The White House’s New Favorite Pastime: Scolding Hondurans

There isn’t much going well for the Obama Administration right now, and that’s kept the White House from riding its favorite rhetorical metaphor: the high horse.  But when all other moral high grounds fail, they never get tired of flogging Hondurans.

This year, we’ve had North Korea launching missiles at our allies, shipping military supplies to our enemies, and renewing its nuclear weapons program; Iran hiding its own nuclear weapons program from the world; Russia strengthening its hold on territory in Georgia; Libya celebrating a terrorist’s homecoming; but the only nation whose actions warranted harsh punishment from the U.S. government was Honduras.

First. when Honduras acted to protect its constitutional system and remove a president unrepentant in his treason, the President called it a “coup,” and the State Department ordered the interim Honduran government to allow former President Zelaya to return and finish his term.

When Honduras refused the Administration’s edict, it struck back, withholding all non-humanitarian aid from Honduras ($32 million) in an effort to force a change in policy.  When the Honduran democrats refused to budge, the U.S. revoked the visas of all officials who participated in Zelaya’s removal and exile.  The grounds?  That Zelaya should be allowed to finish his term in office as the elected leader of Honduras.  Apparently Democrats believe that once you’re elected president, there’s nothing you can do that makes your ouster appropriate, but we already knew that.

Then, the White House threatened not to recognize the outcome of Honduras’ November presidential elections.  Mind you, these elections were planned long before Zelaya was removed from office.  In fact, it was these same elections that Zelaya was trying to hijack, by holding a referendum intended to allow him to run for president again.  But nevermind that – the Obama Administration apparently believes that all democratic activities in Honduras are tainted by Zelaya’s ouster — even though he couldn’t participate in them even if he had remained in office. State Department officials called this maneuver “putting [Honduras] in a box,” which may or may not be like putting Baby in the corner.

So, you might have thought the State Department was pleased by the news last week that Zelaya had sneaked back into the country and was hiding out in the Brazilian Embassy.  But no – that, too, was an occasion for tut-tutting in Foggy Bottom.  After initially calling for “restraint” from all sides, the U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States unloaded on Zelaya:

“The return of Zelaya [without] an agreement is irresponsible and foolish. He should cease and desist from making wild allegations and from acting as though he were starring in an old movie,” said Mr Amselem at an emergency meeting of the OAS.

“Having chosen, with outside help, to return on his own terms, President Zelaya and those who have facilitated his return, bear particular responsibility for the actions of his supporters,” he added.

Of course, in the spirit of indiscriminate disdain for Honduran government officials, the good Ambassador didn’t hesitate to take the interim government to task for refusing to allow his buddies in the OAS to intervene and for declaring a state of emergency in the country.

Once again, we are left wondering exactly what the Obama Administration wants out of Honduras and its leaders.  It tries to uphold its democracy by removing its treasonous president, and it loses economic aid.  It tries to defuse the situation by removing the ex-president from the country, and it’s called a coup.  Its leaders continue to operate as a democracy in the weeks and months since the president’s ouster, but their visas are voided by the United States.  It continues to plan for elections in November, but the U.S. refuses to recognize them.  The U.S. demands that the ex-president be allowed to serve out his term, but when he returns to the country, he’s called a fool.

We recognize no constitutions, no elections, no rule of law, no leaders worthy of respect.  Sounds like the White House is desperate to install a banana republic in Honduras.

But that can’t be right, because

[n]o one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold. The traditional divisions between nations of the South and the North make no sense in an interconnected world; nor do alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long-gone Cold War.

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And It’s On: Throwdown with Bobby Micheletti

So former Honduran President Zelaya found a way to get back into the country, then hunkered down in the Brazilian embassy for safekeeping.  I’m sure his remaining supporters are overwhelmed by this dramatic show of courage.

President Obama can’t be happy about this development.  His Administration has taken a manifestly undemocratic position toward the situation in Honduras, as this blog has previously explored.  Now, he’s gotten what half of what he said he wanted — Zelaya in the house, but not in power.  As he has in all other moments requiring true leadership (CIA investigations; stimulus bills; annual budgets; Afghanistan strategies), President Obama has largely allowed others to take the lead.

But this debate has largely occurred off stage.  Most Americans likely know nothing about the events in Honduras, and if they do, they have only heard the mainstream media’s uncritical recitation of the Obama line — it’s a military coup opposed by the United States.  But the return of Zelaya to Honduras cannot help but place a spotlight on the details, and it may spark a true debate in this country about what our policy should be toward the Micheletti government.  Why are we siding with Manuel Noriega, Hugo Chavez, and the Castro brothers?  Why is this supposed military regime headed by the nation’s top legislator, and supported by all branches of its elected government?  If the interim government fears democracy, why are they holding a new election this fall?  And as I asked in a previous post, what should Honduras have done when Zelaya tried to override his nation’s constitution through a lawless referendum?

