On September 12, the United States government revoked the visas of de facto Honduran President Roberto Micheletti and 14 of the country’s Supreme Court justices. Days earlier, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S.-government body, voted to cut off $11 million in aid to the cash-strapped Central American country. The move came two months after the Honduran military, on the orders of its Congress, Supreme Court, and attorney general, removed Micheletti’s predecessor Manuel Zelaya from office following his repeated attempts to undermine the country’s constitutional provision limiting presidents to a single term. Explaining its decision to not recognize Honduras’s interim government, which it has repeatedly declared came to power via a "coup d’état," the Obama administration says that it is sending a "very strong message" to "anyone, be they civilian or military, who are thinking of deposing or removing from--illegally removing from office a duly elected president in any country."
Yet according to a recently released and widely overlooked report drafted by the Library of Congress, the actions the Honduran government took in removing Zelaya were consistent with that country’s constitutional procedures. Although the constitution does not contain specific information as to how a president can be impeached, the report did find that the Honduran Congress "used several other constitutional powers to remove President Zelaya from office." Furthermore, the report also found that the country’s "Supreme Court, based on its constitutional powers, heard the case against Zelaya and applied the appropriate procedure mandated by the Code of Criminal Procedure." In conclusion, the report, which was prepared by the Congressional Research Service’s Senior Foreign Law Specialist, determines "that the judicial and legislative branches applied constitutional and statutory law in the case against President Zelaya in a manner that was judged by the Honduran authorities from both branches of the government to be in accordance with the Honduran legal system."
In other words, far from fitting the administration’s description as a "coup d’état," the report paints Zelaya’s removal as remarkably orderly and legalistic, especially in a region where the rule of law is so tenuous. The Obama administration’s position, predicated on its hasty conclusion that Zelaya’s removal was illegal, now appears squarely contradicted by the only known official analysis of the constitutional issues involved.
Zelaya’s rights may have been violated in his deportation; according to the Honduran constitution, "[n]o Honduran may be expatriated nor handed over to the authorities of a foreign State." But the government’s expulsion of Zelaya (a hasty move undertaken to prevent internal disorder, which, in light of the chaos Zelaya is currently orchestrating out of the Brazilian embassy--where he has camped out since sneaking back into the country last week--wasn’t unfounded) does not negate the validity of the original order that led to his arrest and removal from office. From his headquarters in the embassy, Zelaya has called upon his supporters to riot against the government and has accused "Israeli mercenaries" of torturing him with radiation. His supporters are not only calling for a boycott of the elections scheduled for November 29. They are also calling for a "constituent assembly" to write a new constitution--the same constituent assembly that Zelaya tried to press ahead with after the Supreme Court ordered him to cease and desist, which is how this crisis began.
Despite this conclusive report from a U.S. government body, not to mention the endorsement of Zelaya’s dismissal by the Honduran human rights ombudsman and nearly everyone in Zelaya’s own political party (of which Micheletti is himself a member), the Obama administration continues to call for his reinstatement. This week it reiterated its decision not to recognize the results of the upcoming November 29 presidential election, demanding that Zelaya be allowed to serve out the rest of his term (which ends in January). On Monday, the U.S. representative to the Organization of American States called the actions of the interim government "deplorable and foolish." The Obama administration has yet to even address the Library of Congress report. And Republican Senator Jim DeMint is claiming that Democrats’ decision this week to block his planned Congressional delegation to Honduras is part of their "bullying tactics to hide truth." (A spokesman for Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, who made the decision, said that it was in retaliation for DeMint holding up ambassadorial nominations.)
What explains the administration’s continued intransigence? A clue can perhaps be found in President Obama’s initial response to the news that Zelaya had been deposed. The day after Zelaya was put on a plane to Costa Rica, Obama condemned the move as illegal, saying that "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. We don't want to go back to a dark past." His invocation of U.S. support for armed opposition movements fighting communist insurgencies in Latin America during the Cold War is one of numerous apologies for past American actions that he has offered since taking office, a tactic which seems to be a core tenant of his diplomatic strategy.
Hmmmm... No! In 2009, Latin American countries should not resolve constitutional crises with military force. Coups in the past have had a funny way of forming permanent governments with lasting problems. The entire hope is that constitutional governance builds institutions strong enough to resolve their issues with the separation of powers amongst themselves. In 1974, the constitutional abuse of Watergate ended not with a delegation from the Pentagon telling Nixon to hike, but a resignation under Constitutional pressure of impeachment led by one branch and supervised by another. Allowing dubious interpretations of a Constitution to be a return to praetorian doctrine of military intervention against civilian control is to take a deep step backwards in Latin American affairs. It is most assuredly right for the US to take a stand against this. Long term institutional stability is far more important to the US in Latin America than getting into a pissing contest with Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro.
And, simply put, a coup that restricts freedom of speech, imprisons and beats demonstrators and the free press, shuts down TV and radio stations, is not operating within its constitution. All the strained legalities of the article do not acknowledge this basic fact, and the attempts to say that "his violent demonstrators" are locked in stalemate is a willful twist of the facts to suit his rigid belief structure.
Also, selective Kirchick always removes an important clause:
"Available sources indicate that the judicial and legislative branches applied constitutional and statutory law in the case against President Zelaya in a manner that was judged by the Honduran authorities from both branches of the government to be in accordance with the Honduran legal system. However, removal of President Zelaya from the country by the military is in direct violation of the Article 102 of the Constitution, and apparently this action is currently under investigation by the Honduran authorities."
