Regime change in Honduras
June 30th 2009 16:53
I´ve been asked, so I will give my recap of what has been happening in Honduras. Before I start, I have to make some important disclaimers. First, I am not Honduran, and have no rights to campaign or vote for elected officials in Honduras. Second, my political views are entirely my own opinion, and I will make every effort to respect the opinions of others, and acknowledge that their opinions on political leaders are as valid as my own.
Mel Zelaya was inaugurated President in January of 2006. It was an uneventful election, and as usual I wasn't paying much attention. I am generally a Liberal, and Mel was Liberal party so I expected normalcy. Things went along pretty well, although he wasn't much of a firecracker.
Last year, Zelaya joined the ALBA, the Bolivian Aliance, which was constituted in Cuba in 2004. The Bolivian Aliance has as its mission to combat the US Free Trade Agreement in an economic block. Well, I say that Zelaya joined it, but of course, he (and the congress) and the whole country joined it. At that time, the US embassy grumbled a little, but no one really protested, and it was decided that Honduras can make aliances with anyone they want to. So here we are in the ALBA family, with Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia.
Then, we have to start hearing about Chavez and the ALBA all the time. Chavez sent 100 tractors!!! To save the Honduran farmers, Venezuela donated 100 tractors. Zelaya got on the tractors and drove them out to the farmers. Everyone did about four days of song and dance over the tractors. I'm going to do some math here, because I'm a farm girl, and those were some small little tractors. Let's say maximum of $15 K each, times 100. So for $1.5 mil we have to dance for Chavez, and we have to hear about the tractors for the rest of the year, and how much the people of Venezuela love us, they sent us tractors.
Plus, also, Zelaya starts handling his finances with loans from Venezuela. Again, not Zelaya's personal finances, but the country's finances. So, once again, we get lots of happy speeches about how we are moving forward with the help of our brothers in Venezuela.
Honduras is usually strictly allied with the United States. Honduras has always had lots of foreign investment, especially the investment of the US fruit companies, who have in the past had significant influence in Honduran Politics. Honduras also has the only US military base in Central America. US is the biggest trading partner of Honduras as well. We are like a little brother to the US.
This might be the imperialist pig in me coming out, but I like it when the US and Honduras are all cozy, since they are the only two nations in the world where my immediate family lives.
And I don't think that I´m the only person in the world who thinks that Chavez is a maniac. We get Venezuela television broadcasts here in Honduras (along with Venezuelan tractors and oil money). I have watched about 20 minutes of speeches from Chavez, and that was all I could stomach. The man is a maniac and a demagogue.
So this is the uncertainty that we have been living with for months now. And all of Honduras was holding their breath just thinking that soon, his term will be over. There are elections in November, and new president in Jan 2010.
Zelaya continues to act goofier and goofier. He always wears his cowboy hat and casual clothes. At my job, we are not allowed to wear jeans, because it is too informal and disrespectful to others. Why do these clowns get to walk around ruling countries with their shirts unbuttoned to their chest hair? Look at the pictures. Zelaya came out on CNN with greasy hair and a cowboy hat. And all the pictures of him from exile look like he's wearing a dirty t-shirt and the same cowboy hat, but don't let that fool you!!!!! It's not just exile, he dressed like that all the time. He and the international troupe of jesters and fools he runs around with (ok, I'm on a black list now if Zelaya comes back).
Ok, back to the story. Zelaya started campaiging and promoting for the fourth box. The Cuarta Urna. He is going to introduce a great national election to change the constitution. This is power to the people. My first question was, "What part of the constitution do you want to change?" He would never answer that question. If anyone asked exactly what the vote was for, he said it was to consult the pueblo.
About what?
If they want a new constitution.
What's wrong with the old one?
No one says anything´s wrong, we just want to poll the people.
Then what are they voting for? You can't hold a vote about nothing . . .
You are trying to hold the pueblo down!!
I will admit that I am scared of the pueblo. Yes, I am a capitalist yankee pig, and want a "paternalist" relationship between the first world and the third world. But I also know the pueblo of Honduras, and you can't just throw out a bunch of voting booths, and expect them to come up with the best policy for governing the country. Democracy is a slow process, it works best with small movements.
So, Sunday was suddenly announced as the day of the great vote. Lots of supporters were organized to hold the great vote, and frankly the Hondurans were probably excited. It's like telling Monty you want what's behind door number 4! We will take the random prize!
