UPDATE: Honduran President Is Ousted in Coup
LATER — Facing South tells us that at least two leaders of the coup were apparently trained at a controversial Department of Defense school based at Fort Benning, Georgia “infamous for producing graduates linked to torture, death squads and other human rights abuses.”
The Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, was ousted by the army on Sunday after pressing ahead with plans for a referendum that opponents said could lay the groundwork for his eventual re-election, in the first military coup in Central America since the end of the cold war.
The Obama administration recognizes ousted President Manuel Zelaya as the only constitutional president of Honduras, a senior administration official said on Sunday.
“We recognize Zelaya as the duly elected and constitutional president of Honduras. We see no other,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters in a conference call organized by the U.S. State Department.
A second official on the same conference call stressed that the United States strongly backed efforts by the Organization of American States to forge a resolution condemning a coup d’etat ousting Zelaya on Sunday and calling for him to be reinstated.
BBC has updates, too.
UPDATE — Obama weights in:
“I am deeply concerned by reports coming out of Honduras regarding the detention and expulsion of President Mel Zelaya,” Obama said in a written statement.
“As the Organization of American States did on Friday, I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference,” Obama said.
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Reuters:
Honduran soldiers detained leftist President Manuel Zelaya on Sunday in a constitutional crisis over his attempt to win re-election, government officials said.
Troops took Zelaya, an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, from his residence to an unknown location, Eduardo Reina, the president’s private secretary, told Reuters.
He said shots were fired during the incident, but that could not be independently confirmed.
“We have received reports that he was taken to a military air base,” Rafael Alegria, a senior government official, told pro-Zelaya television station Channel 8.
BBC:
The move comes days after the president sacked the armed forces chief, who had refused to back the referendum plan.
Mr Zelaya, elected for a non-renewable four-year term in January 2006, wants a vote to enable him to seek a new term.
A reporter for the Associated Press news agency said he had seen dozens of soldiers surround the president’s house on Sunday morning and about 60 police guarding the house.
CNN:
Gen. Romeo Vasquez Velasquez had said the military was caught in a difficult position because the Supreme Court had ruled earlier that the poll is illegal but Zelaya was going ahead with the vote and had instructed the armed forces to provide security.
The court ruled 5-0 that Zelaya violated the general’s constitutional rights by firing him without cause, said magistrate Rosalina Cruz.
The military chief said after he was fired that he respected the president’s decision to dismiss him, but he could not violate a Supreme Court order last week that prohibited the military from supporting the poll.
“We are soldiers and we have to comply with our responsibilities,” Vasquez said Thursday.
But on Friday, he said he never carried through on his threat and that the general had not been fired. “I didn’t do it,” he said.
Still, Zelaya referred to the court as the “Supreme Court of Injustice” after their ruling.
WSJ:
Mr. Zelaya has few supporters among the country’s politicians, but is popular among the poor for his ramped-up social spending. His own Liberal Party has already chosen another candidate for the November election and asked the president to step aside.
“Zelaya has provoked this institutional crisis,” said Michael Shifter, a Latin America analyst at Washington’s Inter-American Dialogue. “He seems to have a very strong appetite for power. He’s trying to be the victim, but he won’t get a lot of sympathy by defying the country’s institutions.”
The European Union condemned the military action and asked that constitutional order be returned.
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4 Responses to “UPDATE: Honduran President Is Ousted in Coup”
Regardless, had he remained in power and gone ahead with the poll (referendum) anyway, it would not have been binding as the Supreme Court ruled against its constitutionality. It seems but an excuse to remove illegally from office a president who had a few months left on his term.
I can't not believe how ignorant the Obama goverment is and the rest of the European Commubnity when they are saying to “codenm the coup!? Honduran people (such as myself) are happy that finnaly we are standing against dictators with no concerns for the Hondurans.
Please don't believe all of the lies by Zelaya and Chavez are saying! Give me a break!
If you are interfiring, then solve poverty in Honduras, create jobs; since unemployment there is 29%, and stop corruption in that coutry by Zelaya and his people.
Hondurans are happy that they fought for their own constitution and freedom…isn't that what democracy is about?
You are scaring me Obama and Cklinton….are you socialist also?
Get you facts together and stop this!!!!!
Hondurans are free!!!!!!!!
First of all thank you Mr. Michael Shiftner for aiding honest Honduras.
I am a proud Honduran ashamed of my now EX-president. Whatever Mr. Manuel Zelaya says is false. It is a widely know fact in Honduras he only has the support of those he has paid. The course of action he has taken and seeks to continue pushing is a replica of similar processes in countries like Boliva, Ecuador and even worst Venezuela. If the global community still calls these democracies then the definition of democracy has surely changed. PLEASE HELP HONEST HONDURANS SPREAD THE WORD. Stop this man! The Armed Forces, National Congress, Supreme Court, Private Business Chambers, Teachers Associations, Catholic and Christian Churches and more social groups have all said NO to this ILLEGAL REFERENDUM.
I beg you on Behalf of all Hondurans to please not allow him to become a martyr. Even though he has insisted that this Popular consult is not binding, he lies, evidence shows his intentions to publish on Sunday’s newspaper a law that after Sunday’s vote that immediately calls for a fourth ballot box in our general elections this coming November and automatically calls for a national assembly to dissolve the other two branches of power and draft a new constitution with nasty similarities to that of Venezuela. This would in turn undoubtedly lead to his indefinite perpetuation in power.
Polls in the country show that only 2 in 10 Hondurans is in favor of Mel Zelaya. How can a popular vote advertized, pushed, controlled, audited and proclaimed by this man be unbiased or transparent. We as Hondurans do not want to be set up for more corruption and fraud. He believes he is above the Honduran Law, He is a Honduran citizen so he is subject to it. He broke our law. Presidents should fear their people, people should not fear their government. For the first time we have spoken, please let the world know these are the majorities wishes, help spread the news. We want to live in a democratic, peaceful country unfortunately Mr. Zelaya had chosen a different path for us.
Below is the link detailing what was meant to be published today in the Honduran Newspapers.
http://www.proceso.hn/2009/06/27/Nacionales/C.A…
Lito Castillo Midence.
Concerned Honduran
I suspect the reporting here in the USA is tainted as it was politically by geopolitics as well as ordinary leftist politics in the media in the 1980s when it came to Soviet adventurism in Nicaragua. (The media here in the USA may be guilty of this in general when reporting about Latin America.)
“Bolivia, Ecuador and even worst Venezuela”
Of course. It's exposed for all to see, even if people here and in our media want to misinterpret (or to misrepresent) it.
At least Castro is infirm, so Cuba is restrained.
The sad question is how much the Obama group is inhibited by leftism and even leftist sympathies. Remember how some in Washington felt about restoring Aristide to power in Haiti, even harnessing the US military in a willingness to see it enforced. Fortunately they don't see the same “need” in Honduras.