The Republic of Turkey is generally regarded as a democracy. The latest Freedom House report on electoral democracies asserts . By virtue of being a candidate country for EU enlargement, Turkey, the easternmost member of NATO is a democracy. However, were Turkey to join the supranational European Union, it would be the only member state where the unelected military plays a role in upholding the constitutional order of the country. In this last respect, Honduras is very much like Turkey. Yet, the President of the United States and his Secretary of State have .
On June 28, the army of Honduras the elected president of that country, and flew him to Costa Rica. Some of his supporters have since been detained. But, despite claims to the contrary, this is not a textbook coup in Latin America. The army has assumed control of the country. Instead, power has been passed to the person who, under the present Honduran constitution, is to become president in case of a vacancy in that office. In that respect, this is nothing like Arbenz in Guatemala whose successor after a day was a general, or Allende in Chile, who was toppled and replaced by a general, Augusto Pinochet. That President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and others have suggested otherwise is misleading.
President Manuel Zelaya, who received that free and unexpected trip to Costa Rica is a disciple of Hugo Chavez, the current leader of Venezuela. Much like Chavez, Zelaya seems only to like democracy when it benefits him directly. In recent weeks, from the Supreme Court of his country, the chief human rights official in his country, and the Honduran congress, which is led by his own party.
Much like President Chavez, the deposed Zelaya sought to expand his own powers through means Napoleon Bonaparte could appreciate. Indeed, the well-known figure of nineteenth century France (or his nephew decades later for that matter) could say that he was given his expansive political powers by the electorate, even if said electorate undermined the existing political system in the process. Honduran presidents, under its present constitution, can serve only one elected term. For a country in the past by the very long rule of self-interested tyrants, this check on executive power is meant to uphold the best values of human rights and democratic norms the current administration claims to support in Latin America. Nonetheless, this well-intended check on executive power was not good enough for Mr. Zelaya, who an referendum for this Sunday on giving himself the possibility of a longer tenure in office.
Much like the military of Turkey has the power to remove “democratic” leaders lurching the country towards extremism, the Honduran military has the to supervise elections and preserve the constitutional order of the state. In the past, the Honduran military has acted against the interests of human rights and the rule of law, but with respect to Zelaya, the armed forces are in the right. To be clear, the problem with Zelaya is not his leftward orientation; rather, the problem is his disdain for the rule of law.
No one should be surprised that the removal of Zelaya angered the socialist governments of Cuba and . Instead of condemning the of Venezuela following this coup, the U.S. President and State Department backed away from their rhetorically appropriate stance to one of condemnation of the Honduran military. This change of stance by the United States from diplomatic nuance on the matter to outright hostility towards the change in Tegucigalpa lends credence to the critics of President Obama who portray him as a hard-left ideologue and seek the sort of change at the ballot box in 2010 and 2012 that Argentine voters Monday, and likely will in 2011.
Last 5 posts by James Kane
- A November to Remember - November 8th, 2010
- On hope and fear - October 18th, 2010
- Expecting Different Results - September 12th, 2010
- A glaring omission on Iraq - August 31st, 2010
- Employing a losing strategy - August 7th, 2010
THE CURRENT SITUATION IN HONDURAS – 10 Bullet Points – PLEASE READ
1. The event this morning should be taken as an arrest against a Honduras citizen, Manuel Zelaya, who broke the constitutional Honduran law in multiple occasions over the last few days.
2. This SHOULD NOT be taken as a Coup d’état.
3. The vast majority of Honduras firmly opposes Manuel Zelaya and are in favor of his arrest.
4. The current news being portrayed in international networks appear to be heavily tilted toward a contrarian view of most Hondurans.
5. The majority of Honduras are not in favor of Manual Zelaya and are extremely proud of our congress and military for their stance in favor of democracy and peace.
6. The events happening today were caused by an attempt by Manuel Zelaya to manipulate our country and its constitution to fulfill his ultimate goal of remaining in power indefinitely.
7. The world should be proud of Honduras as we are the first Latin-American country to stand against a tyrannical leader who has tried to topple democracy and peace in our country.
8. Declarations made by Hugo Chavez should be discredited immediately. He should, as President Obama said, allow Hondurans to solve this issue through open communication following LEGAL processes.
9. It is not only in the interest of Honduras and its citizens that democracy prevails (supported by the events today and Manuel Zelaya’s arrest) but also in the interest of the UNITED STATES that no other countries align with Hugo Chavez (and his puppets) to build his empire against democracy and peace.
10. In case Hugo Chavez tries to use military force in Honduras, we hope and pray we can count on the United States to stand along side Honduras against the fight against tyranny and oppression.
I am honduran and this whats happening is NOT A MILITARY COUP is us hondurans defending what we believe in and we believe in is democracy and this man Manuel Zelaya was a clear threat to our democracy he wanted continuism he wanted even to violate our constitution to achieve this`just as Chavez did in Venezuela we dont want our country to end up like venezuela we want freedom not oppresion and I greatly thank our armed forces for what they did and our supreme court of justice for taking over plEase i BEG the international community to learn more of what happened here and stop hearing the words of the ignorant fool we had for president we dont want no hugo chavez we dont want ortega we want our country to withstand the elections coming on november and for the ones who are watching us to acknowledge our current goverement as legal and help us go still on the path of democracy dont believe the words of Zelaya ortega and Chavez the are not defending democracy ITS A LIE those words are just curtains of smoke covering their true ambitions they are the true enemy Viva HONDURAS Y VIVA NUESTRa DEMOCRACIA please dont let zelaya get back to presidency we dont want that those people of CNN that are protesting are the least minority they are a little group of people paid to create a revolt by Zelayas people the mayority of Honduras made their point we dont want zelaya we want our constitution no be intact AND international community OPEN YOUR EYES dont help Zelaya
Excellent post, James. And I’m very proud to see Hondurans commenting on our site about this issue. I plan to follow up on developments on the ordeal and write about how it falls into President Obama’s foreign policy within the coming days.
James, I must concur fully with Abel. This is a brilliant post. Excellent work!
I look forward to that, Abel.
Wow, Obama is siding with the marxist who violated his country’s constiution.
Thank you for printing the facts. We hondurans do not want this man back in our country, we do not want a civil conflict, and most of us are backing our Congress, our Supreme Court and the Armed Forces. You just have to see our massive rallies against zelaya. Please help us, make our voices be heard!!!!