The Obama Administration formally cut off aid to the impoverished nation of Honduras today, and announced other impending sanctions, to pressure the country to accept the return of its ex-president and would-be dictator. The Administration did this even though its legal basis for doing so had been debunked and abandoned.
Earlier, the State Department planned to cut off aid to Honduras based on the false claim that its removal of ex-president Manuel Zelaya was a “military coup.” But this claim was easily debunked, because Honduras replaced the ex-president with a civilian successor (a Congressman installed by Honduras’s Congress), who is backed by a democratically-elected legislature and a unanimous vote by the country’s supreme court. (Indeed, the Honduras Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant for the former president’s arrest, which soldiers duly carried out, and recently issued a ruling reaffirming that the ex-president’s removal from office was valid. The Obama Administration retaliated against Honduras for this ruling by imposing travel sanctions against the Honduran people). Moreover, Honduras’ removal of its ex-president was legal.
Now, the State Department more or less admits that admits that there was no military coup, citing “the participation of both the legislative and judicial branches of government” in the president’s removal.
But while its original justification for cutting off the aid has disappeared, the Obama Administration was determined to cut off aid anyway, logic be damned. The Associated Press now reports that “the Obama administration on Thursday cut off all aid to the Honduran government over the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya, making permanent a temporary suspension of U.S. assistance put in place after he was deposed in June.”
U.S. sanctions are causing suffering, malnutrition, and widespread unemployment in Honduras, blocking needed projects such as the construction of orphanages.
Honduras removed ex-president Zelaya after he systematically abused his powers: he sought to circumvent constitutional term limits, used mobs to intimidate his critics, threatened public employees with termination if they refused to help him violate the Constitution, engaged in massive corruption, illegally cut off public funds to local governments whose leaders refused to back his quest for more power, denied basic government services to his critics, refused to enforce dozens of laws passed by Congress, and spent the country into virtual bankruptcy, refusing to submit a budget so that he could illegally spend public funds on his cronies.
Journalists nonsensically refer to Honduras’s removal of its ex-president as a “coup” even while admitting that it was approved by the country’s supreme court, and stating that it was ordered by the court. But if it was legal, by definition, it cannot be a coup, since a coup is defined as “the unconstitutional overthrow of a legitimate government by a small group.”
The ex-president’s removal was perfectly constitutional, say many lawyers and foreign policy experts, including attorneys Octavio Sanchez, Miguel Estrada, and Dan Miller, former Assistant Secretary of State Kim Holmes, Stanford’s William Ratliff, and the Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady.
President Obama’s demand that Honduras reinstate its would-be dictator has emboldened other elected leaders in Latin America to try to make themselves dictators. (Even the liberal Washington Post, which has not endorsed a Republican for president since 1952, admitted that the Obama Administration has shown a “willful disregard of political oppression” by left-wing dictators in Latin America). Obama’s demand has been supported by the Cuban communist dictator Castro and the Venezuelan socialist dictator Chavez, who counted Honduras’s deposed president as an ally, despite his background as a wealthy and corrupt landowner.
Moreover, the ex-president’s removal was not a “coup” because it was not committed by a “small group,” as the definition of “coup” requires. The removal of Honduras’s president was supported by the entire Honduran Supreme Court, an almost unanimous Honduran Congress, and much of Honduran society. Honduras did not lose its government, but merely replaced one illegitimate part of it: its overbearing president. And his removal from office (as opposed to his subsequent exile) was clearly legally justified.
The fact that solders, not police, enforced the removal of Honduras’s ex-president does not make it a coup. Because soldiers, “instead of the police,” carried out the court’s orders to remove the ex-president, the removal has been falsely called a “military coup” by liberal journalists, the Obama Administration, the Carter Center, and the leftist regimes that now prevail in much of Latin America. But soldiers’ participation made sense. Only soldiers, not police, would have enough manpower to remove a would-be dictator who was the most powerful man in his country, with his own bodyguards. More importantly, the Honduran Constitution expressly vests the military — not police — with the power to enforce Constitutional guarantees like term limits, in Article 272. The president forfeited his right to rule by proposing an end to term limits (Honduras has had such a problem with elected presidents later becoming “presidents for life” through vote fraud and intimidation that Article 239 of the Honduras Constitution strips presidents of the presidency if they even “propose” an end to term limits). And soldiers have occasionally been used to enforce court orders, even in the U.S., such as in the 1957 Little Rock desegregation order.
I guess this is how the USA’s repays the Honduran majority for all the support during decades of leftist/guerilla wars that killed 100 of thousands of civilians during similar exercises of continual power seeking leftists in the past.
