internally determined political and economic systems.
This was illustrated most clearly in the OAS meeting last month. While the US argues that the Democratic Charter requires Cuba to meet substantial political conditions to resume its unsuspended seat, virtually all of the other countries would disagree as confirmed by the Secretary General of the OAS last week. See www.thehavananote.com/2009/06/oas_sg_confirms_cubas_path_to.html
In fact a rigorous implementation of the original charter would find the US in violation for its unilateral embargo of Cuba and efforts to bring about regime change.
John McAuliff
Fund for Reconciliation and Development
this is exactly the problem of the so-called "policy" community
i liked your nuanced approach to this. in fact, the dog that didn't bark in all of this has been the fact that we no longer stand up for true democracy in the hemisphere until and unless a military gets restless and takes down a sitting president, something that hasn't happened in years. but what about the incremental, slow motion take down of democracy in Venezuela, bolivia, and ecuador, as well as Nicaragua? All the warning signs were there for Honduras, too, but nobody seemed to notice (or care, really). Rather, the hemispheric community spends its time at the last OAS GA (in Honduras, ironically) urging that Cuba be reinstated, that the Democracy Clause et seq is inoperative in this case. It is simply bizarre. And all this behavior is being enabled by the sophisticates in the policy community in the United States, which issue incessant reports that flatly ignore the need to continue to stand strong for democracy and defend it continuously as an ongoing policy priority for the United States.