Honduran Coup... Thoughts?
 

So... On Sunday, the Honduran military ran in to the presidential palace in Honduras and took the president, Mel Zelaya, away to Costa Rica. Ambassadors from Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua were also taken away, to their respective countries. Some of his political allies, and members of a Revolutionary (see: Socialist/Communist/Chavist) third party were also taken away. The Congress met to appoint its head, the person next in line Roberto Micheletti, to the presidency, and affirm the constitutionality of the coup, and the Supreme Court stated that it ordered the coup.

In the last two days demonstrations in favor and protests against the coup have both occurred (my mother, who lives there now, called me recently from a pro-government demonstration, Ecuador has removed its ambassador, and Venezuela and Nicaragua have threatened invasion.

At heart of the coup was the fact that the president was 1) perceived to be pro-Chavez, and 2) trying to create a referendum on the question of a new constitution, along the lines of what happened in Ecuador, despite the Honduran Supreme Court and Congress condemning the action as illegal, as it was believed by them that the referendum would include lifting the term limits on the office of president, which in the Honduran constitution is strictly fobidden*. The referendum was slated for Sunday, the day the president was ousted.

Wiki has a decent article.

That said, thoughts?

*The constitution goes so far as to penalize the suggestion of an extension of term limits with loss of citizenship and loss of public office, though it doesn't have provisions for an impeachment process.

From what I'm hearing (cell phone calls from the region on the radio) the coup was mostly peaceful and the old pres was in the process of turning a democracy into dictatorship by essentially nullifying their presidential term limits.

Not sure what the views of the new pres are, or if I should be happy or sad about this yet. But, it doesn't seem so much like the destruction of their government as it does them upholding their government.

While I can't comment on the specifics of the situation, the methodology and the general situation leads me to siding with those that enacted the Coup.

Regardless of what his intentions with the changes were, the presidents actions were dangerously close to creating totalitarianism. And the rest of his Government responded accordingly, and most importantly in a relatively peaceful manner.

I'm glad that so far at least, nobody was hurt.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...treet-violence Most of the world is lining up against the coup which surprises me as the ousted president was buddies with Chavez and Castro who don't have a lot of friends around.
And I mean he was having a referendum on term limits, not like he was forcing them to change. Doesn't seem like a super dictator to me if he's doing it by voting. According to the article I linked he had poor popular support so would probably lose that vote anyway.

There's to sides to it as one group is saying he was doing it to allow for him to be re-elected and another group is saying it had to do with Taxes exemptions for foriegn companies.

Considering he was going to hold a non-binding public referendum I'm not sure what to think of the situation cause it seems confusing that he was trying to seemingly go through normal procedures involving the will of the people it seems odd.

Wait the referendum was non-binding?

So basically he was taking a giant opinion poll that then the government could discuss.....

Hardly the act of a dictator. I've been through a through non-binding referendums before (like when our home country changed its political system) and they simply provided a platform for discussion- let the government know what people think and talk through all the options. Eventually they can come back with binding referenda if necessary. This seems like a good thing for democracy to me.

This is what I got from trying to find out about it apparently the draft of the referendum was to ask voters whether they wanted to vote for the convening of a constituent assembly which would be granted authority to rewrite the constitution of Honduras later this year. So it seems weird that it caused such a uproar as it could have been defeated easily with enough opposition by the people.

And it's not even binding so you don't even need to defeat it...

I know, it calls for an assembly to be called that are given the powers to re-write it but they also have to agree and vote on changes if its actually run correctly which means unless he can somehow stuff the assembly with everyone who wants to change it to his way, which from the sounds of his party didn't seem likely, he would have lost in the end regardless. We could be wrong about the whole situation but it does make sense considering how many people are denouncing the coup.

Seriously this talk of "he's gonna remove term limits we gotta stop him" is thin bullshit. It's obvious to anyone that this is right wingers taking any excuse to violently depose a lefty.

I will be totally unsurprised to learn: That the CIA had a hand in this.