They speak about democracy and majority rule, where is that now.
80% of Hondurans like myself fully support the actions of the Congress, Supreme Court,and the Electoral committe in removing Zelaya from power BEFORE he destroyed our country.
The present US Administration should search be ashamed of only seeking the popular way out of this issue. Popular only with leftist leaders who has demonstrated in Latin America for decades that they are hypocrites when they speak to the ignorant masses that believe their rhetoric about elites. Utterly unbelievable!
great, now the hundurans are gonna come all to the USA to take over and try to make the USA a little Honduras, this will never end, and they will cont. to expect us to learn Spanish instead of them learning English. A stop must be put to this…Terrible.
Jeff,
Your comments demonstrate your ignorance.
It’s persons like yourself that have never left the USA, then are put in charge of foreing relations overseas that have continuosly undermined your own country’s interest.
Been to 64 countries around the world, have been asked why (by a US Embassy official) why I never spend more than a few days in the US. My response, the US is considered the greatest country in the world, but it’s YOUR country.
Honduras is my country, and so far I haven’t found anywhere else that can take it’s place.
Let the Hondurans decide what type political system they want, and 80% of us have already chosen. NO TO LEFTIST,SOCIALISM.
Educate yourself about the country before you make idiotic remarks.
Very well written article that hits all of the important points. Here in Honduras we are dumbfounded as to why the Obama administration has chosen it’s stance regarding the legal removal of Mr. Zelaya.
Aaron Etches
Roatan, Honduras
Watch and learn:
http://www.laverdadenhonduras.com/index.php/videos/detail/ucd_-_democracy_is_alive_and_strong_in_honduras/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da9etL5uqy8&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.laverdadenhonduras.com%2Findex.php%2Fimagenes%2F&feature=player_embedded
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=library&series-id=All&tag-id=22&from-date=All&to-date=All&include-future=false&sort=date&reverse=true&page=1&library-results-per-page=10&all-text=false&newValue=&video-id=&query-string-library=honduras
THANK YOU VERY MUCH !!! I am Honduran and could not have said it better! I would rather spend 6 months of Hell than a lifetime of comunist/socialist opression. An open question would be: Why if the press sees the issue for what it is, does the U.S.administration feel the need to hone in on the most impoverished sector of my county , imposing sanctions which will affect everyone? Although it is said that the funds, which are not to be alicated, will not affect the under-privilaged sector of the population; when a population is 63.2% POOR and 44.7% of those live in abject poverty, any sanction to the country will affect those in need, who make up the largest portion of my nation´s population.
Much as I’d love to believe the State Dept. didn’t call the events of 28th a coup….they did, three times.
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2009/sept/128608.htm
depressing, huh?
We need to go through with the sanctions and the election, and in the end, the US will have to break it’s hypocrisy, or risk making us another Taiwan.
Aaron, they called it a coup but not a military coup. Seems there is a difference though I couldn´t find one in US foreign policy law…so if someone could point it out…-I somehow think they invented this legislative coup thing.
http://www.hondurasthisweek.com/editorial/1441-honduras-crisis
To coup or not to coup? That is the question
Yes, the State Department didn’t call it a military coup — because it wasn’t a coup, far from being a military coup.
The State Department implies that it’s some sort of coup, but there is no such thing as a legislative coup or a judicial coup.
There was a lot more legal authority for the former president’s removal than, say, in England in 1688, when the English Parliament exiled the king, fearing he was getting too powerful.
The exiling of England’s king was called the “Glorious Revolution” (even though Parliament was an oligarchic institution of mostly rich landowners elected by a tiny percentage of England’s people).
By contrast, Honduras’s actions, which were far more democratic, somehow get labeled a “coup” — which makes no sense.
Honduras’ legislature, which backed the president’s removal, is elected by universal suffrage, and its supreme court, which effectively ordered the removal, is selected by elected officials (the Honduran supreme court is not exactly a conservative body: it upheld a huge minimum wage increase, for example, even though conservatives, and some liberals, claimed the increase was illegal, and warned that the increase would cause massive layoffs).
Enough is enough! At first I was troubled and somewhat embarrassed that my own country could have been so poorly informed that it made such poor judgments in the early stages of this very right and just process. The leaders from Honduras that have made this very courageous change are truly patriots.
The parties involved from the Obama administration are clearly not dumb people. However, even bright people can make dumb decisions when they are poorly informed. Enough time and data has been provided to these people that it is impossible for the Obama administration to not be aware of all the facts that led to the removal of Zelaya. This can only lead me to believe that the U.S. government has a hidden agenda that for some strange reason does not support democracy in Central America. This gives me great concern. As an American with an enormous investment in Honduras and a great love of the country, I apologize to the citizens of Honduras for my country’s policy.
