The Honduran Crisis

The odd thing about the military coup in Honduras is that it wasn't a coup. A coup d'état means the removal of a government by hostile forces. The Honduran military this week woke up President Zelaya and packed him off, in his pajamas, to Costa Rica. But it left intact the Honduran Supreme Court, which apparently authorized the action, and the nation's congress. It installed congressional leader Roberto Micheletti as Zelaya's successor (according to the Constitution) until the end of Mr. Zelaya's term in January. That's not what a military coup looks like.

That's not to say that the action was right. President Obama, who can't decide what side he's on with respect to Iran, quickly condemned the action and rightfully mentioned the sorry spectacle of military coups in Latin America. Standing by his side as he did so was Colombian president Alvaro Uribe [Houston Chronicle], whose opinions on these matters I take more seriously than Obama's. If Uribe, who surely has to worry about such things, thinks this ought to be opposed, then I am hesitant to say the contrary.

But to judge well, you'd have to the conduct of President Zelaya that led to the coup. This from Glenn Garvin at the Miami Herald:

For weeks, Zelaya -- an erratic leftist who styles himself after his good pal Hugo Chávez of Venezuela -- has been engaged in a naked and illegal power grab, trying to rewrite the Honduran constitution to allow him to run for reelection in November.

First Zelaya scheduled a national vote on a constitutional convention. After the Honduran supreme court ruled that only the country's congress could call such an election, Zelaya ordered the army to help him stage it anyway. (It would be ''non-binding,'' he said.) When the head of the armed forces, acting on orders from the supreme court, refused, Zelaya fired him, then led a mob to break into a military base where the ballots were stored.

His actions have been repudiated by the country's supreme court, its congress, its attorney-general, its chief human-rights advocate, all its major churches, its main business association, his own political party (which recently began debating an inquiry into Zelaya's sanity) and most Hondurans: Recent polls have shown his approval rating down below 30 percent.

Now if this is right, then Zelaya's unconstitutional actions that precipitated the crisis. He put the Honduran military in a position where it had to choose between abetting his lawless power grab, or obeying the Supreme Court and taking the action that it did.

But were these really the only choices? Edward Schumacher-Matos, writing in the Washington Post, has perhaps the best thing I have seen on this.

It is now clear that if the Honduran Supreme Court or Congress had used legal means such as impeachment before asking the army to remove President Manuel Zelaya, we would be calling events there a constitutional crisis rather than a coup d'etat.

Well, yes. And everyone, except perhaps Manuel Zelaya and Hugo Chavez (and the Castros) would be happier. Schumacher-Matos points out that many of those who are shocked, shocked by this undemocratic action would favor full recognition of the Castro regime, which is about as democratic as Sauron's Mordor.

He goes on to point out that

The threat growing in Latin America, Asia and Africa, according to Freedom House, is not dictatorship but what political theorists call illiberal democracy. Venezuela is the poster case in which a president, Hugo Chávez, is democratically elected and then goes about, through democratic referendums and Congress, constraining freedom by changing laws and institutions. Chávez and others like him create the "tyranny of the majority" that theorists behind the American Constitution warned was the weakness of democracy by itself, without constitutional liberalism protecting the rights of the individual.

That is what the crisis in Honduras represents. Let's hope our President is reading Schumacher-Matos, and not just the rest of the mainstream press that seems more interested in righteous indignation than in information.

Comments

[Manfred Zysk]

OIL COMPANIES PLUNDER GLOBAL ECONOMY
By: Manfred Zysk, M.E. – Updated July 3, 2009

Supertankers loaded with 2 million barrel oil capacity are used as storage vessels for over100 million barrels of oil offshore, primarily in Europe and the U.S.A., tanker brokers said. About 70 million barrels are still floating. Ocean oil storage of $8 per barrel/month is now less attractive after oil prices for near-term delivery rose and now dropped to 80 cents. Ocean oil tanker storage generated huge profits when premiums surged for holding oil off the market by Koch, Vitol, Shell, Glencore, British Petroleum, and others. Oil trading profits are hard to track, but analysts say floating oil storage probably helped several firms book billions in collective profits since late 2008. British Petroleum has said crude storage plays helped it gain $500 million in trading profits during the first quarter alone.

This proves that the USA and the world are at the mercy of the oil companies and they are allowed to plunder and drain the world economy into financial chaos. The world is being doped into submission with false claims and lies of abundant oil and fossil fuel resources with the help of the news media and several governments. Ever larger election campaign contributions by oil companies and corporations ensure that the government is controlled by corporate interests. Honest politicians do not have a chance of being elected, and our U.S. government has become very much against the interests of the average American citizen and national interests, such as by outsourcing jobs for cheap labor in foreign countries, opposing Social Security and not allowing affordable Health Care for American citizens.

