Jul 02 2009
Is the Honduras Coup a Test Case for Today’s Latin America?
The ousted president of Honduras Manuel Zelaya addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week demanding an immediate overturning of Sunday’s coup d’etat. In turn, the Organization of American States yesterday issued an ultimatum to the interim Honduran government headed by Roberto Micheletti to reverse the coup within 72 hours or be suspended from the regional group. Meanwhile, President Obama also toughened his position on the events of last Sunday. The Pentagon has announced its suspension of joint military operations in Honduras in response to the coup. This is significant given that the US’s only permanent military deployment in Central America is at an air base in Honduras. Zelaya’s opposition, having taken over the government, are adamant that their move was legal under the constitution. Since the Sunday coup, mainstream media have almost uniformly reported that it was Zelaya’s push to extend presidential term limits beyond the single term allowed, that provoked the coup. But in fact, the referendum on the day of the coup, last Sunday, simply asked voters whether on their November ballot they would like to see vote on convening a constitutional assembly to rewrite their constitution. Many see Zelaya’s ouster as a continuation of a history of military overthrows of democratic governments in Latin America, often backed by the US. As was mentioned by one of guests on Monday’s edition of Uprising people centrally involved in plotting Zelaya’s overthrow, were trained at the infamous US training camp, School of the Americas.
GUEST: Suyapa Portillo, Visiting Scholar at Pomona College’s History Department, member of the Los Angeles-based Coalition for Peace and Democracy in Honduras.
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One Response to “Is the Honduras Coup a Test Case for Today’s Latin America?”
Many countries in South America went to the single-term presidency to avoid dictatorship. Many see Zelaya’s ouster as avoidance of what has happened in countries like Venezuela where a communist dictatorship has been established after just such a referendum as was contemplated in Honduras. Zelaya’s ouster was legal, ordered by the court following the law of the country, and a member of his own party was installed. What is the problem? Why does Obama enjoy hanging around with dictators so much? Does he feel more at home seeing they way he is ramming through legislation without debate? We don’t need a dictatorship here or a third term with Acorn rigging the vote.