This is a great article, clearly outlining the Honduras political situation.
As a U.S. Citizen choosing to live in Honduras, I am shocked and disgusted with the country of my birth for their stance on this political situation. They have clearly missed the boat on this one and it is beyond me why they continue to pursue the path of meddling in a sovereign nation’s political matters when they followed the law of their constitution. What happened to upholding democracy? Why is Obama and the State Department so hell bent on backing the leftist arm of government here in Central America.
I think the rest of the citizens of the U.S. need to take this as a wake up call to find out which path President Obama is taking not only the poor country of Honduras, but the U.S. itself.
It was a coup up until the 28th of June.
It was a Democratic coup. The coup was aborted early in the morning when Z´liar woke up and refused to get dressed or left his pajamas under his clothes. Chavez has succesfully executed a Democratic coup to gain communist control over Venezuela. Evo and Correa are well on there way. Ortega is working on it.
http://www.hacer.org/report/2009/07/venezuela-chavez-adventure-in-honduras.html
explains the alba,oas connection and the playbook to dismantle democracies with cheap oil
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/07/17/the_ghost_of_che
the ghost of che gavara
explains the alba movement and how it is hiding behind democracy
And it is all done with the stamp of approval from Insulza at the OAS.
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed070609c.cfm
beware of the not so hidden agendas in the oas
http://www.hacer.org/report/2009/07/honduras-conversation-with-jose-miguel.html
the truth about insulza
Kelcy the scary part is they were very well informed.
http://lagringasblogicito.blogspot.com/2009/08/us-ambassador-hugo-llorens-with-mel.html
http://lagringasblogicito.blogspot.com/2009/08/chain-of-events.html
http://www.examiner.com/x-7812-DC-SCOTUS-Examiner~y2009m7d13-Obama-showed-willful-disregard-of-political-oppression-by-leftist-dictators-says-Washington-Post
why obama backs zelay ais because he is a leftist
not simply left of center
On July 21, 2009 A group of US Citizens who live and have investments on the island of Roatan, Honduras met with the US Ambassador, Hugo Llorens in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. They asked specifically for The Bay Islands & Roatan to be removed from the travel advisories because it is not accurate and it is hurting tourism on the island. The Ambassador was going to check with his legal team, but felt that could be done.
It is now September 4, 2009 Most of mainland Honduras is very calm and normal and Roatan & The Bay Islands have not been exempted from the Travel Alert put out by the US State Department which many look at and republish inaccurately ?
The truth is airplanes are flying in and out, cruise ships are calling, and people are enjoying themselves daily on the beaches of Roatan Island, Honduras ?
This inaccurate travel advice is hurting everyone on Roatan and many US investors.
http://www.iewy.com/8160-day-paradise-roatan-island-honduras-visa-required.html
Right wing nuts. Respect for the rule of law is something which seems to have been forgotten by the author of this blog.
Quite simply, would someone please show me the remedy in the Honduran Constitution that specifies that a president is to escorted out of the country when he supposedly breaks the law. Since under a legitimate action, the remedy is to accuse, detain, arrest, charge, try, and if convicted, sentence and jail. This remedy allowed for under the Honduran Constitution. Capture, removal and exile is not the Constitutional remedy.
Since memory is selective, here’s an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal, Monday, June 29th, 2009: “Honduran soldiers rousted President Manuel Zelaya from his bed and exiled him at gunpoint Sunday to Costa Rica, halting his controversial push to redraw the constitution but spurring fresh concerns about democratic rule across Latin America.”
When the current Honduran leadership, courts, police and military removed Zelaya to another country last June, the illegality of the entire “constitutional succession” was made clear. That’s why it’s called a coup, plain and simple.
“Pat” seemingly hasn’t read the Honduran Constitution, which authorized its ex-president’s removal, and makes straw man arguments.
Neither it — nor the U.S. Constitution — requires that a President be “convicted, sentence[d] and jail[ed]” before being removed from office.
In the U.S., a president can be impeached and removed even if he is never arrested.
In Honduras, a president automatically loses his office under Article 239 if he even “proposes” an end to term limits — no conviction or even impeachment needed.
And of course, no one has ever claimed (contrary to what Pat says) that there is a “remedy in the Honduran Constitution that specifies that a president is to escorted out of the country when he supposedly breaks the law.”
That’s why the ex-president’s exile — unlike his removal from office — is controversial among lawyers.
His removal from office was proper, according to many legal scholars, but his subsequent deportation has been questioned by some of those same legal scholars.