Sunday, October 04, 2009
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Honduras Edges Toward November; "Rivals Edge Toward Talks"
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Posted by:
Jude at
3:26 PM
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That's what the AP reports today. We'll see. Last weekend, Honduras' (interim)President Roberto Micheletti and his government restricted rights of assembly and shuttered some pro-Zalaya media, in what seemed like a step too far for government leaders claiming total legitimacy because they, as opposed to the Zalaya/Chavez axis before them, have been honoring constitutional law. Micheletti must have seen Zalaya's stealth entrance back into Honduras from exhile and the prospect of his supporters gathering as highly dangerous, because he undermined his own position of legal integrity by taking the above measures. Civil war is not something to flirt with, and last Monday looked like a dangerous day in Tegucigalpa. One week later, he has said he will lift them any day now, but the P.R. damage has certainly been done, with watchers around the world now assigning a sort of moral equivalence between the former and current Presidents of Honduras, and no longer seeming to focus on what created the crisis in the first place.
I found myself across a dinner table last night from a lovely woman who works in several Latin American countries, coordinating outreach for an extremely liberal and controversial organization. As we discussed Honduras, we at least agreed that the only way from here to the future for the country is to have and recognize the November elections. Still, she went on about how Micheletti was no better than Zalaya, and that even before last week his government had been brutally cracking down on peaceful people, as reported to her by correspondents she described as "leftists" inside Honduras. What does one say to that kind of thing? The cracking down part may be true in part, but then, if you received you news about Los Angeles from the people hanging out at the bookstore on Alvarado in Echo Park, you might well believe that the top story this year was of a brutal police war against the citizens.
When another guest joined leaned in and asked to be caught up on what we were talking about, this highly educated woman, who is married to a Honduran and reads media from the region, went on an informative rant about how removing Zalaya from power had been illegal, that he had not actually sought to change the constitution, that the military had acted illegally, and other nuanced defenses we've all seen in the AP reports. She lamented the fact that Honduras had a history of illegitimate governments, and how Micheletti had only added to that legacy. It took me a few minutes, but I was finally able to ask her if she knew of article 239 of the Honduran constitution, which was written and ratified to prevent exactly the kind of thug-ocratic leaders she was decrying, and which had so precisely called for the termination of Zalaya's presidency. She did not. Not about the forfeiture of office or the ten year ban on serving. Like most Americans, myself included, she had not been familiar with Article 239, much less Article 4, or Article 5, or Articles 42, 272, 373 and 374 - all of which deal with what must be called the hugely important theme of Presidential term limits in the Constitution of Honduras. Article 374 specifically mentions that the ban on extending the President's term in office is one of several clauses (along with national boundaries and the entire form of government) that cannot be changed, even by the National Congress. The Constitution would have to be discarded, rewritten, and re-ratified. 'It was just a referendum', they say. Well, yeah, and it's just a Constitution.
All week, after Micheletti's suspension of certain civil liberties, we waited for the other shoe to drop... but in fact there was no shoe left to do anything but kick Honduras around some more. The OAS, the EU, and our own President, Barack I-Bama, had already joined the side of the would-be strongman Manuel Zalaya, punishing the new government, and the people by extension, with economic/humanitarian sanctions and the blunt threat of not recognizing the upcoming November 29 elections. (Free elections, by the way, between candidates selected before the crisis, but no matter, we're just not going to recognize them unless you restore Zalaya to power so he can, oh, let's see, grant himself amnesty for crimes and begin a purge of his enemies... sound good for you, Amigos?) Obama chose his side, and that was to be popular with the leftists in LAtin America. All that was left to lose outside Honduras was the sympathy of a few voices. Inside the country, a week of relative quiet may mean that the threat of an uprising has passed, and now, faced with wide criticism, Micheletti will restore all civil liberties, as he has promised. Let's hope we're there. He famously said that integrity has no price in his country, but Micheletti may be looking to buy or barter for some good press right now.
A couple final thoughts. Currently it's rumored that restoring Zalaya to a titular presidency of one day - either election day or the last day of his term - will be the solution agreed to by all parties. That doesn't sound like a mess waiting to happen at all... Also, from within Honduras is the rumor that Sec. State Clinton has been siding with Micheletti and quietly supporting him the whole time Obama has been backing Zalaya's return, supposedly to undermine the Obama. This strikes me as the wonderful, fantasy version of politics as opera which the Clintons seem to inspire. Otherwise, it might be that Obama's America is working both sides of the street at the same time in Honduras, which perhaps we'll come to call "diplomacy, Chicago-style."
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