The Algae World Summit ended on March 26, 2009 with professionals from all corners of the industry examined the realities and challenges of building a national scale bio-fuels industry for producing nationally 20 to 100 billion gallons (476 million to 2.381 billion barrels) per year. U.S. oil consumption for 2007 amounted to 20.68 billion barrels. Current, unrealistic claims were made of algae producing 15,000 gallons of bio-fuel per acre, while current peak productivity is on the level of 2,000 to 2,500 gallons per acre/year, and evaporative water losses from small-scale production run into millions of gallons per day. In spite of the hype, no solid technological research was presented for immediate useful commercial application. GreenFuel, in Cambridge, Massachusetts promised a large scale commercial algae production plant to be in operation by 2009, but further information about this plant is not available. Now GreenFuel plans to build a commercial 247 acre plant in the next few years.

On June 27, 2009, my Senator Merkley held a town-hall meeting and he proudly announced major energy developments and investments are taking place in wind, solar and even algae formulated with carbon dioxide for quick growth. Three wind turbine manufacturing companies recently declared bankruptcy in Oregon. Most people at the town-hall meeting supported new energy legislation. Several people shouted "drill baby, drill" (for oil). Many people appeared very hostile and uninformed about the fact that the oil companies are sitting on 68,000 acres of oil leases and refuse to drill for oil. These oil leases are claimed as financial assets, but actual oil deposits are not known, or may not even exist.

A clear majority of people at the town-hall meeting demanded single payer health care plans. A woman demanded that Senators and Congressmen have to read all proposed legislation, because when voting but not knowing what is in the legislation then would amount to fraud. The woman received much applause, and Senator Merkley did not directly respond. No factual data was presented and the town-hall meeting only lasted 1 hour, and over 20 persons had more questions, including questions about our wars and over our 700 military bases worldwide, and how our government can continue to justify such waste during our critical financial times and huge debts. Several angry people were opposed to most government programs and of paying taxes. For more energy and global climate change information, please see: www.MZ-Energy.com

Manfred Zysk, M.E.
[email protected]
Website: www.MZ-Energy.com

[politicjock]

Ken Blanchard, do you have no shame, with your Orwellian contortions?

Getting elected. Organizing referendums. Proposing constitutional amendments. These are the sorts of things that happen in a country that is experiencing democracy.

Kidnapping the president. Installing an unelected strongman. Suspending civil liberties. These are the sorts of things that happen in a country that is experiencing a coup.

[KB]

Politicjock:

One man's Orewellian contortions are another's attempt to get a clear picture of what happened. You might try it some day. But take the bandages off slowly, the real world is going to come as a shock.

[DS]

When someone does something, that is deemed against the very nature of the structure of the country that he resides in, and the punishment is IMMEDIATE removal, well, politicjock, isn't the correct action to take the IMMEDIATE removal of that person?

[cliffyworld]

Please read the the related article titled " Obama Manifesto" at http://www.cliffyworld.com

[cliffyworld]

Please read the the related article titled " Obama Manifesto" at http://www.cliffyworld.com

[runescape gold]

Who are you people? A public referendum on an additional presidential term for Zalaya was about to begin when him was arrested and sent out of the country. This democratic process was thwarted by a coup (yes,it's a coup, and you can call it anything else you’d like) but it just a coup, an illegal takeover of power, the Honduran Supreme Court notwithstanding.

[runescape money]

I was not refering to you. But I am sure that you have seen a lot of that at this point.

[Erik]

KB:
Thanks for the clippings and the commentary. Don't you think ruling elite is behind the coup? With the military being the muscle to oust a populist leader?
Erik

[Erik]

KB:
One more thought. Obama is basically using soft diplomacy to restore the Honduran President. An interesting comparison would be the Nixon administration's involvement in the coup that ousted Allende...
Erik

[KB]

Runescape: The "public referendum was, according to the Honduran Supreme Court, in violation of the nation's constitution. The President insisted on going ahead with it, even breaking into a building to get the ballots. The Military seems to have acted in defense of the Constitution. That isn't a coup.

Erik: I don't know who the "ruling elite" is in Honduras, but the point of a constitution is that you don't have to know. Zelaya was a would-be Chavez. Honduras dodged a bullet. I am not endorsing the military action, because I think there might have been less extra-legal alternatives. I am unsure about the Nixon connection. Were outside powers at work here, beyond the support of Chavez and the Castros?