Zelaya, Chavez, and Lula: Socialist intervention in Honduras

What should be one of the most important stories in the Western Hemisphere is going virtually unreported.

By now, only the profoundly and permanently ignorant can deny that former president Manuel (Mel) Zelaya violated the Honduran constitution when he called for reform of the constitution in order to give himself the option of re-election.

In a video-taped recording of a speech Zelaya gave to his followers four days before his destitution, he stated:
“Here the judges are re-elected, the fiscales (prosecuting attorneys) are re-elected, the mayors are re-elected, the Legislators (Diputados) are re-elected…the only one who is not re-elected is the President, but the Re-election is the theme of the next constitutional assembly.”

Constitutional Assemblies are organized efforts to re-write constitutions under Latin American democratic rules. The problem with this is that the Honduran constitution explicitly prohibits Presidents from requesting or even suggesting their own re-election, and he who violates this norm, according to the Honduran Supreme Court, automatically loses his mandate and is to be removed from power. This is what happened to Zelaya.

Yesterday, 21 of September 2009, Zelaya somehow slipped through the border and arrived in Honduras. The most common report states that he arrived secretly overland, while at least one other report suggests he was flown into Honduras aboard a Venezuelan military plane. He then managed to seek refuge in the Brazilian embassy.

In response, the interim president, Roberto Micheletti, stated: “I can’t help but think that he’s here to try to put up obstacles to our presidential election” that is scheduled to occur in November. Micheletti, in agreement with the Honduran constitution, cannot and will not postulate himself as a candidate, now or ever again, since he served as President, even if it was for only a few months.

The most important factor in this story is that Zelaya apparently left Nicaragua with the help of the socialist Nicaraguan government of Manuel Ortega and was given protection in the Brazilian embassy. It appears that the leftist governments of Nicaragua, Venezuela and Brazil are colluding to intervene in the internal affairs of Honduras, in order to overthrow the “de facto” government there and restore Zelaya to power, in opposition to what appear to be the legal and constitutional orders of the Honduran Supreme Court, the Honduran congress (or parliament), and the standing president.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration continues to waffle and wobble, speaking out of both sides of its diplomatic mouth. Publicly they have called for the return of Zelaya, but then in the past written letters acknowledging that it was Zelaya’s own actions that caused his removal.

It is shocking to see the UN, OAS, and United States behave in such an inept and unhelpful manner. The moral confusion that appears to run these organizations and our State Department will eventually contribute to a violent upheaval in Honduras and could result in the ultimate destruction of the Honduran democracy.

UPDATE:
Interested parties should listen to this blistering critique of the Obama policy on Honduras by none other than the great Newt Gengrich.
Selected quote:
"I think this administration may rapidly parallel Carter, in that Carter had this deep almost psychologically driven compulsion to attack America's allies and apologise for our enemies, and this administration has a very similar pattern..."{he then reviews the situation in Honduras I have outlined in my posts}..."The Obama administration has already announced they will not honor (the upcoming November elections). In fact, they went further and just withdrew the visas of the 15 Supreme Court Justices (who ordered Zelaya deposed for constitutional violations). This is waging war on Democracy."