Situation in Hondurus/Zelaya

Zelaya made an excellent statement at the UN in New York yesterday saying: "...Distinguished ambassadors, there is no law in my country allowing the ousting of a president. There was no trial to condemn a president. This was one of the reforms that we were envisaging; the possibility to impeach, if a president is found to fail. But there is people who are the judge. The congress does not appoint a president, the congress may appoint a member. This is the right of the people. Nowhere does the congress appoint the president, the president is appointed by the people....". He was applauded and the UN General Assembly deplored the coup officially in resolution GA10842

Now I don't think Micheletti did a great job for his country until now. Why?

• His declaration at the inauguration should have been much, much more explanatory and also in English. Also he especially should have addressed the leftists in Honduras. Maybe he should have limited his own power and maybe he should have planned the president elections not in November but in September.
• Honduran ambassadors should have been instructed to give press conferences worldwide, explaining and defending the new situation.
• He should have demanded to speak at the OAS conference this week, explaining Honduras' situation.
• He should have demanded to speak at the same UN plenary meeting as Zelaya did, explaining Honduras' situation.

Honduras is getting more and more isolated, which can be very bad for its trade and economy. International grants may go on hold. I hope he has got a good plan to handle Zelaya's return on Thursday. Let's hope for the best.

Certainly not his own idea, but it's smart from Zelaya to play the "UN card". He said on Monday that he would address the United Nations in New York to protest the coup that ousted him from power. If you look carefully at all official US statements that were made by Obama, Clinton and the US ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens, then you'll notice they are all in line with each other. In political statements it is often more important to look at things that were not said, then things that were. The word "coup" was never used, reinstatement of Zelaya was not called for, the word "condemned" was used very carefully by Obama and Clinton.

Only the statement of UN Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo 6/29 seems out of line here. She stated: "We further joined our OAS colleagues in demanding the safe and unconditional return of President Zelaya to Honduras so he can resume his constitutional functions." He will almost certain refer to the DiCarlo statement in his appeal to the UN. I am curious how Obama/Clinton will tackle this. The US really don't want Zelaya in Honduras, but wants to stay friends with Hugo.

The AP frames this perfectly from the very first paragraph as a strictly domestic and constitutional matter that Honduras appears to have handled completely legally, according to *THEIR* laws. The rest of the world has no business getting involved.

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TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – A military coup has divided Honduras between two leaders — one recognized by world bodies and another backed by the country's congress, courts and military.

[...]

There is a deep rift between the outside world — which is clamoring for the return of democratically elected, but largely unpopular and soon-to-leave-office President Manuel Zelaya — and congressionally designated successor Roberto Micheletti.

Micheletti rejected any outside interference and declared a two-night curfew, while Chavez vowed that "we will overthrow (Micheletti)."

The Honduran constitution limits presidents to a single 4-year term, and Zelaya's opponents feared he would use the referendum results to try to run again, just as Chavez reformed his country's constitution to be able to seek re-election repeatedly.

Micheletti said the army acted on orders from the courts, and the ouster was carried out "to defend respect for the law and the principles of democracy." But he threatened to jail Zelaya and put him on trial if he returned. Micheletti also hit back at Chavez, saying "nobody, not Barack Obama and much less Hugo Chavez, has any right to threaten this country."

It was the sort of "coup" (if that is what it was, but it isn't 100% obvious it is given the highest-level terminations in civilian police, military, congress, etc., combined with the failure to adhere to the Supreme Court decision that dealt with re-election and legitimate governance, and apparently eliminated his Presidential authority and might even have ended his citizenship) that one could have all-but put on the calendar or into the daily planners. Last week there was no school, government offices were closed, the downtown was locked down, cell companies acknowledges an expected impending lack of service, and even supermarkets took out print & radio ads notifying people to buy now and stock up for 10 days- then they closed, too.

The peculiar uses of the military in the weeks leading up to the event were likely exploratory in nature, designed to both annoy and/or panic Zelaya and also used to determine if he had security forces not on the official payroll, where they were and what they would start to do if provoked. It doesn't help that 25x as many people as normal have been entering the country in the last 90 days on Cuban and Venezuelan passports, etc. This doesn't prove or imply anything illegal or underground, but it also isn't exactly a vote of confidence in Honduran sovereignty - the military has ready access to this data, which must have looked suspicious to say the least.

