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The Honduran military coup d'état did not happen in a vacuum. It is a continuation of the Honduran military's long protracted struggle to retain unrestrained political and economic power over their country and must be viewed through the prism of Honduras's long and colorful history of military dictatorship.
The Honduran constitution under discussion now is basically the 1982 version that gives the military almost total control over the country's political and economic affairs. It was the dictate of General Plicarpo Paz Garcia who was President of Honduras from August 7, 1978 until January 27, 1982. The military had ruled Honduras almost continuously since 1963, and Paz was the last of the generals of the ruling junta to hold Honduras's Presidency. To this day, the senior leadership of the Honduran Army, The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, basically chooses its own members from within (the Honduran congress receives a list of candidates from the leadership of the military and chooses the military leaderships new members from that list).
Honduran politics is almost impossible to understand from an American perspective. We hear the terms "constitution" and "representative democracy" and think of something quite different from what the Honduran system actually is - which is not democracy at all. At least not the way American's understand democracy.
In Honduras seven party bosses controlled by 10 or so wealthy families determine who the people may choose to vote for. This includes the country's president, the congress and all local officials. No one can participate without the patronage of the junta that rules from behind the scenes.
Honduran congressmen have no geographically determined constituency and therefore are not really answerable to any constituency other than the bosses who put them on the ballot. As the current coup leaders have pointedly made clear, only the congress, which is hand-picked by the military, can ask the Honduran electorate if it agrees with reforms; one of many Orwellian features of the Honduran military written "constitution".
While the Honduran constitution's almost four hundred articles rigidly regulate virtually every aspect of Honduran national life, notably there is no provision for changing the constitution which fails to guarantee Honduran's basic human rights.
Under Honduras's constitution, for instance, indigenous groups and African descendants have no land rights. The land that they occupy and work for their meager livings belongs to the nation (military).
Any call for redress of grievance against the government must be brought through government employed attorneys. Citizens do not have the right to privately petition their government; all complaints must only be brought through the government operated apparatus - there is no other way.
Much has been made by the coup's supporters of the fact that the Honduran Supreme Court ordered the military to proceed with the coup and that the Honduran congress was acting under a legal decree from the court to elect and install the replacement president. Its choice, Roberto Micheletti, has been a Honduran political kingpin for more than thirty years (that's a catchy Spanish surname, "Micheletti").
To put this in context; the Honduran congress, which is hand-chosen by the Honduran military, selects the members of the Honduran Supreme Court. All power is vested in one continuum.
Honduras has no tradition of (one of the cornerstones of American democracy) separation of powers. In Honduras all of the power is vested to one institution, the Honduran military leadership, "The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces".
This coup is a result of a dispute between President Zelaya and the Honduran military. It is nothing more than a barroom brawl gone badly. It's an important dispute to be sure but it is basically little more than a classic fight between two political factions vying for power.
On the one hand the Honduran military wants to hold on to an iron grip of power that they have enjoyed since the 1963 military coup that deposed the democratically-elected president, Ramón Villeda Morales and brought them to power. On the other hand there is a growing movement, led by Mr. Zelaya, trying to bring democratic reform to Honduras's corrupt political system. These two factions are at odds and there are some observers who believe that a civil war may be on the horizon.
There are several other groups as well with interest in the continuation of military dominance in Honduras. These include an inter-American rightist coalition that connects Cuban exile fanatics to rightist politicians in Latin America with neo-con's in the United States (and according to some, the CIA). These are groups who have for some time been concerned with the movement in Latin American towards socially progressive politics.
But "Mel" Zelaya is hardly a Marxist rebel. He is a wealthy land owner, the inheritor of vast ranching, logging and timber interests.
Mr. Zelaya is a member of Honduras's privileged class, a member of a traditionalist Liberal Party, and a leader who has called for reform to address inequalities in Honduras and has tried to address Honduras's crushing poverty. In spite of this the military and others of interest have attempted to paint Mr. Zelaya as a Marxist who is a puppet of Venezuela's populist president, Hugo Chavez.
Mr. Zalaya came to office thought to be a conservative and was elected by a slim majority. But during the 3 ½ years of his 4 year term in office (yes, his term has only 6 months to run) he has promoted popular reforms to increase the minimum wage, provide free lunches to Honduras's school children and he lowered the price of public transportation all of which has engendered hatred for President Zelaya from Honduras's rightists.
One protagonist group in Honduras is made up of Christian fundamentalists and the clergy who have lately been exerting extreme pressure on Honduran politics and society. When President Zelaya vetoed a law which intended to restrict women's choice in reproductive rights (choice in the use of birth control) this group became enraged and vindictive.
Another reform enacted under Mr. Zelaya's leadership is the so called "Law of Citizen's Participation" under which President Zalaya proposed that the body politic be polled to ascertain whether the citizenry wished to have a constituent assembly convened to reform the corrupt and unjust Honduran political system. This further inflamed his adversaries, the beneficiaries of the current system who began a sham legal process that resulted in the recent coup.
