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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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 Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 12:15 pm Post subject: Honduran Coup... |
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The Honduran military detained [President Jose Manuel] Zelaya early Sunday morning and flew him to Costa Rica. [Roberto] Micheletti, the president of Congress, was sworn in that afternoon.
Zelaya, a leftist who took office in 2006, had been at odds with Congress, the Supreme Court and the military over a referendum he planned to hold Sunday. Congress had forbidden it and the Supreme Court ruled it illegal.
Military officers began discussing whether Zelaya's proposed referendum was legal more than two months before he was removed from office, a top army official said Tuesday.
The army's chief legal officer, Col. Herberth Bayardo Inestroza, sought a legal opinion from the nation's top general on April 27, Inestroza told CNN en Espa�ol's Krupskaia Alis.
Gen. Romeo Vasquez Velasquez decided the referendum would be illegal and informed Zelaya that the armed forces would not participate. Velasquez fired him last week.
The Supreme Court ordered the general reinstated.
The president ignored those actions and vowed to hold the vote Sunday anyway. He was toppled before the voting started. |
CNN Reports
How could this be? How could such an event occur in utopian Latin America unless the Americans perpetrated it...? |
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blade
Joined: 30 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 8:02 pm Post subject: Re: Honduran Coup... |
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| Gopher wrote: |
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The Honduran military detained [President Jose Manuel] Zelaya early Sunday morning and flew him to Costa Rica. [Roberto] Micheletti, the president of Congress, was sworn in that afternoon.
Zelaya, a leftist who took office in 2006, had been at odds with Congress, the Supreme Court and the military over a referendum he planned to hold Sunday. Congress had forbidden it and the Supreme Court ruled it illegal.
Military officers began discussing whether Zelaya's proposed referendum was legal more than two months before he was removed from office, a top army official said Tuesday.
The army's chief legal officer, Col. Herberth Bayardo Inestroza, sought a legal opinion from the nation's top general on April 27, Inestroza told CNN en Espa�ol's Krupskaia Alis.
Gen. Romeo Vasquez Velasquez decided the referendum would be illegal and informed Zelaya that the armed forces would not participate. Velasquez fired him last week.
The Supreme Court ordered the general reinstated.
The president ignored those actions and vowed to hold the vote Sunday anyway. He was toppled before the voting started. |
CNN Reports
How could this be? How could such an event occur in utopian Latin America unless the Americans perpetrated it...? |
Yes, it's strange that the US doesn't seem to behind this coup. Back in the day the US would all over it. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 8:08 pm Post subject: |
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| [T]he Honduran Congress took up the matter of the removal of Mr. Zelaya from the Presidency in accordance with its powers under Title V, Chapter I, Article 205, paragraph 15, which authorizes the Congress to bring up charges against the President. By unanimous vote of the Representatives, including the members of Zelaya�s party, who constitute a majority of the legislative body, he was removed. |
http://www.examiner.com/x-5325-Orlando-Republican-Examiner~y2009m7d1-Obama-fails-statesmanship-test-in-Honduras-crisis
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=a4L440O9Lmyk
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July 1 (Bloomberg) -- Honduras�s military acted under judicial orders in deposing President Manuel Zelaya, Supreme Court Justice Rosalinda Cruz said, rejecting the view of President Barack Obama and other leaders that he was toppled in a coup.
�The only thing the armed forces did was carry out an arrest order,� Cruz, 55, said in a telephone interview from the capital, Tegucigalpa. �There�s no doubt he was preparing his own coup by conspiring to shut down the congress and courts.�
Cruz said the court issued a sealed arrest order for Zelaya on June 26, charging him with treason and violating the constitution, among other offenses. Zelaya had repeatedly breached the constitution by pushing ahead with a nationwide vote that the court ruled illegal, and which opponents contend might have paved the way for a prohibited second term.
She compared Zelaya�s tactics, including firing of the armed forces chief for obeying a court order to impound the ballots for the poll, with those of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
�Some say it was not Zelaya but Chavez governing,� she said, adding that the arrest order will be made public today along with documents pertaining to a secret investigation that took place for weeks under the high court�s supervision.
