The World Tour Continues in Honduras...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think we have no choice but to back the constitutionally elected leader. Whatever Zelaya might have been attempting (and it seems he was attempting -- Oh the Horror! -- to hold a referendum) it couldn't be more unconstitutional than a coup. If acting outside the constitution were grounds for removal at gunpoint, none of our presidents in my lifetime would have been immune from coups. Once again, constitutional democracy is "the worst system, except all the others."

"Oh horror! A referendum!" that was illegal according to the Honduran constitution. Should we just pooh-pooh the guidance of our constitution? I think your attitude is incredibly condescending to the people of Honduras who no doubt think far more of their Constitution than you do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sort of like "He had an infection on his thumb, and such things have been known to lead to gangrene, so I cut off his hand"

You still have made no suggestions of what they should have done differently.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:You still have made no suggestions of what they should have done differently.

If Zelaya broke the law, then he should be tried. If convicted, he could legally be removed from office. Clearly the Honduran constitution does not say that the proper recourse to executive overreach is to arrest the president in his pajamas and forcibly place him on a plane to Costa Rica.

Some coup supporters are pointing to Article 239 of the Honduran constitution which makes it illegal to attempt to reform the term limits placed on presidents. It's beyond me why Article 239 itself couldn't be amended, but that's sort of a catch-22 I guess. Regardless, the referendum proposed by Zelaya did not call for changing the constitution. Rather, it was a question of whether another referendum should be held simultaneously with the upcoming presidential election. The question the second referendum would consider whether a constitutional convention should be held. Since Zelaya himself could not run in the upcoming election, the constitutional convention (assuming the second referendum succeeded) would be held to late for him to extend his term. Moreover, the issues to be considered at the proposed constitutional convention are never specified. So, it is not clear that presidential terms would even be an issue.

So, coup supporters are using this sort of logic: if the first referendum passed, the results would be used to justify a second referendum, which -- if passed -- would lead to a constitutional convention that might possibly change the law concerning presidential terms. Therefore, because the constitution potentially could be violated somewhere down the road after Zelaya is already out of office, we'd better arrest him in the middle of the night and ship him off to Costa Rica. This logic has several obvious flaws.

Basically, the coup leaders undermined their own case. Because the legislature and Supreme Court were in agreement that Zelaya should not hold the first referendum (though I'd love to hear more about why they thought it was illegal), they should have allowed him to hold it, and then had him arrested for breaking the law. Then, a court could have decided whether or not he was guilty. That's called due process -- admittedly, a concept that may not be familiar to those who came of age during the Bush administration.

Now, Zelaya's own transgressions have been overshadowed by the clearly illegal coup and it's the coup leaders who will likely find themselves on trial.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. This is a more thoughtful and provocative response than mentions of Hitler and how the end never justifies the means (when in fact, throughout history, there are 1,000's of examples of where it has) -- and helps me to see your point of view better.

To your points:

It is clear that in the eyes of the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court the President did in fact willfully, not 'by accident', break the law and intend to break it further. Therefore, I agree with you--when he returns he should be tried or stand aside. Or at the very least, the situation and his future leadership should be objectively mediated.

There is debate on whether to characterize the government's action as a coup at all--so fault there will be a separate issue to be resolved. The Honduran government has presented very reasoned argumentation that this is not coup, that the military is not currently 'in charge', that they removed Zelaya from the country to avoid greater violence and that they intend to hold full elections in November. I am not saying I fully buy their decision to remove him from the country as the only course of action they could have taken (I want to dig deeper into their argumentation)--but nor do I buy that Zelaya was squeaky clean in his motives and actions OR that their action obviates his.

It is a difficult situation--but while Zelaya was seeking to underhandedly change the Constitution, the rest of the government clearly believes their actions protected it for another day. So I am going with them for now and my jury is out on a final evaluation. What I question is our President's, and your, apparent unwillingness to give a hearing to the facts presented by the Supreme Court and Congress in Honduras (the other two-thirds of their democratic government).

[Anonymous]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124770711501549043.html

Assertions on the Venezuela-Honduras cocaine shipment connection... lovely.