I went out and bought emergency food supplies on Saturday, right after I saw Zelaya on CNN in a dirty shirt unbuttoned to the navel, and a $3000 cowboy hat. I have class on Sundays, and I just wanted to know if I needed to show up. I was also extremely pissed off at the thought of encountering voting booths and some sort of freak show combination of the pueblo riled up by the maniac leaders. I was relatively pessimistic.
But then, Sunday morning at the University, I learned that Zelaya had been forcibly removed by a military coup.
Dare I say, it was good news! Zelaya was also being combative with almost everyone else in Honduras, especially the government. He had been fighting with the Public Attorney's office for months (I love the attorneys, of course, colleagues of mine). He was constantly fighting with Congress. Everyone was coming out saying that the fourth box was illegal. The Public Attorney said it was illegal, along with the Election Tribunal. Then the Supreme Court declared it illegal.
On Friday of last week, Zelaya demanded that the military deliver the voting materials (this is what they always do in elections). The military refused . . . Zelaya fired the Commander.
The Supreme Court reinstated the commander.
So basically, on Sunday, Zelaya finally did not have a single friend left. Which is why, the military deposed him on orders from the court. I believe that they probably gave him a choice -- go to jail or leave the country, and I'm sure he chose to leave. (that is all my speculation). Because he has his best buddies in the exterior.
The military then put themselves at the order of the National Congress. The National Congress swore in the President of Congress (third in line for president, after the vice), as the new president of Honduras.
Personally, I think we had the whole thing totally straightened out and fixed, until THE WORLD has to get involved and say that it was illegal. I don't think it was illegal, they have him committing a crime, they offered him jail or exile, and once he chose exile with his vice president, the next in line for the post took over.
Ta da!
Ok is that enough for now? I can talk more later on what the international community needs to do, but for the moment, this is how things stand.
Long live the Constitution! Que viva la Constitucion!
Honduran President Zelaya (left), before being forcibly overthrown
Mel Zelaya was inaugurated President in January of 2006. It was an uneventful election, and as usual I wasn't paying much attention. I am generally a Liberal, and Mel was Liberal party so I expected normalcy. Things went along pretty well, although he wasn't much of a firecracker.
Last year, Zelaya joined the ALBA, the Bolivian Aliance, which was constituted in Cuba in 2004. The Bolivian Aliance has as its mission to combat the US Free Trade Agreement in an economic block. Well, I say that Zelaya joined it, but of course, he (and the congress) and the whole country joined it. At that time, the US embassy grumbled a little, but no one really protested, and it was decided that Honduras can make aliances with anyone they want to. So here we are in the ALBA family, with Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia.
Then, we have to start hearing about Chavez and the ALBA all the time. Chavez sent 100 tractors!!! To save the Honduran farmers, Venezuela donated 100 tractors. Zelaya got on the tractors and drove them out to the farmers. Everyone did about four days of song and dance over the tractors. I'm going to do some math here, because I'm a farm girl, and those were some small little tractors. Let's say maximum of $15 K each, times 100. So for $1.5 mil we have to dance for Chavez, and we have to hear about the tractors for the rest of the year, and how much the people of Venezuela love us, they sent us tractors.
Plus, also, Zelaya starts handling his finances with loans from Venezuela. Again, not Zelaya's personal finances, but the country's finances. So, once again, we get lots of happy speeches about how we are moving forward with the help of our brothers in Venezuela.
Honduras is usually strictly allied with the United States. Honduras has always had lots of foreign investment, especially the investment of the US fruit companies, who have in the past had significant influence in Honduran Politics. Honduras also has the only US military base in Central America. US is the biggest trading partner of Honduras as well. We are like a little brother to the US.
This might be the imperialist pig in me coming out, but I like it when the US and Honduras are all cozy, since they are the only two nations in the world where my immediate family lives.
And I don't think that I´m the only person in the world who thinks that Chavez is a maniac. We get Venezuela television broadcasts here in Honduras (along with Venezuelan tractors and oil money). I have watched about 20 minutes of speeches from Chavez, and that was all I could stomach. The man is a maniac and a demagogue.
So this is the uncertainty that we have been living with for months now. And all of Honduras was holding their breath just thinking that soon, his term will be over. There are elections in November, and new president in Jan 2010.