Cruz acknowledged that the interim government faced a �very difficult� task trying to sway the U.S. and other countries to recognize its authority.
�Sovereign and Independent�
�But as a sovereign and independent nation, we have the right to freely decide to remove a president who was violating our laws,� she said. �Unfortunately our voice hasn�t been heard.� |
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Colonel Bayardo, dressed in green camouflage and wearing a blue beret, described a behind-the-scenes struggle between the armed forces and Mr. Zelaya that played out over the weeks before the decision to grab the president from his home, shuttle him to a military base and fly him out of the country.
The army had resisted participating in a nonbinding referendum on constitutional changes that Mr. Zelaya continued to push after both Congress and the courts had labeled the president�s move unconstitutional. Army lawyers were convinced that Mr. Zelaya was moving to lift a provision limiting presidents to a single term in office, Colonel Bayardo said.
When the army refused an order to help organize the referendum, the president fired the commander of the armed forces, Gen. Romeo V�squez. He was reinstated by the Supreme Court, which found his removal illegal.
The detention order, signed June 26 by a Supreme Court judge, ordered the armed forces to detain the president, identified by his full name of Jos� Manuel Zelaya Rosales, at his home in the Tres Caminos area of the capital. It accused him of treason and abuse of authority, among other charges.
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Colonel Bayardo defended the president�s expulsion, saying there was a last-minute decision to send him out of the country, to lower tensions and prevent violence.
Two days before Mr. Zelaya�s removal, military leaders met with Roberto Micheletti, the leader of Congress at the time and now the interim president, to discuss what was viewed as a constitutional crisis, Colonel Bayardo said. But it was not until the day before the predawn raid that everything came into place with a flurry of secret meetings involving army and civilian lawyers as well as a small group of political leaders. About 11 p.m. Saturday, the detention order reached the army�s top command, Colonel Bayardo said. It was carried out early the next morning. |
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/world/americas/02coup.html
The other side. |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 8:14 pm Post subject: |
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You make a good point here, but given that the Honduran President was acting illegally, one might argue that impeachment proceedings might have been more appropriate than a military coup. The latter could be on shaky legal grounds as well.
Maybe the Honduran military felt that time was of the essense. |
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blade
Joined: 30 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 8:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Honduras has a very strange constitution when a President can be deposed because he wants to hold a none binding referendum. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2009 8:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
You make a good point here, but given that the Honduran President was acting illegally, one might argue that impeachment proceedings might have been more appropriate than a military coup. The latter could be on shaky legal grounds as well.
Maybe the Honduran military felt that time was of the essense. |
I haven't read my copy of the Honduran constitution for a few weeks so I'll have to withhold comment.
But anyways, the nuances have been ignored and good/bad set. How will the President respond.. We wait with held breath. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 3:50 pm Post subject: |
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| blade wrote: |
| Yes, it's strange that the US doesn't seem to behind this coup. Back in the day the US would all over it. |
"Strange" only because American academics have long accustomed many, including very obviously many who post here, to seeing Latin American history as a unilateral process: that which the American govt did to the Latin Americans. Latin American actors appear only as American proxies, victims, or, from time to time, as the heroic resistance who never quite succeeded. And non-American, non-Latin American actors almost never appear at all.
Thus it becomes strange when people point out that coups occur all over Latin American history and into the present, including this one, that have little to do with the United States, and that, moreover, the American govt cannot influence them one way or the other.
I remind you that this one is happening in the heart of American political, military, and economic power: the Caribbean. Should Washington simply not be able to instruct the Honduran generals to stand down...?
The OAS and on the larger stage, the EU and the UN, seem to have little or no influence on the ground in Honduras, either. Why not, do you think?
Meanwhile...
