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It’s Not a Coup If the Guy Is a Leftist
Jun 28th, 2009 | 67 responses
I know next to nothing about Honduran politics, and even less about Manuel Zelaya specifically, but when I saw the headlines about the coup, and then my eyes fell on this headline, from Fausta’s Blog — “Coup in Honduras – Correction: This is NOT a coup” — my first thought was, “Okay, whoever the coup was against must have been a leftist.”
67 Responses to “It’s Not a Coup If the Guy Is a Leftist”
Kathy said “An arrest warrant? Velaya was surrounded by heavily armed military at 3 o'clock in the morning. They disarmed his security guards, rousted him out of bed, forced him into a vehicle which took him to the airport where he was forced into a plane and flown to Costa Rica, the government of which country had agreed to suspend landing regulations to allow for Velaya's arrival.”
And you think people should only be arrested durring office hours? That they should of timed it so there was the greatest possibility for resistance and violence?
I know lots about Honduran politics. It was a crude form of impeachment because the Honduran Constitution does not have the procedure to remove an autocratic president who is bent on destroying the republican system as this President was. His problems began back in July 2007 when his ill-managed government ran out of money as they had spent the budget for the entire year. The international funding agencies refused to issue more debt as it was obvious that Honduras was far too deep into economic mismanagement. His only way out was to turn to Hugo Chavez which he did and worked hard to get acceptance from Chavez. This is not a leftist President, he is a megalomaniac who got drunk on Chavez' rhetoric. The military acted based on orders from the Supreme Court, Congress, the Attorney General and the Electoral Tribunal all of which are largely controlled by people from his own party. The truth is that if the world takes some time, go down to Honduras, we will all learn that far from being a hit on democracy this event saved Honduras precarious democracy.
And you think people should only be arrested during office hours? That they should of timed it so there was the greatest possibility for resistance and violence?
Well, that is an interesting perspective, Ellis. I must admit I never considered the possibility that by breaking into the presidential residence at 3 am, armed to the gills, forcing the elected leader of Honduras at gunpoint into a car and then onto an airplane to be flown out of the country, the military was trying to avoid resistance and violence. Although when you think about it, I suppose they were, since I don't imagine they particularly wanted resistance or violence. They just wanted to overthrow the elected president and force him to leave the country.
I've never considered such a scenario in the light of an “arrest,” either — since an “arrest” usually involves being taken to some sort of law enforcement facility, to be held until released on bond, or until a trial can be scheduled. When I think about ousting someone from office at gunpoint and ejecting him from the country, “arrest” is not the first word that comes to mind. Nor the second. “Coup” is actually the word that comes to mind.
AP article:
Government supporters began distributing ballots at 15,000 voting stations across the country, defying a Supreme Court ruling declaring Sunday's referendum illegal and ordering all election material confiscated. President Manuel Zelaya had led thousands of supporters to recover the material from an air force warehouse before it could be confiscated.
Under Honduran law, soldiers are normally responsible for distributing ballots ahead of elections, but the military leadership has opposed the vote. Zelaya has fired the military chief for refusing to support the referendum and vows to ignore a Supreme Court ruling ordering him reinstated.
“Leading thousands of supporters” is rather different from “he led a mob that broke into the military installation,” which is how the WSJ editorial put it.
It sounds to me like the military was trying to prevent Zelaya — who is, after all, the elected president of Honduras — from going directly to the people via a nonbinding ballot initiative to find out if there was popular support for amending Honduras's constitution to allow Zelaya (and others after him, of course) to run for reelection. He was not taking the law into his own hands. He was trying to prevent the military from discarding thousands of electoral ballots which were to be used for a legal nonbinding referendum, and which the military had illegally confiscated to prevent the Honduran people from having the opportunity to express their will.
Zelaya was using a democratic process to see if Hondurans wanted a constitutional amendment permitting second terms.The military, obviously, did not want him to do that because second terms in office for democratically elected leaders posed a threat to their power. So they and their right-wing supporters in Congress and the court system colluded to stop him — to prevent him from taking any steps to try to change the provision in the Constitution that did not allow for second terms.
Zelaya was not attempting to foment a revolution and he was not violating any constitutional provisions, because there is no democratic constitution anywhere in the world that forbids the citizens of a country from voting their desire to amend the constitution..A constitution that could not be amended, and that the citizens could not even say they wanted to be amended would not be a democratic constitution; it's a tyrant's manifesto.
And HondurasContracho, you don't “save” democracy by using undemocratic, dictatorial means to express disagreement. Democracy is democracy. You can't have it both ways. You can't have a democracy that employs tyranny and extralegal actions to handle policy or run the government. Indeed, countries that use their militaries, or allow their militaries, to conduct affairs of state are historically not democracies at all. How could it be otherwise? The military ethos is not a democratic ethos. It's an entirely different way of doing things.
Your focus on just the Pres ignores the courts (who told the military they couldn't pass out the ballots), the Congress, the Election Board, hell anything that doesn't fit into your picture. The Pres was trying to overthrow the current Govt, or at least, seeing if the people wanted to over throw the current govt. The constitution cannot be changed so as to allow him to retain the president and still be the same constitution. It would not be amended it would have been replaced because it specifically states that it cannot under any circumstance be changed to allow a second term for Pres. Now is a revolution always a bad thing? Well we would be huge hypocrites if ,as proud Americans, we thought so. So you dislike their constitution an I assume you think it should be “overthrown”. Of Course that would mean using extralegal actions and we know how you feel about that. Honestly depending on your viewpoint it may have been a good thing, but the one trying to overthrow the current system was the Prez, not the Military.
