Replacement Duel Ensues in Honduras After President Ousted

[editec]

Honduras is a third world shithole where the vast majority of people are poor and lorded over by a very small very wealthy group of elite

Social Reforms are probably needed to get that nation into something approaching a first world status, but the military is supporting the status quo.

Nothing new there, folks.

Usually the military and police will support the status quo regardless of how badly they're running things.

And if the legally constituted government begins to threaten the status quo, then the military (and usually the police, too) will take EXTRALEGAL action to prevent a society from evolving into something that is more fair (and ironically more productive, too).

 

[Vel]

As I understand it, the army was supposed to arrest Zelaya, not depose him.

If Obama were ordered arrested, the army does not have the right to overthrow him and install Biden as President. Same in Honduras. That is why the country is being condemned internationally.

wouldnt one follow the other?

Before a sitting President in the United States is removed, he must first be impeached. There is a legal process that must be followed. The President probably wouldn't be whisked away on a military plane to Canada and told not to come back into the country either.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124623220955866301.html

It may have been that the Honduran legislature would have gotten rid of Zelaya anyways - after all, a member of his party is the new President. And maybe they did and there is a lot of confusion about what happened. But as I understand it, the President was removed through extra-legal means.

If this article has the facts correct then there is no coup and the Obama administration is on the wrong side.
***************************************

That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.

But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.

The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.

Calculating that some critical mass of Hondurans would take his side, the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court's order.

The attorney general had already made clear that the referendum was illegal, and he further announced that he would prosecute anyone involved in carrying it out. Yesterday, Mr. Zelaya was arrested by the military and is now in exile in Costa Rica.

It remains to be seen what Mr. Zelaya's next move will be. It's not surprising that chavistas throughout the region are claiming that he was victim of a military coup. They want to hide the fact that the military was acting on a court order to defend the rule of law and the constitution, and that the Congress asserted itself for that purpose, too.

Mrs. Clinton has piled on as well. Yesterday she accused Honduras of violating "the precepts of the Interamerican Democratic Charter" and said it "should be condemned by all." Fidel Castro did just that. Mr. Chávez pledged to overthrow the new government.

Honduras is fighting back by strictly following the constitution. The Honduran Congress met in emergency session yesterday and designated its president as the interim executive as stipulated in Honduran law. It also said that presidential elections set for November will go forward. The Supreme Court later said that the military acted on its orders. It also said that when Mr. Zelaya realized that he was going to be prosecuted for his illegal behavior, he agreed to an offer to resign in exchange for safe passage out of the country. Mr. Zelaya denies it.

 

[Vel]

Hmmm. Hugo Chavez and Barack Obama are on the same side of this issue. That's kind of scary.

Yeah, Obama, Chavez, and - you forgot to mention - every single other government on this entire continent, including the most right-wing.

What Toro's saying is basically a fair take on the issue. What Zelaya was doing might been unconstitutional, but it does not merit a military coup, kidnapping the president at 4 in the morning, and dumping him HERE in Costa Rica . In his pajamas. Not to mention the violent suppression of pro-president protesters all over the country today, IN CASE YOU DIDN'T KNOW. What this is all about is Zelaya conducting a "referendum-type-thing" to determine whether they hold a "referendom-type-thing" in order to have a "referendum-type-thing" to change the constitution, because the Honduran constitution doesn't really have any mechanisms to hold "referendum-type-things." Illegal? Yes. Shameless power grab? Perhaps. But the fact is that military coups have never lead to anything good, and anybody who knows 2 shits about Latin America would know that. Obviously, most posters here don't. There are other channels with which to handle this sort of situation; the military isn't one of them.

It is pretty funny though, to see the same people who 'cry' about a DISPUTED election and ALLEGED coup in one place, suddenly come out in full support of an ACTUAL coup in another. Coups are coups; they are unnacceptable against democratically elected governments. When the people put someone in power, only the people can take them out.

You might want to check out article 239 of the Honduran constitution. This was not a military coup.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

You might want to check out article 239 of the Honduran constitution. This was not a military coup.

Yeah, and you might want to check that it is not the "chavistas" in Latin America who are calling this a coup, but the chavistas, non-chavistas, anti-chavistas, and everybody... IN THE WORLD. Ever gave a thought that you might be wrong?

But to amuse you:

ARTICULO 239.- El ciudadano que haya desempeñado la titularidad del Poder Ejecutivo no podrá ser Presidente o Designado.

El que quebrante esta disposición o proponga su reforma, así como aquellos que lo apoyen directa o indirectamente, cesarán de inmediato en el desempeño de sus respectivos cargos, y quedarán inhabilitados por diez años para el ejercicio de toda función pública.

