Posted on 07/10/2009 3:43:44 AM PDT by don-o
Last Sunday, Honduras removed its would-be dictator, Mel Zelaya, who flouted court rulings by using intimidation to try to get Hondurans to change their constitution to allow him to extend his tenure in office. The country’s Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant for Zelaya, which the military enforced by removing Zelaya. The country’s legislature then voted almost unanimously to replace him with its legislative speaker, in accord with the country’s constitution.
Now, Obama, who knows nothing about Honduran law, is ignorantly claiming that Zelaya’s removal was “illegal,” and demanding that Zelaya be reinstated as president. His demand is joined in by the Organization of American States, many of whose leaders, like Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, have either violated their own countries’ constitutions, or likewise seek to eliminate term limits contained in their own countries’ constitutions.
(”A senior Obama administration official said the United States would probably move to suspend economic development and military assistance” to Honduras, one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere).
Obama is quite wrong to claim that the removal of Zelaya was “illegal.” The Honduran president forfeited his right to rule under Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution, which bans presidents from holding office if they even propose to alter the constitutional term limits for presidents.
And the Honduran military, which acted on orders of the Honduran supreme court, expressly had the right to remove the president for seeking to alter the constitutional term limit, under Article 272 of the Honduran Constitution, as even left-leaning commentators have now admitted.
The Honduran military’s role in enforcing the court order does not make it a “coup” anymore than federal troops’ role in enforcing the court-ordered integration of the Little Rock public schools in 1957 constituted a military occupation or takeover.
(Zelaya was a corrupt ruler who so mismanaged his country’s finances so badly that it recently failed to pay many of its bills. His violations of his country’s constitution were criticized by human rights groups and the Catholic Church as well as the legislature and judiciary).
What happened in Honduras was not ”illegal,” much less a “coup,” agrees the Honduran lawyer and former Minister of Culture Octavio Sanchez in his July 2 column in the Christian Science Monitor. He notes that under Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution, the President automatically lost his right to remain in office by seeking to extend his term in office: “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.’ Notice that the article speaks about intent and that it also says ‘immediately’ – as in ‘instant,’ as in ‘no trial required,’ as in ‘no impeachment needed.’
Continuismo – the tendency of heads of state to extend their rule indefinitely – has been the lifeblood of Latin America’s authoritarian tradition. The Constitution’s provision of instant sanction might sound draconian, but every Latin American democrat knows how much of a threat to our fragile democracies continuismo presents.
In Latin America, chiefs of state have often been above the law. The instant sanction of the supreme law has successfully prevented the possibility of a new Honduran continuismo.
The Supreme Court and the attorney general ordered Zelaya’s arrest for disobeying several court orders compelling him to obey the Constitution. He was detained and taken to Costa Rica. Why? Congress needed time to convene and remove him from office. With him inside the country that would have been impossible. This decision was taken by the 123 (of the 128) members of Congress present that day. Don’t believe the coup myth. The Honduran military acted entirely within the bounds of the Constitution. The military gained nothing but the respect of the nation by its actions.”
If Richard Nixon had been impeached and convicted for Watergate, and then refused to leave office, until being forced out by the military, would that have been a “military coup”? Of course not. But Obama and many in the press are taking essentially that position in demanding the reinstatement of Honduras’s would-be dictator.
The fact that the military carried out the Honduran Supreme Court’s orders in removing a would-be dictator, after he flouted the court’s rulings, does not make it a “military coup.”
When court orders are defied by powerful government officials, troops are sometimes called out to enforce them, as happened in the U.S. in 1957 when federal troops forced Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus to stop blocking the court-ordered integration of Little Rock’s public schools. Indeed, Article 272 of the Honduran Constitution gives the military the power to remove a president even without a court order, if he seeks to violate the term limits prescribed in the Honduran Constitution.
Even a legal commentator, Litho, at the leading liberal blog Daily Kos, which is run by a leftist Latin American immigrant, admits that the military’s action was “legal” in a “technical sense” under the Honduran Constitution.
ping
FReepmail me to be added / removed from Honduras list
Was BO born outside the U.S.?
Finally, a Latin American country that has some balls to stand up to the puppets of Chavez. I hope this sets an example to other countries who’s leaders are becoming power hungry and are influenced by Chavez and his goons.
Doubtful. Honduras, like the rest of the world, sees that we have a president who is more concerned with looking good in public then actually being an effective leader. Most of the world sees 0bama as a paper tiger and I am sure Honduras will as well.
This guy Zelaya is a lying, leftist thug exactly like Obama is. He and Obama are exactly the same so of course Obama and the Democrats will support him.
Jimmah Carter and Andy Young had their Robert Mugabe. Look how that worked out.
Apparently Zero and Rahm want to expend their political capitol to install a country-destroying dictator on our continent.
0bama’s looking forward seven years and thinking this could be a useful precedent.
A new reality-TV show - “American Continuismo”.
Demosklats like to support commie hardcore left-wing dictators.
It’s what they do. Dictators in arms.
Why?
Comradeship!?
If Honduras manages to keep the dictators at bay then I intend to do start doing business down there with these fine people.
It would be especially interesting to know how this decision was reached by the obama administration. I am quite certain they did not receive bad information regarding the coup that was thwarted. So why is it they would risk giving other dictators a reason and the green light to engage in military operations against Honduras, to restore the illegal ex president.
On top of those revelations, I’m quite sure the majority of the American people would choose not to even threaten to impose economic sanctions on a poor nation that has legally removed a presidential pretender engaging in that latin american game of president forever called continuismo.
I would think the American people would regard the actions of the obama administration as extremely dangerous, giving dictators a green light to destabilize the entire continent by indicating the US sides with those who would like to say the opposite of what actually took place.
What would the American people do, should some of the OAS bad boys got together and decided they could reinstall the illegal president by force and without fear of retribution from the one stabilizing influence in north america. We would be helpless, but not nearly so as Honduras.
And on top of everything else going on, who of our allies would trust us in the future when we allow our very own presidential pretender to throw poor little Honduras under the bus. The actions of the god like president are treasonous in the extreme.
Do you mean OBAMA, a puppet?
One day it will be necessary for America to take out the trash. If the FRAUD from Kenya has his way, American elections will become the same fraud as they were in Iran. America's military will then be our best hope but it may be necessary for WE THE PEOPLE (again) to step up like the world hasn't seen in hundreds of years.
Apparently the WashPost is complaining that media coverage in Honduras is being slanted by the military coup plotters... so I guess thats another ‘justification’ for US sanctions and stuff
I have read that it was Hillary who actually reined Obama in and got Aria involved.
I support Honduras telling Bambi to stfu
Will Congress back him up on it? What ever happened to the Democrats that used to needle The Soviet Union and China to the verge of nuclear war over human rights violations? The only Democrats I ever see anymore are the ones who want to make Nikita Khrushchev's prophesy come true.
It is over. The bad guy lost.
Short of a counter coup he will not be restored.
Obama is doing nothing but uttering words he sees on the Telepromoter. He has no stomach for any controversy and is powerless to force the reinstatement.
Hillary who actually reined Obama in
Almost unbelievable.
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