Your war questions answered: What the heck’s going in Honduras?
July 13th, 2009 by Andisheh Nouraee in News, Politics, Sarasota-Manatee
Ed. note: This piece, by Andisheh Nouraee, will appear in this week’s issue of Creative Loafing.
It seems like Honduras just can’t catch a break. The country’s so-called leaders always seem intent on wrecking the place.
I mean, doesn’t feel like it was just yesterday that King K’ak’ Tiliw Chan Yopaa of Quiriguá led his army into Copán where he beheaded rival king Uaxaclajuun Ub’aah K’awiil, effectively ending the golden age of Hondura’s greatest Mayan kingdom?
I mean, I know it was 1,271 years ago. I’m just saying it feels like it was yesterday.
And who can forget Honduras’ so-called Soccer War?
It happened back in the summer of ’69.
Right around the time Bryan Adams was buying his first real six-string and playing it till his fingers bled, Honduras and El Salvador fought a short war that left some 6,000 people dead, 12,000 injured and 50,000 homeless. It was sparked by riots surrounding a best-of-three-games soccer series to determine which of the two countries would qualify for 1970’s World Cup.
The war wasn’t actually about soccer though. It was caused in large part by the Honduran government’s unwillingness to enact meaningful land reform. Most of Honduras’ best farm land was owned by the country’s tiny ruling class and American fruit growers.
Instead of sharing the land they controlled, Honduras’ oligarchs tried to appease the country’s poor by confiscating land from the country’s large Salvadoran immigrant community. Some 300,000 Salvadorans had their land taken and were deported in the 1960s. The Soccer War was blowback resulting of the greed of Honduras’ ruling class.
Though the latest political crisis in Honduras has nothing to do with soccer, it is similar to the soccer war in the sense that it’s the direct of result of the Honduran ruling class’s inability to put the country’s interests ahead of their own petty ones.
On June 28, Honduran military forces backed by the country’s supreme court and legislature raided the home of President Manuel Zelaya. The troops put Zelaya on a plane and shipped him off to Costa Rica.
While many of us would welcome a free trip to Costa Rica, Zelaya was more than a little ticked off at what happened.
First of all, it’s the rainy season in Costa Rica right now. Sure, it’s greener this time of year, but the beaches aren’t as nice.
Second, Zelaya is, in fact, the democratically elected president of Honduras. Inaugurated in January 2006, Manny still had six months left on his four-year term.
The people who overthrew him say Zelaya had plans to remain president beyond his expiration date. Since last fall, Zelaya has said he wants to hold a referendum to see if the Honduran people would consider amending the country’s constitution to, among other changes, allow presidents to serve more than one term.
Honduras’ supreme court ruled Zelaya’s referendum was unconstitutional. Zelaya responded by saying the referendum would be non-binding. Instead of a plebiscite, it would be a poll.
Zelaya’s opponents fear he intends to turn himself in a Honduran Hugo Chávez. An outspoken critic of the U.S., Chávez has initiated several constitutional changes that have allowed him to stay in office and increase his personal control of Venezuela’s government.
Was Zelaya planning to stay office in violation of Honduras’ constitution? It sure seems like it.
But what happened in Honduras on June 28 was unambiguously a military coup. The armed forces removed an elected head of state. It shut down opposition media. And it deployed soldiers to suppress public demonstrations opposing Zelaya’s overthrow.
The Obama Administration has reacted with characteristic caution. On the one hand, it refuses to recognize the coup leaders as Honduras’ new government. On the other hand, it refuses to actually call what happened a coup. Instead, Obama has nudged Zelaya and the people who overthrew him into negotiations — taking place in rainy Costa Rica as this column is being written.
What’s gonna happen? If I had to guess, I’d say Zelaya will return to serve out his term, on the condition he won’t even hint at running again.
One thing I don’t have to guess at: Obama’s fostering of negotiations is a hit with Latin Americans thrilled to see an American president standing up for democracy even when the elected leader being stood up for isn’t especially pro-American.