Get out your English-Spanish dictionary and tell me WHERE does it say that the Army has the right to kidnap the President, ship him to a foreign country in his pajamas, designate a new president, and crush protesters? WHERE DOES IT SAY THAT? [I'll give you a hint: it doesn't].

This article in no way, shape, or form condone the actions of the Honduran military in the past days. Do you even read Spanish? I'm sorry, but you'd have to be a blind monkey to think this isn't a coup.

 

[DiveCon]

You might want to check out article 239 of the Honduran constitution. This was not a military coup.

Yeah, and you might want to check that it is not the "chavistas" in Latin America who are calling this a coup, but the chavistas, non-chavistas, anti-chavistas, and everybody... IN THE WORLD. Ever gave a thought that you might be wrong?

But to amuse you:

ARTICULO 239.- El ciudadano que haya desempeñado la titularidad del Poder Ejecutivo no podrá ser Presidente o Designado.

El que quebrante esta disposición o proponga su reforma, así como aquellos que lo apoyen directa o indirectamente, cesarán de inmediato en el desempeño de sus respectivos cargos, y quedarán inhabilitados por diez años para el ejercicio de toda función pública.

Get out your English-Spanish dictionary and tell me WHERE does it say that the Army has the right to kidnap the President, ship him to a foreign country in his pajamas, designate a new president, and crush protesters? WHERE DOES IT SAY THAT? [I'll give you a hint: it doesn't].

This article in no way, shape, or form condone the actions of the Honduran military in the past days. Do you even read Spanish? I'm sorry, but you'd have to be a blind monkey to think this isn't a coup.

not sure how accurate the translation is
used bablefish

ARTICLE 239. - The citizen who has carried out the ownership of the Executive authority could not be Designated President or. The one that break this disposition or propose its reform, as well as those supports that it direct or indirectly, will stop immediately in the performance of their respective positions, and will be disqualified by ten years for the exercise of all public function.

sounds like they can be removed for violating the laws of their office

 

[Vel]

You might want to check out article 239 of the Honduran constitution. This was not a military coup.

Yeah, and you might want to check that it is not the "chavistas" in Latin America who are calling this a coup, but the chavistas, non-chavistas, anti-chavistas, and everybody... IN THE WORLD. Ever gave a thought that you might be wrong?

But to amuse you:

ARTICULO 239.- El ciudadano que haya desempeñado la titularidad del Poder Ejecutivo no podrá ser Presidente o Designado.

El que quebrante esta disposición o proponga su reforma, así como aquellos que lo apoyen directa o indirectamente, cesarán de inmediato en el desempeño de sus respectivos cargos, y quedarán inhabilitados por diez años para el ejercicio de toda función pública.

Get out your English-Spanish dictionary and tell me WHERE does it say that the Army has the right to kidnap the President, ship him to a foreign country in his pajamas, designate a new president, and crush protesters? WHERE DOES IT SAY THAT? [I'll give you a hint: it doesn't].

This article in no way, shape, or form condone the actions of the Honduran military in the past days. Do you even read Spanish? I'm sorry, but you'd have to be a blind monkey to think this isn't a coup.

And there was a time when EVERBODY said the world was flat too. Exactly what remedy do you think is available if an elected official becomes corrupt? Hmm..maybe a country would follow their own constitution in order to rid themselves of a corrupt wannabe dictator or do you think they should have no means to set aside a corrupt politician. You seem to overlook the fact that the military acted at the direction of the Honduran court and legislative systems. This dictator in waiting was set aside by his own party as well as the rest of the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court. Zelaya's party wasn't ousted, only Zelaya himself. Do you think these people should have to let Hugo Chavez puppetize their nation?

 

[amrchaos]

Based on your post, it sounds as if the army did not pull a coup. They followed the instructions of the court. How different would this be from an impeachment in our democracy? It almost sounds as if the Honduran checks and balances actually worked.

As I understand it, the army was supposed to arrest Zelaya, not depose him.

If Obama were ordered arrested, the army does not have the right to overthrow him and install Biden as President. Same in Honduras. That is why the country is being condemned internationally.

I do not know about that one.

If a Presdient tries to circumvent the constitution, and all the other branches are against him, how is the President stopped?

In our country, we have the impeachment process, but does Honduras. If not, and arresting the president by order of the court is the constitutional procedure, then Hondura government is in the right here.

I really do not know much about Honduran law, but there must be methods on how to prosecute a sitting president if he is accused of some illegalities. I doubt the Hondurans have the same exact Constitution that we do.