“He was trying to prevent the military from discarding thousands of electoral ballots which were to be used for a legal nonbinding referendum”
You mean he was trying to prevent the military from complying with the actual legal authority involved right, the supreme court, who ordered the military, as part of their regular job oversee voting, to take and destroy the ballots. Sounds like old Prez was using undemocratic, dictatorial means to express disagreement. As you stated that just shouldn't happen right? Hell you keep using the “Military” as a stick to hit people with but have failed to show where they ever acted on their own. Every time they acted it was in response to legal authority. They were given a warrant before the arrest. No one but you has indicated the military has made any unilateral actions. But maybe the view from the soapbox isn't good enough see the big picture.
This is the same Ole Right wing take over
Of the eighties. Gw bush style in Iraq. This is about money!!!! If the wealthy class allows Zelaya to give the people a vote or poll such as they do on AMERIcA!!!! with propositions!!!! Then they will not have 70% poverty and full control. No democracy in the world makes poll or vote on anything legal such as constitutional convention or propositions illegal!!! Except this right wing facist government. George Bush throwbacks themselves acting like communist. Today the new gov declared suspension of all civil rights and non warrant house searches, detentions and arrests without charges in court hmmm sounds a little COMmuNiST to me!!!!
Anyone who thinks this coup is about anything other than money is Gullible !!!and the people in Honduras for this illegal takeover are the same ones who worship the almighty dollar any one who has a few million of them such as Michelletti and the ones who own all the newspapers, media and news. Gee wonder whythey are so brainwashed in the country. When the whole world knows it was an illegal TakeOver by force from a jundgeand freinds of the rich guy who runs congress. To be sucessfull in Honduras you either have to agree with the wealthy, shut up if you don't or ban together. Some democracy!!!!
The supreme court cannot rule an opinion poll ILLEGAL!!!! And no democratic constitution can say a constitution cannot be changed if it is for the people by the people and that that proposition voting is illegal. These are the capitalist communist who have stragled the poor don't to do so!!!!
Umm…. They did. “for the people by the people” is the US not Honduras constitution. Here in the US we have “unalienable rights” which by definition means they can't be taken away which means you couldn't change our constitution to remove them. So yes you can put things in a constitution that the people can't change. Think about it, without being able to protect certain rights, the majority (race, religion, orientation) could do anything it wanted to the minority.
“These are the capitalist communist who have stragled the poor don't to do so!!!!”
I don't even know what that meant.
“Today the new gov declared suspension of all civil rights and non warrant house searches, detentions and arrests without charges in court hmmm sounds a little COMmuNiST to me!!!!”
Communism is in actuality an economic system which without a doubt Honduras is not. As far as it being a “right wing fascist government” you are aware that the leader of congress the man sworn in as interim president is of the same party as Zelaya. They are actually considered on the left. There was not a suspension of all civil rights just on assemblies at night (curfew), warrantless arrests for up to 24 hrs, and warrantless searches. The kind of thing that would happen anywhere in a state of emergency.
I am replying to the comment that the military was acting on “orders” well, orders to throw a president out in a Democracy by military is illegal and non Democratic. The supmreme court controls the judicial precedent, the congress controls the electoral and laws, the president is the”commander in cheif”. You can not order something you are not authorized to ORDER! You cannot gang up on a elected official and becuse the politicians decide to vote that he goes he goes by military force. Where is that in the constitution? And lastly the one who claims he wrote the order- was the attorney general- idiot that he is does not even know his job moreless that what Z was doing was not illegal/ opinion poll not illegal/.he should have asked the country head prosecuted to charge him and bring him to a grand jury or trial. Sumpteme court cannot mix up wether something is constitutional or not with wether some one is a criminal or not without first trying both in a court of law. You cannot charge them, or not charge them, condemn them without jury and sentence them all in one swoop. Regardless if sC says vote was not legal which it was! Totally. And surly not criminal or enough to oust someone. This is democracy backwards an inept !!! Spuds like GB all over again. GREAT!!!
Communism is an economic system actually?????? Tell that to the ones shot and killed in Tenimen SquareChina!!!!!!!!
Sounds like GeorgeBush all over again. !!!
They created the emergency, it wasn't an emergecy first off.
As far as same party stuff what is even more disgusting is that this
Michelletti / espeghetti is really a wolf in sheeps clothing, he is
an imposter like the co conspirators, not liberal he is with green
party $$$$$ green fascist. It's a real old party let me tell you.!
That is notcomperable to Presidential terms. Inseliable means
unchangeable because given by God. Are u saying God wrote Honduran
Constitution. ??
And cont to do so!
“And quite frankly, Polimom, I find myself unable to understand your argument, or why you are making it.”
Hunh? Kathy, you spend 4 paragraphs responding, and then say you don't understand my argument or why I'm making it?
Allow me to be frank in return: What I really wanted to respond to was your ridiculous assertion that the word “coup” is only used if the ousted individual is on the political right. I didn't do so, primarily because I find partisan worldviews to be generally incomprehensible and intellectually stultifying.
The thread itself went a different direction, and so I went with the flow. Otherwise, I'd have found myself unable to respond at all, because I also “find myself unable to understand your argument, or why you are making it”.
I find narrow “left v. right” posts very frustrating.