I’ll tell you what — exactly what it did do.  In fact, Zelaya’s return provides an opportunity for the Micheletti government to correct its only error from its initial actions: to try Zelaya on charges of treason, which are specifically invoked by the Honduran constitution when a president attempts to extend his term of office.  We should all pray that the situation remains calm and nonviolent.  But I also hope that our President ends his impressively consistent track record of appeasement for dictators, aspiring and otherwise, and stands up for democracy and the rule of law in a nation that most might have assumed to be too poor to care.

In the meantime, I’ll be drinking Honduran coffee.  A lot of it.  You should, too.

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Okay, Mr. President – What Should Honduras Have Done?

Late last week, the State Department announced that it was making permanent its temporary freeze of foreign aid to Honduras.  It did so in quite striking terms:

Mr. P.J. CROWLEY (Spokesman, State Department): These are not temporary measures. We now have pressed the stop button. This aid is lost to Honduras for the time being. There’s going to be greater impact on those individuals who are part of the de facto regime and those individuals who support the de facto regime. It’s time for everyone to reassess where they are.

Of course, this is merely the next logical step in the Administration’s longstanding position on the Honduran government, after the military forcibly removed former President Zelaya from the country.  But what I have never heard out of Washington is what Honduras’ officials — whether they be the military, the attorney general, the courts, or the legislature — should have done in the face of Zelaya’s actions in the weeks and months leading up to his ouster.  With thanks to Miguel Estrada, here is a summary of those events:

• Earlier this year, with his term as President winding down, Zelaya ordered a referendum on whether a constitutional convention should be convened to draft a new constitution.  This convention was clearly intended to bypass the existing Honduran constitution’s limitations on amendments that would extend a president’s four-year term.
• In fact, the constitution states that any president that even proposes the possibility of reelection must “cease forthwith his duties” as president.
• Oh, and by the way — all referendums must be approved by two-thirds of the legislature.
• Instead, the legislature voted to declare Zelaya’s “illegal.”
• The attorney general filed suit and got a court order barring the referendum.
• Zelaya said his vote would still go on, as an “opinion survey.”
• The attorney general got the courts to strike this down, as well.
• Zelaya ignored the courts and ordered his military to proceed with the referendum.
• When his top general refused to comply with Zelaya’s order, Zelaya fired him.
• The Supreme Court of Honduras declared the firing illegal, reinstating the general.
• Zelaya got his ballots printed by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, but they were seized by customs officials upon entering the country.
• Zelaya organized a gang of thugs to seize the ballots from the customs warehouse.
• The attorney general obtained an order from the Supreme Court to arrest Zelaya for treason and other crimes.
• That order, which was enforced by the military per Honduras’ constitution regarding matters of succession, was enforced on June 28th, the day he intended to take his “survey.”  Zelaya was arrested and sent into exile in Costa Rica.
• The next official in the constitutional line of succession, the speaker of the legislature, was installed as temporary president, pending the outcome of a new election.

So, President Obama — where in there did the Honduran government go wrong?  Sure, it sounds ugly when military officers take an elected president out of his bed in his pajamas and put him on a plane to Costa Rica.  And as Estrada points out, the decision to exile Zelaya rather than try him in the nation’s courts was legally suspect, even if it was arguably more favorable to Zelaya.  But to call this a “coup,” when the nation’s constitution (and its courts) clearly state that Zelaya’s presidency was over when he began his crusade to extend his power, is irresponsible.

And this isn’t a minor issue restricted to former military dictatorships in Central America.  Even the United States has had its brushes with lawless executives.  Andrew Jackson threatened to ignore the Supreme Court and allow Georgia to continue to oppress the Cherokees.  Governors throughout the South thumbed their noses at the federal courts for years in support of segregation.  And of course, Richard Nixon did his darndest to “massacre” his own Justice Department as it investigated the Watergate burglars.  Each time, the nation faced a constitutional crisis — are we a nation of laws, or a nation of powerful men, throwing their weight around?  Each time, the nation’s leaders stepped back from the brink and avoided the essential breach of a democracy, whereby its leaders consider themselves greater than the nation and its charter.

To put it more bluntly, if we replaced the word “Honduras” with the words “United States” and “Zelaya” with the word “Bush” (to suit Democrat sensibilities) in each bullet above, would Obama want Honduras to call it a coup?

So, President Obama, what should Honduras have done with Zelaya?  Let his poll go forward, despite the lawful verdict of the courts?  Allow his armed thugs to overturn the lawful judgment of the customs officials?  Give Zelaya his new constitution, ignoring the well-founded fears of Honduras’ constitutional framers that such a provision would open the door for a strongman?

And are we truly cutting off aid to Honduras because they exiled, rather than tried, Zelaya?  Surely not — we give aid to North Korea, for Pete’s sake.  So is this a greater statement on the Administration’s views of the lawless executive — one that lines up fairly well with the State Department’s more hospitable tone toward Chavez, Ahmedinejad, and Castro?  After all, Zelaya was only following the time-honored advice of our President: “do what works.”

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