Honduras' Would Be President-for-Life Leaving the Country

According to Reuters (h/t Legal Insurrection) Honduras' would be president-for-life Manuel Zelaya will leave Honduras (he's been in in the Brazilian embassy for four months and has claimed Israeli mercenaries were shooting him with thought altering gas or radiation, or something).

From the article:

"Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya will end his four-month refuge in the Brazilian embassy and leave the country next week, when his term would have ended, his closest adviser said on Thursday.

"Zelaya, a leftist who was ousted in a coup on June 28, accepted an agreement backed by the government of the Dominican Republic to travel to the Caribbean country, close Zelaya aide Rasel Tome told Radio Globo radio.

"Tome said Zelaya would remain politically active, but leaving the country effectively ends his career as a meaningful leader in Honduras."

[...]

"Zelaya failed to return to office and reverse the coup despite support from the United States and many Latin American countries."

[...]

"Zelaya was ousted on an order from the Supreme Court after he angered the country's business leaders and members of his own party with a bid to change the constitution, which is illegal under Honduran law.

"His critics accused him of trying to stay in office past his term, following in the footsteps of Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez, a charge Zelaya denies."

Notice the wording here again-- coup. Well, at least they weren't saying it was a "military coup" this time. Just to remind people, Zelaya was removed by the military under the full backing of the Honduran Supreme Court, the Honduran legislature, and the Honduran Constitution. Some coup, huh?

Obama, the US State Department, various European governments, and Venezuela's strongman Hugo Chavez all battled mightily to reinstate Zelaya. Yet, Honduras bravely held its ground despite US imposed sanctions and penalties, domestic turmoil and foreign pressures. Honduras' stalwart defense of their domestic law and Constitution should not be overlooked, written off, nor forgotten.

Koh and the U.S. Response to the Honduran "Coup:" Smart Diplomacy Gone Terribly Stupid?

Check out this op/ed at the Washington Times titled "Undermining Honduras." Read the whole op/ed at the link. It's short (h/t Honduras News).

"When Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh was chosen as chief legal counsel to the State Department, we editorialized that it was an 'offensive nomination.' We explained that 'Mr. Koh's repeatedly stated agenda is contrary to the American tradition of law originating in the "consent of the governed."' Little did we know that Mr. Koh would trample on the consent of the governed in other countries, too.

"Now we discover that it was Mr. Koh's legal opinion that supported the Obama administration's wrongheaded, and indeed immoral, decision to punish the nation of Honduras. The administration bizarrely objects to Honduran legislators and judges enforcing their own constitution against the would-be dictator, Manuel Zelaya, who tried to shred a key constitutional restraint against a Honduran president trying for a second term in office.

"In August, the Law Library of Congress concluded that 'the judicial and legislative branches applied constitutional and statutory law in the case against President Zelaya ... in accordance with the Honduran legal system.' Yet not only did the Obama administration object, but it imposed unilateral sanctions against Honduras. Even James Kirchick of the liberal New Republic magazine wrote that 'U.S. policy has become a mistake in search of a rationale.'

[...]

"As it happens, Mr. DeMint [Sen. Jim DeMint SC (R)] and 15 other senators have been asking since July 8 for the State Department to cite the source of its legal analysis. Their letter protesting the administration's stance was mailed to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. In an unmerited slap in the face, the department's response came not from Mrs. Clinton, but - a slow 14 days later - from Richard R. Verma, the assistant secretary for legislative affairs. Mr. Verma's letter completely ignored the request for legal analysis. Mr. DeMint reports that all subsequent congressional attempts to see legal analyses written by Mr. Koh or anybody else have been rebuffed as 'privileged communications.' This is, to put it bluntly, illegal. No such vague privilege exists.

[...]

"Former top federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, writing for National Review, put the problem best: 'Now, under Obama rules, we have to tell al Qaeda what our interrogation tactics are but we can't tell the American people why the Obama administration has made a political determination to support a [Marxist] thug at the expense of Honduras' rule of law.' The stonewalling is unacceptable. So is the policy it supports [emphasis mine]."

So now the State Department is illegally blocking Congressional inquiries into the legal reasoning of sanctions and pressures against Honduras. And for what purpose? Why the hostility toward Honduras in the first place? Even months after the knee-jerk mislabeling of Honduras' actions as a "military coup" has been disproved, the Obama administration continues to grind away at Honduras and actively hides its reasoning from Congress.

Is Obama unwilling to admit to a mistake? Obama, as a person, seems completely incapable of admitting even minor errors in judgement, let alone a major blunder like this. Is it this attitude transmitted to the State Department that has snowballed into the unjust pressures being levelled against a country for upholding its constitution?