The Honduran military led effort to discredit Mr. Zelaya has been based upon the farcical notion that President Zelaya was acting extra-constitutionally by calling for a plebiscite which would ask the Honduran people if they wanted to convene an assembly to change the constitution to allow re-election" and that this act in itself was a violation of the Honduran constitution (this is one of the talking points that is well distributed across the internet by what seems to be the organized attempt to disseminate a very well defined and carefully crafted message that is meant to support the justification for the coup d'état).
Yet the language of the proposed plebiscite was as follows:
¿Está de acuerdo que en las elecciones generales de 2009 se instale una cuarta urna en la cual el pueblo decida la convocatoria a una asamblea nacional constituyente? = Sí…….ó………..No.
Translation:
"Do you agree with the installation of a fourth ballot box during the 2009 general elections so that the people can decide on the calling of a national constituent assembly? Yes or no."
There is no language whatsoever regarding an election.
Further undermining the military's argument, under President Zelaya's proposal the plebiscite would have been set to take place simultaneously with the election of Mr. Zelaya's successor in November. So by the time the plebiscite took place it would be too late for Mr. Zelaya to have the constitution changed and for him run for a second term.
In President Zelaya's words "That is completely false. In Honduras we do not have reelections and I never intended to be reelected. That will be a matter for another government, another constitution and another Constituent Assembly. The Popular Consultation is a survey, just like the Gallup one does or other polling groups. It does not create rights. It has no power to impose. It is not obligatory, it's an opinion poll." (This is a quotation taken from a recent interview given by President Zelaya to Juan Gonzales of Democracy Now. The transcript of the entire interview is here: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/9/in_rare_us_broadcast_ousted_honduran).
Rightist propaganda has been remarkably uniform in its assertion that the Honduran coup is justified by focusing on the misleading narrow issue of term limits, despite the lack of any statement by Zelaya that would support the claim that his whole intent was to stay in power. In fact President Zalaya has raised the issue of much greater constitutional reform, required reform if Honduras is to join the family of Latin American nations that are today the beneficiaries of 5 decades of Latin American political maturation.
There is much that is puzzling about what has transpired. At the time of the coup d'état President Zelaya had only seven months of his term remaining and apparently neither of the presidential candidates, one of which would have succeeded him, are leftists.
President Zelaya had no intentions of convening a national constituent assembly, he was only asking for a referendum to determine if the people supported placing a fourth ballot box in the general elections to determine if they wanted a national assembly convened. The referendum, had it been approved by the voters, would have asked a national constituent assembly to review and create a new Constitution. Creating it would have been under the authority of the National Congress, not the President.
It is clear that President Zelaya was attempting to wrest a small amount of power from the military and invest it in the private sector. The Honduran military stopped him. They would tolerate no threat to their absolute control over the Honduran polity and economy.
Instead of prosecuting Zelaya or trying to defeat him at the ballot box, masked soldiers disarmed the president's guards, kidnapped him at gunpoint and exiled him to another country. The next step was to have congress install Mr. Micheletti in his place.
Although its beneficiaries do not wish to recognize it, the present political system (which is rooted in the 1982 military decree) perpetuates corruption and privilege. For that reason alone the Honduran constitution, if Honduras wants to be a member of the world community, must be amended in a way that vests the power of self-determination with the Honduran people. Unfortunately, the Honduran military will have none of it.
The idea that at the beginning of the 21st century a political dispute in a Latin American country would still be settled by calling in the military to forcibly remove a legally sitting president is almost too absurd to comprehend.
This is the first military coup in Latin America in 25 years. In today's day and age nothing justifies the military overthrow of civilian government. Military coups are a part of a tortured Latin American history and they should be left to that history.
So, if the people of Honduras think that holding an Assembly to revise the Constitution is such a bad idea, why not just let them vote no on the referendum?
If the people of Honduras want an assembly, why not have one?
The answer is that an entrenched oligarchy, the Honduran (American trained) military leadership, cares more about retaining all of its power than it does about promoting the growth of democracy in its own country.
While Costa Rica's Oscar Arias, a Nobel Peace Prize winner tries to mediate the Honduran situation there are steps that are absolutely required if Honduras is to escape the economic and political sanctions that are sure to be the result of their unlawful coup. They are:
1. The return to office of Honduras's President Zelaya;
2. The removal from office all those who broke any law;
3. Giving President Zelaya and all of the institutions and individuals that may have acted illegally a fair trial if there are legitimate charges brought;
4. The agreement to the creation of a new Constitution that includes adequate mechanisms for its own continuing reform.
This coup has been condemned by all of Honduras's neighbors, the Organization of American States, The United Nations, the European Union, and the United States and it must be reversed if Honduras is to avoid economic, political and military sanctions. At stake is Honduras's participation in the world community of nations that respect and live by the rule of law.