Namely, pressure good; coup bad. Also, Honduran experts of their own constitutional law beg to differ. Did Kirchick review who wrote the report, what their opinions are, etc? Look for countervailing opinions, or even examine the reasoning behind the report? No, he didn't, because that requires reporting that isn't simply regurgitating a report and combining it with false arguments, fallacies, and innuendos. I'd be interested in an in depth examination of the legal issues in Honduras. This is knee-jerk stupidity, unworthy of this magazine.
Crock, I don't follow: to compare to Zelaya, Nixon would have had to have gone on tv and anounced that the new law of the land was to allow him to break into the Watergate for now and forever. And under your analogy, had Nixon been able to withstand legislative and judicial opossition, the rest of the world should have just shrugged and said "well, nothing in the US constitution authorizes a coup." That Zelaya was even able to contemplate such seems to be a blatantly unconstitutional move shows how much "strained legalities" work in the context of the Latin American history you refer to.
Even if you disagree with the above, as Kirchick points out, there's going to be a democratic election in November. You disagree with him that we should recognize it? It advances democracy to tell a Latin American nation that even though their last President tried to usurp their Constitution and they freely chose the new government, we won't recognize it because of the coup?
I don't buy it: if Zelaya was a Vincente Fox type who was thrown out by a lefty legisture backed by the military who then set up free elections but George W. Bush refused to recognize it I think we know what Zelaya's supporters today would be saying.
Just in case anyone ever confused Kirchick with being a pro-human rights independent thinker instead of a partisan talking head, he gave us this great defense of a regime that's sending the military against peaceful protests and enforcing daylight curfews. I especially enjoyed his trying to find a double standard in how Obama handles Honduras and Iran - as if that were relevant to whether Obama's handling Honduras is *right* - while blatantly applying a double standard himself.
Lymon: I wasn't making an exact analogy. The point is that in the Nixon example, it was the country's constitutional and democratic institutions that successfully removed a President who had broken the law. It was not the army, acting extraconsitutionally, on sealed, secret orders issued in the dead of night, and that institutional stability is both the ideal and the long term solution for successful governance.
I do disagree with him on the election. An election where there is a daytime curfew, free media is shut down, and demonstrators beaten and arrested is not a free democratic election. If, last November, the government shut down the Wall Street Journal and Fox News, broke up and beat McCain ralliers, and controlled all the polling places, would we call it a fair election? And if it were a left-wing coup as opposed to a right wing one I would be just as outraged. The point is that we should not throw out democratic rules and constitutional order because a deposed leader is left or right, it is that we must encourage and respect the rule of law. This coup, and the fevered spinning to justify it, make a mockery of such principals.
And I like how Mr. Kirchik 'sneers', not unlike Bill Kristol I'm sure, that Obama has an 'inconsistent' foreign policy. How laughable! I'm gonna guess that he supported GWB and he obviously had an inconsistent foreign policy. Bush stated during the campaign he wouldn't nation build, and during his presidency he did just that: Iraq and Afghanistan. Needlessly and recklessly invade a sovereign nation with the mere IDEA of WMDs, and don't bother with countries who clearly HAVE WMDS: North Korea, et al. He started the Iraq War and didn't even bother to 'really' finish it, as his neo-con minions hadn't thought it out well enough, nay they didn't care enough to think it through. Some 'support' of the troops. Please. So spare us your slanted opinion's on Obama's foreign policy as they're clearly more inconsistent than what you allege on him.
"U.S. support for armed opposition movements fighting communist insurgencies" Hooray for revisionist history! I think this misunderstanding of the history of the region explains why Kirchick doesn't understand the administration's position.
"most Latin American countries declining to recognize the wishes of Honduran civil society, government institutions, and the vast majority of its people."
I love the dogged determination Kirchick displayed in going to Honduras, doing numerous interviews with every element of society, and writing about it here. Oh, wait, Kirchick wrote this from the comfort of his office, didn't he? And frankly hasn't he gotten a fucking clue what the wishes are of the vast majority of its people. I live on the train route that migrants take from Central America to the US and there has been a uptick of Honduran migrants lately. From the few conversations I have had with these migrants I was given the impression that both sides were and are in the wrong. This tragedy being something Kirchick hasn't gotten a clue of. Does he even know a single Honduran?
Kirchick also never does lay out Zelaya's crimes either. Zelaya announced that he would hold a referendum to set up a constituent assembly that would change the constitution that barred him from re-election. In the next few months, every legal body in the country -- the electoral tribunal, the Supreme Court, the attorney general, the human rights ombudsman -- declared the referendum unconstitutional. According to the Honduran constitution (articles 5, 373 and 374), presidential term limits cannot be changed under any circumstance, only Congress can modify the constitution, and political institutions are not subject to referendums.
So that was his crime, he wanted to hold a referendum, one that would have had no force of law. Zelaya was wrong, but there were legal means to curtail him until his term of office expired and then he could have been placed under arrest and tried.
Another half assed Kirchick opinion based on his own pre-conceived notions, one that sounds like it could have come from the mouth of that other Central American expert, Bill Bennett. Kirchick, next time get off your fat ass, take a plane down to Honduras and do some fucking real reporting.
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