Perhaps. But I think there's more to it then simply that. Personally I believe that the Obama administration did act first out of both its mislabeling of the Honduran incident as a "coup." Yet they also leaped at a chance to decisively demonstrate "new" American good faith in order to win over Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, and other South and Central American Leftists-- quick evidence to convince them of the good intentions of Obama's "new" American foreign policy. It seemed like an easy, sure thing (much like the Chicago Olympics bid). The American and international press would hail Obama as a peacekeeper. Simultaneously he would show U.S. critics in Central and South America that the Obama administration is more interested in stability than in liberty or the rule of law, and that they would respond by relaxing their political posturing. Yes, this is simplistic and naive thinking, but remember Obama has consistently demonstrated such thinking in his UN address, his betrayal of Poland and the Czech Republic, his international apology tour, etc.

Problems arose however, when Honduras showed resilience and didn't immediately fold under the pressure, and then the American Right didn't ignore the story. Now Obama is left in the current, embarrassing position and hopes to stonewall Congress and critics until the whole situation becomes moot with Zelaya's return to power.

This leaves Honduras hung out to dry, betrayed and strong-armed by the U.S. government. Ironically Honduras is in the position of having its leadership and law enforcement arbitrarily dictated to by an administration that was hoping to demonstrate how they would not dictate Latin American affairs.

Such idiocy, tragically compounded by these brutal unintended consequences, is probably par for the course in Obama's new "smart diplomacy." How many other allied countries he will betray and grind down due to his administration's sense of anti-American self-righteousness remains to be seen.

U.S. Continues Applying Pressure to Honduras for Upholding its Constitution

The US continues its support for potential Central American Marxist dictators. Ratcheting up the financial pressure, the State Department is cutting off all non-humanitarian aid to the country.

From hondurasnews.com: "At the end of US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton’s meeting with Mr. Manuel Zelaya, former President of Honduras, the State Department announced today it will stop $22 Million in Non-Humanitarian Aid to Honduras, and stated that 'Restoration of the terminated assistance will be predicated upon a return to democratic, constitutional governance in Honduras.'"

That last line is loaded with unintentional humor, of course. After all Zelaya was removed by the military under orders from the Honduran Supreme Court and with the blessings of the Honduran legislature. This occurred soon after Zelaya illegally attempted to change the Constitution to stay in power. "Return to democratic, constitutional governance" indeed...

The post goes on: "In addition to the terminated $22 million, as much as $200 million in Millennium Challenge funds could be halted as well. Mrs. Clinton is the chairperson on the board, who will discuss its funds earmarked for Honduras in next week’s meeting."

Meanwhile, Hugo Llorens, the US ambassador to Honduras, was gracious enough to do an interview with Global Exchange a group founded by Medea Benjamin co-founder of CODEPINK. (h/t Gateway Pundit for info and links).

"While awaiting the arrival of United States Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens to a meeting at the US embassy in Tegucigalpa Friday morning, Deputy Mission Chief Simon Henshaw spoke to an American human rights delegation from Global Exchange. The meeting had been organized by Andrés Conteris, founder of Democracy Now! en Español, who had managed to get me into the embassy despite the fact that I was not on the list and that my shoes set off the metal detector.

"In response to Global Exchange’s concern for current human rights violations in Honduras such as police beating of marchers opposed to the coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya on June 28, Henshaw announced that the delegation was 'preaching to the converted' and that 'we condemn the [coup] regime and think they’re thugs.' Henshaw’s subsequent declaration that 'the first issue is that [the Honduran coup] was a coup and that it was a military coup and that it was wrong' suggested that the US State Department had finally reached a consensus on the nature of the events of June 28 after debating for 48 days whether the coup was military. The consensus was called into question with the arrival of Ambassador Llorens and his exchange with Joe Shansky of Democracy Now! en Español:

"LLORENS: It’s a clear-cut case of a coup.

"SHANSKY: Military coup.

"LLORENS: Well, whatever you call it.

"Llorens went on to explain that—regardless of whether you called it a coup, a military coup, or a coup d’état—'it’s horrible,' and that coup President Roberto Micheletti was comparable to Napoleon given the zeal with which he had grabbed the Bible and sworn himself in as president of Honduras. As for why Napoleonic behavior had not triggered the freeze in US aid required by Section 7008 of the US Foreign Operations Law, Llorens momentarily supplanted the discussion of millions of dollars flowing into Honduras courtesy of US-funded Millenium Change Corporation (MCC) with a discussion of how the joint US-Honduran military base at Soto Cano had been shut down [emphasis mine]."

