Thoughts on Honduras

[tangaroa]

Here is a link to the earlier post on this subject.

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Honduras got screwed by the media and and the lingering power of first perceptions. Most news organizations and heads of state are still basing their reports and reactions upon the initial reports from ousted President Manuel Zelaya who called his removal a military coup, and no one is questioning their initial judgment or attempting a deeper examination of the facts. The facts seem to show that Zelaya was flagrantly breaking the law, that the other two branches of government and parts of the executive branch were supportive of Zelaya's removal, and that the Micheletti administration is the current rightful legal authority.

This is not to say the removal of Zelaya was without problems. The military forced Zelaya to sign a letter of resignation, or forged such a letter, to support his removal. This is not something that a process with proper authority should have needed to do. To my awareness there was no written court order for Zelaya's removal, leaving the possibility that it was initiated by the military and only given a gloss of approval by the Supreme Court and Congress. The Supreme Court says that they gave the order, and there is no reason not to trust them given how authority has remained in the civil institutions, but I know of no copy having been released. There is also a question of propriety in the removal being carried out by military rather than lightly armed police units, and in the expulsion of Zelaya from the country rather than his simple jailing or removal from office. In addition, Congress declared a state of emergency after removing Zelaya, suspending protections of civil rights. Still, signs point to the change in power being legal under Honduran law if not in perfect alignment with my personal morals.

The Honduran government is now engaged in negotiations with President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica on behalf of the Organization of American States and, essentially, the world. Arias has taken Zelaya's side from the start and has insisted on Zelaya's return to office as a condition of any agreement. This makes sense from the perspective of one who sees Zelaya as the rightful President of Honduras, and it makes no sense at all to one who does not.

If the new government agrees to any change in the Constitutional order, such as the return of Zelaya to power or a change in the scheduling of elections, it immediately loses its authority as the restorers of that order. Everybody associated with the government -- everybody except Zelaya -- will be discredited as too incompetent to defend the Constitution let alone whatever political agenda they were elected on. If Micheletti's people are politically savvy, no agreement is going to happen unless the current economic embargoes place such stress on the Honduran economy that Micheletti feels he must surrender for the good of the nation.

Honduras will probably continue the negotiations with Arias to occupy Zelaya's time until November's elections so that he is not able to coordinate an armed revolt in the interim, a real threat for which Venezuela has pledged support and El Salvador would be willing to route supplies. After the elections, it will be hard for anybody to deny the legitimacy of the state. I expect that Venezuela will declare there to have been election fraud whether there was or not, and any election difficulties will be blown out of proportion, but the election results should be accepted by most countries so long as there are no serious problems.

Also: Cesar Ham is still alive to give speeches which strongly suggests that he was not shot to death on the day of Zelaya's removal. This means that both the pro-government reports and the pro-Zelaya reports on his death were all lies.