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| TEGUCIGALPA -- Honduran troops used tear gas and fired shots into the air to hold back protesters at Tegucigalpa's airport Sunday evening ahead of an attempted return by deposed President Jose Manuel Zelaya, injuring at least one person, protest organizers said... |
CNN Reports |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 4:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| I remind you that this one is happening in the heart of American political, military, and economic power: the Caribbean. Should Washington simply not be able to instruct the Honduran generals to stand down...? |
That doesn't seem very in keeping with our current administration's style. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 4:37 pm Post subject: |
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But I do not refer to that which the Obama administration should or should not do, or would or would not do. Rather, does it have the ability to do this, can the American govt, under any administration, influence Latin American ground conditions like this? How about Iranian or Sudanese ground conditions, for that matter?
What luck did the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations have in influencing Domincan affairs, for example?
What luck did the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and a billion American dollars have in influencing Chilean affairs, to cite another? Add the Nixon administration as well.
What luck has any American administration had in influencing Cuban affairs from 1959 to the present? or Venezuelan affairs since H. Chavez assumed power there?
This Honduran case further attacks the tendency to fault the American govt for each and every coup or negative development in Latin American and Caribbean affairs I reference, above. Sooner or later people are going to have to do what G. Galileo once did: look out there, admit that movement that the reigning paradigm -- be it a geocentric or merely Washington-centric universe -- refuses to acknowledge occurs, and then create a new paradigm that accounts for that movement... |
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blade
Joined: 30 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 5:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| blade wrote: |
| Yes, it's strange that the US doesn't seem to behind this coup. Back in the day the US would all over it. |
"Strange" only because American academics have long accustomed many, including very obviously many who post here, to seeing Latin American history as a unilateral process: that which the American govt did to the Latin Americans. Latin American actors appear only as American proxies, victims, or, from time to time, as the heroic resistance who never quite succeeded. And non-American, non-Latin American actors almost never appear at all.
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I think you need to study up a little on South American politics as you obviously had your idealogical blinkers on when you supposedly studied this at university. Anyway who ever said that America was to blame for all of South Americas ills, I don't recall Chomsky saying such any of his books that I've read. Chomsky has written much about the new independence of South America of late from US hegemony and I suspect that this coup is an unfortunate side effect of this rising Independence.
Anyway you know full well that America for much of the twentieth century followed the Monro doctrine when it came to south America i.e. America considered south America to be in it's own back yard. This meant that any outside interference from anybody was considered a direct challenge to the US hegemony in the region. You also know that most of the coups in South America in the twentieth century often occurred with the US's tacit approval.
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Thus it becomes strange when people point out that coups occur all over Latin American history and into the present, including this one, that have little to do with the United States, and that, moreover, the American govt cannot influence them one way or the other. |
Really? You're saying that South America exists in a political vacuum and the worlds only superpower and South Americas biggest trading partner is incapable of of applying any influence?
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I remind you that this one is happening in the heart of American political, military, and economic power: the Caribbean. Should Washington simply not be able to instruct the Honduran generals to stand down...? |
Sure why not? If it really wanted to I'm sure it could but what's in it for the US to do so?
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The OAS and on the larger stage, the EU and the UN, seem to have little or no influence on the ground in Honduras, either. Why not, do you think? |
You tell me?
Last edited by blade on Sun Jul 05, 2009 5:10 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 5:07 pm Post subject: |
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| I can hear Gopher furiously typing his reply from thousands of km away. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 5:29 pm Post subject: |
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Why, Mises? What would be the point in expending that energy with respect to this particular poster and his repeating the party line here...?
How about them apples? |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 5:33 pm Post subject: |
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| He challenged your knowledge of LA and added a couple references to Chomsky.. I figured wrong, I guess. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 5:33 pm Post subject: |
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| And what do you think of my knowledge of Latin American affairs vs. his, Mises? I already know what you think of the prestigious N. Chomsky. |
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blade
Joined: 30 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 5:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
Why, Mises? What would be the point in expending that energy with respect to this particular poster and his repeating the party line here...?
How about them apples? |
Dam, you mean todays not going to be Gopher day?  |
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