So the US ambassador is suggesting that the man who took over Honduras with the consent of the Honduran legislature and Supreme Court is involved in a coup and is "Napoleon given the zeal..." This would merely be embarrassing if the injustice and ramifications of the US's response to the Honduras situation were not so dire.

UPDATE: William A. Jacobson over at Legal Insurrection is keeping tabs on the Honduras issue. He's got some good links I will share as well.

OpenMarket.org points out that these sanctions being imposed are without any legal merit.

"The Obama Administration formally cut off aid to the impoverished nation of Honduras today, and announced other impending sanctions, to pressure the country to accept the return of its ex-president and would-be dictator. The Administration did this even though its legal basis for doing so had been debunked and abandoned.

"Earlier, the State Department planned to cut off aid to Honduras based on the false claim that its removal of ex-president Manuel Zelaya was a 'military coup.' But this claim was easily debunked, because Honduras replaced the ex-president with a civilian successor (a Congressman installed by Honduras’s Congress), who is backed by a democratically-elected legislature and a unanimous vote by the country’s supreme court. (Indeed, the Honduras Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant for the former president’s arrest, which soldiers duly carried out, and recently issued a ruling reaffirming that the ex-president’s removal from office was valid. The Obama Administration retaliated against Honduras for this ruling by imposing travel sanctions against the Honduran people). Moreover, Honduras’ removal of its ex-president was legal.

"Now, the State Department more or less admits that admits that there was no military coup, citing 'the participation of both the legislative and judicial branches of government' in the president’s removal.

"But while its original justification for cutting off the aid has disappeared, the Obama Administration was determined to cut off aid anyway, logic be damned. The Associated Press now reports that 'the Obama administration on Thursday cut off all aid to the Honduran government over the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya, making permanent a temporary suspension of U.S. assistance put in place after he was deposed in June.'

"U.S. sanctions are causing suffering, malnutrition, and widespread unemployment in Honduras, blocking needed projects such as the construction of orphanages."

Hans Bader's article in the Portland Examiner will start to give an idea of the plight of the Honduran people. And as he points out "Right now, all the left-wing groups that complained about U.S. interference in Latin America in the 1980s are hypocritically demanding that the U.S. interfere in Honduras to force it to accept the return of its would-be dictator. (Latin American dictators like Cuba’s Castro, who usually complain about any American presence in Latin America, are now demanding that America force the return of Zelaya to power).

"All their past rhetoric about imperialism was disingenuous. There could be no more obvious example of imperialism than the Obama Administration trying to force Honduras’s legislature, courts, and people to accept the return of its bullying ex-president, and Obama’s claim that his removal was 'illegal,' when it has been upheld his country’s highest court, and was expressly mandated by Article 239 of the Honduras Constitution (which Article 272 gave the military the authority to enforce)."

Obama Brand Imperialism: no apologies are forthcoming-- at least not from him.

UPDATE 2: And the US looks like it's not going to recognize Honduras' election results in November per the Washington Post.

As Jacobson points out, this is coming from an administration that does not refuse to recognize Iran's fraudulent election nor condemn its violently repressive aftermath.

Deposed President Zelaya at Honduras' Border

According to the AP: "Ousted President Manuel Zelaya has stepped across the border into his homeland and says he will reclaim his post a month after soldiers flew him into exile.

"Zelaya says he was forced to act on his own after U.S.-backed talks failed to reach a negotiated settlement with the coup-installed government to reinstate him.

"That government has vowed to arrest him if he tries to return."

Zelaya with the backing of Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega seems absolutely determined to institute a "strong man" style of government over Honduras' constitution, congress and supreme court. This is a true test of constitutional democracy and the rule of law.

*note the language of the article "coup-installed government" and "ousted President."

Added New Blog! Honduras Abandoned

I've added a new blog to my Blog List to the side-- Honduras Abandoned.

Go check out Honduras Abandoned for some on the ground reports of the situation in Honduras from Hunter Smith (h/t to And So it Goes in Shreveport and Legal Insurrection). Plenty of photos and personal accounts, plus a great choice of blog format (*heh*).

I am personally fascinated by this blog and I think both it and the Honduras story deserve attention. I highly recommend giving it a look.

Some Opinion Pieces on Honduras and its "Coup"

Just thought I'd drop in some opinion pieces on Honduras. They offer a little background on the immediate history of Honduras that many in the television MSM networks seem to be glossing over. I must confess that I know very little about Honduras' history and have never visited the country-- however I've studied the histories of various South American countries (Argentina, Peru, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, and Bolivia) for about eleven years now, so I am not completely unfamiliar with the region (yes, I know Honduras in in Central America).