Zelaya continues to act goofier and goofier. He always wears his cowboy hat and casual clothes. At my job, we are not allowed to wear jeans, because it is too informal and disrespectful to others. Why do these clowns get to walk around ruling countries with their shirts unbuttoned to their chest hair? Look at the pictures. Zelaya came out on CNN with greasy hair and a cowboy hat. And all the pictures of him from exile look like he's wearing a dirty t-shirt and the same cowboy hat, but don't let that fool you!!!!! It's not just exile, he dressed like that all the time. He and the international troupe of jesters and fools he runs around with (ok, I'm on a black list now if Zelaya comes back).
Ok, back to the story. Zelaya started campaiging and promoting for the fourth box. The Cuarta Urna. He is going to introduce a great national election to change the constitution. This is power to the people. My first question was, "What part of the constitution do you want to change?" He would never answer that question. If anyone asked exactly what the vote was for, he said it was to consult the pueblo.
About what?
If they want a new constitution.
What's wrong with the old one?
No one says anything´s wrong, we just want to poll the people.
Then what are they voting for? You can't hold a vote about nothing . . .
You are trying to hold the pueblo down!!
I will admit that I am scared of the pueblo. Yes, I am a capitalist yankee pig, and want a "paternalist" relationship between the first world and the third world. But I also know the pueblo of Honduras, and you can't just throw out a bunch of voting booths, and expect them to come up with the best policy for governing the country. Democracy is a slow process, it works best with small movements.
So, Sunday was suddenly announced as the day of the great vote. Lots of supporters were organized to hold the great vote, and frankly the Hondurans were probably excited. It's like telling Monty you want what's behind door number 4! We will take the random prize!
I went out and bought emergency food supplies on Saturday, right after I saw Zelaya on CNN in a dirty shirt unbuttoned to the navel, and a $3000 cowboy hat. I have class on Sundays, and I just wanted to know if I needed to show up. I was also extremely pissed off at the thought of encountering voting booths and some sort of freak show combination of the pueblo riled up by the maniac leaders. I was relatively pessimistic.
But then, Sunday morning at the University, I learned that Zelaya had been forcibly removed by a military coup.
Dare I say, it was good news! Zelaya was also being combative with almost everyone else in Honduras, especially the government. He had been fighting with the Public Attorney's office for months (I love the attorneys, of course, colleagues of mine). He was constantly fighting with Congress. Everyone was coming out saying that the fourth box was illegal. The Public Attorney said it was illegal, along with the Election Tribunal. Then the Supreme Court declared it illegal.
On Friday of last week, Zelaya demanded that the military deliver the voting materials (this is what they always do in elections). The military refused . . . Zelaya fired the Commander.
The Supreme Court reinstated the commander.
So basically, on Sunday, Zelaya finally did not have a single friend left. Which is why, the military deposed him on orders from the court. I believe that they probably gave him a choice -- go to jail or leave the country, and I'm sure he chose to leave. (that is all my speculation). Because he has his best buddies in the exterior.
The military then put themselves at the order of the National Congress. The National Congress swore in the President of Congress (third in line for president, after the vice), as the new president of Honduras.
Personally, I think we had the whole thing totally straightened out and fixed, until THE WORLD has to get involved and say that it was illegal. I don't think it was illegal, they have him committing a crime, they offered him jail or exile, and once he chose exile with his vice president, the next in line for the post took over.
Ta da!
Ok is that enough for now? I can talk more later on what the international community needs to do, but for the moment, this is how things stand.
Long live the Constitution! Que viva la Constitucion!
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Comment by Ken Lowe
Ceil sent me the link to your blog after I emailed Mary as I was concerned about you after hearing the news of what was happening there. I've been following the news of what is happening there but it does not get much air play on this side of the globe. Thank goodness for the net as it keeps all us in touch. Reports like yours are "feet on the ground" for me much like I get from the USA reports from my friends there. I am always suspect of the "News Reports" as I always feel they have an agenda.
I love the emails I get from Mary keeping me in touch.
Australia (having no borders) is a terrific place to watch the insanity of the world unfold. Our moat works pretty good too.
Keep up the reports so we know what is really happening. Don’t fret as you can’t fix the world, all you can do is be an honest, honorable person. Democracy is a wonderful idea, conceptually it should work, its flaw is too often people don’t value their vote and are swayed with immediate rewards. I remember sitting in front of the black and white television on 20 Jan 1960 and hearing the words “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”. That changed me. If everyone heeded those words it would all work much better. Is it sad so many are willing to give up freedom for a few dollars.
If you get a chance, come for a visit, Australia is a pretty neat place.
Ken Lowe
www.kenlowe.com.au
ken@kenlowe.com.au
Comment by Russ Langley