Obama and Clinton Clueless On Honduras
Predictably, President Barack Obama quickly moved today to placate his Latin American pals (Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, and Daniel Ortega). In his statement on the exiling of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, the President stated:
“We believe that the coup was not legal…”
“It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition, rather than democratic elections.”
“our goal now is on restoring democratic order in Honduras.”
Now, let’s look at the undeniable facts behind what happened in Honduras:
Constitutionally barred from running for a second term, Honduran President Zelaya unilaterally moved for a referendum to have the constitution changed. Unfortunately for Zelaya, he HAD NO LEGAL RIGHT to call for such a referendum (that right rests solely in the hands of its democratically elected Congress).
Nonetheless, Zelaya had his dear friend Hugo Chavez ship him the illegal ballots from Venezuela. The Honduran Supreme Court then ruled the referendum illegal and instructed the Honduran military to refuse its duty of carrying out the illegal vote.
When the military’s ranking General (Romeo Vásquez Velásquez) informed Zelaya that, naturally, he would obey the country’s top court, Zelaya fired him. Well, you can imagine that the court was none too pleased with this most un-presidential firing and promptly ordered that the general be reinstated. Zelaya refused.
The next day, Zelaya led a mob to the building where those Venezuelan ballots were being stored, stormed it and instructed his supporters to distribute the illegal ballots.
Finally, all branches of the democratic Honduran government-from the Supreme Court to Congress to Attorney General-decided that enough was enough and ordered the military to fulfill its mandate and protect the country’s democracy.
So, what exactly was President Obama’s referring to as “an illegal coup”? Also, when he states “we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition…” he shows off his ignorance of the situation in Honduras.
The Honduran military, acting at the bi-partisan request of a democratically elected Congress and Court was, to quote Barack, doing nothing less than “restoring democratic order in Honduras.”
In his usual rush to placate socialist dictators that wish only the worst for America, President Obama has done nothing less than undermine a burgeoning democracy.
June 30th, 2009 at 4:47 am
Here’s a far more nuanced view of the situation in Honduras: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1120420.html
The article makes the point that presidents should be impeached by congress, not evicted by the military. When the president of our country exceeds his constitutional authority there are impeachment proceedings brought against him.. It would be illegal for Congress to get a general to remove Obama from office. Latin America suffered from decades of military coups and this is a step backward.
Obama is hardly alone in condemning the coup. Here’s a partial list, including the EU: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8123434.stm
The OAS also condemned the coup. The OAS includes all 35 American countries. http://news-en.trend.az/world/wnews/1495332.html
So I hardly think that this constitutes placating a socialist dictator. Chavez has his interests at heart with a friend in power in Honduras, and the rest of the world wants a Honduras whose institutions are strong enough to weather a crisis like this.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:30 am
Elijah, it doesn´t matter that a bunch of socialist leaders condemned the coup they are trembling in their boots and have no clue what the Honduran constitution says.
The Honduran constitution doesn´t have an impeachment process it is an immediate situation and is handed down by the Supreme Court you cannot make should and what is in fact in the law two interchangable. The US constiution and Honduran constitution are two different documents.
In Article 42 he lost his citizenship because he violated the term limit provision by trying to revise it.
In Article 239 he lost his presidency IMMEDIATELY by trying to revise the term limits. It literally says that and for good reason…we have had our share of despots from the right and the left.
It also wasn´t a military coup because the military is not in power. In Honduras the military is a POLICE force..now you might not have known that but I wanted to point it out to you in case. Also, they were given a direct order by the Supreme Court to arrest him so they did and under Article 42 deported him since he was no longer a Honduran either.
The person who is the interim government president is Roberto Micheletti Baín and he was the Speaker of the House. The vice president resigned a year ago…his name is Elvin Santos and he is one of the presidential candidates on the ballot for the election in November. A coup also would not permit elections in November or suggest they be held earlier…both of which is true. They also would have eliminated the three branches of government and did not…our constitution is in force and it worked rather swiftely…much better than a Ken Starr episode being drawn out for a year.
October 6th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
[...] my June 29th post titled “Obama and Clinton Clueless On Honduras” I exposed just how false President Obama’s repeated statements were on the illegality of the [...]