July 13th, 2009 at 11:53 am
I’m a Honduran and I am glad Zelaya was ousted. We won’t tolerate a Fidel or Chavez in here.
If you call it a MILITARY COOP can you please explain why EVERY SINGLE INSTITUTION, The Supreme Court, Congress, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY… THE CONSTITUTION ITSELF remain intact?
Also, if this was a military coop, could you tell me why o why in the world is NO SINGLE OFFICER FROM THE MILITARY HOLDING ANY POSITION IN GOVERNMENT??? I think thats kinda weird, being a military coop not ruled by military??
ALL media, opposition or not was shut down for about 2 days. The main pro-Zelaya channel was a GOVERMENT channel, of course that will be shut down cause all they did was illegal propaganda for Zelaya’s reform.
You should stop watching CNN and try to get your facts straight, if you don’t know what happened you shouldn’t be writing about it. BTW Did you know Krupskaia Alis Rumazo, CNN Espanol main “special reporter” in Honduras was a diplomat under Daniel Ortega in the 1990s and allegedly Zelaya gave money to some family members of her, a little biased for a “neutral” reporter don’t you think?
July 13th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Ms. Levey-Baker: Please try to inform yourself properly before making an uninformed statement. The military is not in charge of Honduras, therefore it cannot be a military coup. The military acted on an order from the Supreme Court. Democratic and constitutional order is still intact in Honduras.
Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution:
“No citizen who has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President. Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform, as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years.”
The Honduran Constitution explicitly prohibits the mere PROPOSAL of constitutional reform regarding term limits. The Ex-President Zelaya, had proposed a referendum for said purpose which was then declared illegal and unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The Ex-President then forged ahead calling the referendum a non-binding survey, which was also ruled illegal by the Supreme Court. The Ex-President subsequently ordered the Head of the Armed Forces to procede with the illegal survey anyways, to which he refused and the Ex-President fired him. The Supreme Court then demanded that Zelaya reinstate the Head of the Armed Forces and ordered the military to confiscate the referendum materials to prevent Zelaya from going ahead with the illegal vote. Zelaya refused to comply and personnaly led an armed mob to retrieve the referendum materials. The National Attorney General on Friday June 26 filed a complaint before the Honduran Supreme Court petitioning for an arrest warrant for the President.
The court issued the warrant UNANIMOUSLY and in accordance with the Honduran Constitution ordered the military to arrest Zelaya on Sunday June 28, the day of the vote. They put him on a plane to Costa Rica, as Honduras has no prison capable of withstanding a mob riot they feared Zelaya supporters, aided by foreign regimes, could instigate. The same day, the Honduran Congress, controlled by Zelaya’s Liberal Party, HIS OWN PARTY, voted 125 to 3, in accordance with the Constitution’s Line of Succession.
To call these events, which have adhered in every step to the Honduran Constitution, a coup, is a blatant disrespect of Honduran sovereignty.
The facts are slowly coming to light globally. We ask that our democracy be respected.
The following links are provided by CSPAN and YOUTUBE, please inform yourself properly:
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/includes/templates/library/flash_popup.php?pID=287598-1&clipStart=4925&clipStop=5077
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6×3Um3k24Xg&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjiKvUJXpm8
July 14th, 2009 at 9:51 am
I think Hondurans were in their right to oust the President for wanting to proceed unconstitutionally. And I’m glad you are calling CNN out, I believe they are rather one sided and not objective informers.
August 28th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
[...] The coverage of the so-called health care “debate” has been so vile and misleading that I’m almost glad broadcast news outlets have ignored so many big stories this month. Better to ignore than distort, I suppose. Among those biggies is the ongoing political crisis in Honduras. [...]
October 30th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
[...] Annoyed at Zelaya’s obvious disingenuousness — does any honest person believe Zelaya was not angling to remain in power? — Honduras’ supreme court, legislature and military conspired to oust him. [...]