Here's an op/ed by Alvaro Vargas Llosa in The Washington Post (h/t to Anne Leary at Backyard Conservative), detailing Zelaya's rather abrupt shift from center-right to socialism. From the article: "A member of the rancid oligarchy he now decries, Zelaya took office in 2006 as the leader of one of the two center-right parties that have dominated Honduran politics for decades. His general platform, his support for the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States and his alliances with business organizations gave no inkling of the fact that halfway into his term he would become a political cross-dresser.

"Suddenly, in 2007, he declared himself a socialist and began to establish close ties with Venezuela. In December of that year, he incorporated Honduras into Petrocaribe, a mechanism set up by Hugo Chávez for lavishing oil subsidies on Latin American and Caribbean countries in exchange for political subservience. Then his government joined the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean (ALBA), Venezuela's answer to the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, ostensibly a commercial alliance but in practice a political conspiracy that seeks to expand populist dictatorship to the rest of Latin America."

Here's a short bit by columnist Michael Sneed of the Chicago Sun Times (once again via Anne Leary at Backyard Conservative visit her site listed in My Blog List at the side). According to paleontologist Sue Hendrickson Sneed's friend and currently residing in Honduras, sent these notes:

"• • 1. 'The event should be taken as an arrest against a Honduran citizen, Manuel Zelaya, who broke the constitutional Honduran law in multiple occasions over the last few days.

• • 2. 'This SHOULD NOT be taken as a coup d'etat.

• • 3. 'The vast majority of Hondurans firmly oppose Manuel Zelaya and are in favor of his arrest.

• • 4. 'The current news being portrayed in international networks appear to be heavily tilted toward a contrarian view of most Hondurans.

• • 5. 'The majority of Hondurans are not in favor of Manual Zelaya and are extremely proud of our congress and military for their stance in favor of democracy and peace.

• • 6. 'The events happening today were caused by an attempt by Manuel Zelaya to manipulate our country and its constitution to fulfill his ultimate goal of remaining in power indefinitely.

• • 7. 'The world should be proud of Honduras as we are the first Latin American country to stand against a tyrannical leader who has tried to topple democracy and peace in our country.

• • 8. 'Declarations made by Hugo Chavez should be discredited immediately. He should, as President Obama said, allow Hondurans to solve this issue through open communication following LEGAL processes.

• • 9. 'It is NOT ONLY in the interest of Honduras and its citizens that democracy prevails (supported by the events today and Manuel Zelaya's arrest) but also in the interest of the UNITED STATES that no other countries align with Hugo Chavez (and his puppets) to build his empire against democracy and peace.

• • 10. 'In case Hugo Chavez tries to use military force in Honduras, we hope and pray we can count on the United States to stand along side Honduras in the fight against tyranny and oppression.'"

On that last note (#10), I'm, with deep regret, not holding my breath with Obama in charge-- and neither is Hugo Chavez (without the regret, of course).

And this last opinion piece "The Wages of Chavismo" The Wall Street Journal via BARCEPUNDIT.

From the piece: "As military 'coups' go, the one this weekend in Honduras was strangely, well, democratic. The military didn't oust President Manuel Zelaya on its own but instead followed an order of the Supreme Court. It also quickly turned power over to the president of the Honduran Congress, a man from the same party as Mr. Zelaya. The legislature and legal authorities all remain intact.

"We mention these not so small details because they are being overlooked as the world, including the U.S. President, denounces tiny Honduras in a way that it never has, say, Iran. President Obama is joining the U.N., Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez and other model democrats in demanding that Mr. Zelaya be allowed to return from exile and restored to power. Maybe it's time to sort the real from the phony Latin American democrats."

Don't let this situation get swept under the rug in a month as the jobless rate rises and Obama moves on to his next "crisis." For good or ill, remember what Obama says and does regarding this incident, and let's not forget his half-hearted and late condemnation of the Iranian crackdowns either.

To the Great Relief of Leftist Latin American Dictators

Check out this post by William A. Jacobson: Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion: Hands Off Honduras. Obama seems intent on punishing Honduras for having the audacity to throw out a burgeoning president-for-life. Maybe if Honduras was more openly anti-Israel, Obama would leave them be.

Obama seems to be doing his best to promote his brand of "progress" across the globe. I wonder who the president will be who'll have to apologize to Honduras for this junk. Obama, after all, never apologizes for his own exalted actions...

A Sane Take on the Hunduras Situation-- In "The New Republic" Even!

Check out this entry by Francisco Toro from The New Republic's "The Plank" section. He has some interesting arguments should they hold up under scrutiny. I am giving warning that I have not researched all of Toro's assertions, but the ones I am already familiar with hold up.

(H/T NewsBusters.org for first presenting this)