The sad part, beyond the horrible precedent it sets, is that it was all unnecessary, and the product of Zelaya's bad judgment and input from his advisors - many of whom do not hold Honduran passports. Even a college sophomore poli sci major could have devised a better plan long-range than the one Zelaya ended up with. Were it not for the presumed need to suddenly change the Constitution, none of this would have happened (without it he couldn't be re-elected, so all people needed to do is wait him out, etc.). His blunders are so big it is genuinely difficult to assess whether or not this was planned to provoke a political or military overreaction or some other reaction that would have led to something other than a plane ride to Costa Rica, or if they really thought this would work.

Zelaya, while far from a genius, would have been better doing everything himself. He could have accomplished most of what little he did without Chavez, and the last thing he needed was Chavez-based press commentary on democracy, military aid, force, etc. The biggest recent blow to Zelaya was actually the Honduran reaction to Chavez, especially this month. While Zelaya does have populace support in Honduras (just not that of any politically connected people), even many of these people seemed surprised and insulted by the comments made by Chavez, and those "heard" in Honduras on his behalf. On radio and tv it was not hard for reporters to locate Hondurans who admitted they were liberals, that they may or may not support all of Zelaya's policies and believe in democracy, but -and this was the interesting part- that if anyone from Venezuela or Nicaragua entered Honduras intend to insert or prop up any Honduran politician, that they would fight or aid their military in doing so, to repel them. Quite remarkable, really. So, in effect, by going this far Zelaya actually ended up taking people mildly sympathetic to much of what he was doing and pissed the off in such a way that they claimed they were willing to take up arms and fight any non-Hondurans who might be coming to support the "party" to which they belong, politically.

It is hard to imagine how Zelaya's advisors could have so badly misjudged the reaction of the average Honduran to the idea of Chavez sending people to do, well, almost anything. While a good percentage of Hondurans support many ideas adhered to by Zelaya, they rarely support the manner in which he tried to implement them; while countless Hondurans would like to see some changes, including some implemented by someone like Morales (Bolivia) or Chavez, this does not mean they admire, like or even respect Chavez - who they liken to someone like Castro as opposed to someone like Silva (Brazil). Being associated with Cuba is generally a bad thing in Honduras, mostly because it is not uncommon for Cubans who know they likely can’t boat-it to the U.S. to shoot for Honduras where they are allowed to stay and their plights are well known ( http://www.nicaliving.com/node/3550 ).

If a re-election referendum is the plan, then announce it far in advance; if the referendum is to take place, don't control every aspect of it and all voter/ballot security with your private army; if you can’t get it past the Supreme Court on the first try, then don’t go get the ballots and take them home; if you want to instill confidence in the what might happen following the referendum, announce that well in advance; to demonstrate good-faith in the national process an eliminate the base argument from detractors, then prior to the referendum proclaim and sign an official order -accompanied by Congress, Court, & Military- that you will not be a candidate regardless of the outcome of the referendum and that any extended Presidential terms would start with the next President. These simple steps would have virtually insured the military would have never done anything, nor would they or any other politician had any desire to do so. The reason Zelaya couldn't opt for any straightforward approach like is that anyone claiming to be a 'Zelayaian" in 2009 has litttle chance of getting elected next year or any time soon. He had to do this because he couldn't run again, and none his inner party could have gotten elected next year. Had he really believed in real democracy then he would have took the chances that would resulted from basic steps like those outlined above (the Supreme Court, in a relatively rare act of sanity, offered a decent decision that almost presupposes a transition with steps like those above built into it).

Most Hondurans do not speak badly of their military. Not out of fear (as in some countries), but because they don't have much of any cause for doing so. Even with that, no one wanted this result; most people I ever met (and I live part-time in a common barrio in the capital not far from downtown; neighbors own tiny businesses, teach school, work in supermarkets and government offices, etc) or spoke to stated or implied that "...hopefully it just goes away and we can start over soon...". By "go away" some meant Zelaya himself, but many meant the idea of getting rid of Zelaya - they didn't want some lone gunman or the military to solve this and wanted Zelaya gone and an election delivering someone better. If Zelaya had tried to shoot his way out of the Palace and got killed, the likely explanation would have been some elaborate psych-babble martyr theory - since he had virtually no chance of accomplishing what he insisted on doing. But, that didn’t happen, and that makes it that much harder to decipher his motives or plan (he appears not to have ever had a “plan b”).

Hmmm, three guesses where fyl will come down on this issue.