Tuesday 7 July 2009

Honduras situation in a nutshell

The amount of drivel being propagated by those opposed to freedom and democracy in the world about what has happened in Honduras should astonish me but given the Western mainstream media's genuflecting to every anti-US, anti-freedom, tinpot dictator/autocrat it doesn't.

Here's the situation in a nutshell courtesy of
Mary Anastasia O'Grady and her interview with Dennis Prager.
  • Honduras suffered under a military dictatorship for two decades before a return to democracy and, thus, their constitution has a strict one term limit for its Presidents.
  • Manuel Zelaya was in the last year of his 4 year term and wanted to amend the constitution to allow him to stand again via a referendum.
  • The President does not have the power under the constitution to call a referendum, only Congress can do that.
  • Zelaya called a referendum, which the Honduras Supreme Court then declared illegal.
  • Zelaya said he didn't care for the Court's opinion and told the head of the military to oversee the referendum by helping to pass out ballots and make sure people voted.
  • The head of the military had advice from the Supreme Court that the referendum was illegal and therefore told Zelaya he wouldn't help.
  • Zelaya then fired the head of the military.
  • The Supreme Court instructed Zelaya to reinstate the head of the military, which he refused to do.
  • Zelaya proceeded with the referendum and organised for a violent mob of supporters to storm the military base where the ballots were being held. The ballots had been printed in, and shipped in from, Venezuela.
  • On Thursday evening Zelaya supporters started distributing the ballots and on Sunday the referendum went ahead.
  • The Supreme Court then order the military to arrest Zelaya, which they did and then put him on a plane to Costa Rica.
Manuel Zelaya is a wannabe Latin American autocrat in the style of Morales and Chavez. He was immensely unpopular in Honduras and all sides of poltics - including his own party, which was very vocal in its opposition to his plan - wanted him removed.

Even the prominent Honduran Cardinal, Oscar Andres Rodriguez, once considered a strong contender for Pope following the death of John Paul II, lined up against Zelaya and told him not to come back.
The Honduran cardinal and main leader of the Honduran Catholic church, Oscar Andres Rodriguez, Saturday urged ousted President Manuel Zelaya not to come back to Honduras. In a televised speech, Rodriguez warned that the return of Zelaya could lead to a blood bath. "I know you love and respect life, at this moment only a Honduran citizen has died, please meditate your decision, because later it could be too late," he said. He also urged the Organization of American States (OAS) to investigate all the "illegal deeds" that happened during the rule of Zelaya.
Given that the Catholic Church in Latin America is somewhere to the left of Joe Stalin and regularly supports its undemocratic leaders it shows exactly how unpopular Zelaya had become. The OAS has just suspended Honduras and allowed Cuba to take the first steps back to readmission, which just goes to show how corrupt it is.

Zelaya was operating under the 'Chavesmo' model of entrenching oneself in the leadership position in Latin America, namely: stand on a populist platform in order to get elected and then use the rule of law and mob violence to intimidate your rivals, and the population, into submission. It was strongly felt by the Supreme Court and Congress that to arrest Zelaya and place him in jail would cause a great deal of violence in the streets as his supporters, backed by Hugo Chavez, would create trouble. Therefore the decision was taken to exile him.

Costa Rica accepted Zelaya and its president allowed him to be interviewed on TV so he could whine about being the democratically elected president and having been overthrown in a military coup et blah.

In terms of simply impeaching Zelaya, the constitution does not have a provision for impeachment unless the president has been found guily of committing a crime. That would require arrest, trial and punishment, which would have the same violent result mentioned previously, but for longer.

Here's Manuel Zelaya with two of his good friends, Raul Castro and Hugo Chavez.




And here's President Obama being extra friendly with Hugo Chavez.



Perhaps that's why the United States has managed to get itself on the wrong side of freedom by siding with Castro, Chavez, Morales et al and calling on the return of Zelaya.

Zelaya tried, dramatically, to fly back into Honduras but unfortunately for him protestors flocked the airport and the military placed vehicles on the runway to stop him from landing.


So who was on the plane with Zelaya?

Two journalists from Venezuela's Telesur network and, get this, U.N. General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, a leftist Nicaraguan priest and former foreign minister.

If that doesn't show how deeply involved in destabilising Honduras Hugo Chavez is and what a corrupt, feckless organisation the U.N. is then nothing will.


If you want to check out how loopy the left is these days then
check out the comments on the article at HuffPo. Free Tibet. Damn Honduras.

We are all Hondurans now.

Support freedom.


Support Honduras.

(Nothing Follows)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I keep hearing this word "referendum" in fact what Zelaya was asking for was a "popular consutation"...which is entirly legal under the honduran constitution....and he never once even suggested that term limits were an issue.....better read up

Jack Lacton said...

If what he intended was legal under the constitution then the Supreme Court wouldn't have declared it illegal.

In law a 'popular consultation' is a referendum.

It's what Morales, Chavez etc used, as well as what happened in East Timor.

Better grow a brain.

Anonymous said...

Here is the summary of Octavio Sanchez, a Honduran lawyer.

These are the facts: On June 26, President Zelaya issued a decree ordering all government employees to take part in the "Public Opinion Poll to convene a National Constitutional Assembly." In doing so, Zelaya triggered a constitutional provision that automatically removed him from office.

Constitutional assemblies are convened to write new constitutions. When Zelaya published that decree to initiate an "opinion poll" about the possibility of convening a national assembly, he contravened the unchangeable articles of the Constitution that deal with the prohibition of reelecting a president and of extending his term. His actions showed intent.

Our Constitution takes such intent seriously. According to Article 239: "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 [emphasis added], 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."


http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0702/p09s03-coop.html

Here is section 239 from the Honduran Constitution.

ARTICULO 239.- El ciudadano que haya desempeñado la titularidad del Poder Ejecutivo no podrá ser Presidente o Vicepresidente de la República.

El que quebrante esta disposición o proponga su reforma, así como aquellos que lo apoyen directa o indirectamente, cesarán de inmediato en el desempeño de sus respectivos cargos y quedarán inhabilitados por diez (10) años para el ejercicio de toda función pública.
* Modificado por Decreto 299/1998.
* Modificado por Decreto 374/2002 y ratificado por Decreto 153/2003.


http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Constitutions/Honduras/hond05.html

--Krumhorn

Jack Lacton said...

Thanks, Krum. Good info there.