Op-Ed: Was Honduran President Manuel Zelaya's Overthrow Legal?

According to news reports, Honduran President Zelaya was ousted from office by orders of the Supreme Court, AG and Congress, after he repeatedly engaged in violations of Honduras' Constitution. Are Obama, the EU and the UN wrong in condemning Honduras?

According to the best news accounts available, here is how it all played out in Honduras. The Wall Street Journal also has a most informative oped, "Honduras Defends its Democracy." Now, back to June 25th. President Manuel Zelaya, nearing the end of his Constitutionally-limited term in Honduras (known as the 22nd Amendment in ours), set forth to hold a ballot referendum on extending his time in office, much as Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela. In fact, those illegal ballots came from Venezuela. That proposed action on Zelaya's part was ruled both illegal and unconstitutional by the Honduran Congress, their Supreme Court and their Attorney General, and was denounced by Zelaya's own party. Yet despite all those legal blockades, on June 25th President Zelaya ordered the military, in the person of armed forces commander Gen. Romeo Vasquez, to distribute the illegal ballots throughout the country. Vasquez refused. Zelaya fired him. The Honduran Supreme Court ruled 5-0 that Vasquez' firing was illegal, and ordered him reinstated. Zelaya refused to reinstate Gen. Vasquez and continued unabated with his plan to hold the illegal ballot referendum, in violation of Constitutional law and orders by the Congress and Supreme Court to cease and desist. At that point, the Honduran government had had enough of Zelaya and sent him packing. The president of the Honduran Congress, Roberto Micheletti, a member of President Zelaya's own Liberal Party, then succeeded Zelaya in the order of succession laid out in Honduras' Constitution. Here is General Vasquez' recollection of events:

The Honduran general whose refusal to help carry out a plebiscite set the stage for the president's ouster here says he did not seek to stage a coup — he was trying to defend his country's constitution.

''I feel bad about what happened,'' said Gen. Romeo Vásquez. "I tried very hard to counsel the president to find a legal way out of this. There was no way."

"Nobody is above the law."

To put this all in an American perspective, swap out Honduras for the United States, and insert President Bush's name in place of President Zelaya's in all the above paragraphs. The world has witnessed these kind of extra-Constitutional power grabs by everyone from Adolf Hitler to Ferdinand Marcos to Hugo Chavez. The law of the land in Honduras was followed to the letter by everyone but Zelaya. Yet why is the world making no issue of this? Why is President Obama standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Raul and Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega and Hugo Chavez in 'defense of democracy'? Why doesn't the world recognize the Honduran government's authority to act in the face of a President who was violating the Honduras Constitution in both letter and spirit? Predictably, Zelaya, long a favorite of the far Left and political prodigy of that democratic stalwart, Venezuelan President-For-Life Hugo Chavez, is being beatified in the mainstream press as a victim of a coup by a ruthless military junta in Honduras. Their cameras in Tegucigalpa are focused on the handfuls of Marxist demonstrators for Zelaya, but ignoring the tens of thousands of Hondurans who now fill the streets of Tegucigalpa in support of their government and its actions against Zelaya. Gateway Pundit has the whole roundup, complete with startling coverage and photos of swarming, banner-waving crowds that for some strange reason you just won't see in the mainstream press. Yet how rare is it for a military ouster of any democratic leadership in any country to enjoy the full support of the people, its Congress, its Supreme Court and Attorney General? Compare that to post-coup repressions in Myanmar or Thailand. It is also noteworthy that the Honduran crowds are lashing out at both Obama and CNN. The great irony here is that the United States has spent over a century meddling in the affairs of Hondurans. Yet now, when an independent Honduran government and people oust a power-hungry president violating Honduran Constitutional law, it's time to meddle again? Cut off all aid to and ostracize Honduras, and not even condemn Chavez' threats to invade a sovereign country? Is that what we've come to as a nation? It was bad enough President Obama stood by and twiddled his thumbs for a week in mid-June as Iran's newly appointed Shah, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, pulled a coup of his own, and spilled the blood of innocent Iranians outraged at one of the most flagrantly fraudulent elections in human history. That he appears to be ready to spill Honduran blood, right alongside Chavez, Ortega and Castro, in order to reinstate a disgraced president and would-be dictator is obscene beyond measure. I do not stand with the President, The EU, and the UN in this matter, especially not banana republic dictators like Chavez and Ortega, whose own corners of Central and South America are human rights hellholes. Wouldn't be caught dead doing it. I will, however, stand firmly with Honduras' acting president Roberto Micheletti, and his own harsh words for the apparent willfully ignorant world outside Honduras:

Zelaya "has already committed crimes against the constitution and the law," said Micheletti, who belongs to Zelaya's Liberal Party and was named interim leader by Congress following the coup.

"He can no longer return to the presidency of the republic unless a president from another Latin American country comes and imposes him using guns."

"No one can make me resign if I do not violate the laws of the country," Micheletti said. "If there is any invasion against our country, 7.5 million Hondurans will be ready to defend our territory and our laws and our homeland and our government."

Ask yourself. Are those the words of a democratic Congressional leader under the iron boot of a military dictatorship? Are the tens of thousands of Hondurans in banner-waving crowds, telling Obama they have a dream too, the typical response of a people being stripped of their democracy and crushed underfoot? When you can answer those questions, maybe you'll find the truth, which is not always a matter of world consensus. Short-sighted world leaders have been wrong about a great many things in the past. If only the President et al would direct those kind of harsh words and actions at truly fascist regimes like Iran, whom they still consider a worthy diplomatic partner vis-a-vis their nuke program, and not at a democratic republic that exercised its Constitutional obligations to the letter, and threatens no one but aspiring tinpot President For Life-seeking Lefty buffoons like Zeyala and Chavez. In closing, I would recommend the President set aside that book Chavez gave him and try reading John F. Kennedy's Profiles In Courage. Some presidents are more intelligent than others in such matters. One commenter summed it up very nicely as follows. "NOTE TO PRESIDENT: if you find yourself aligned with Ortega, Chavez, and the Castro brothers on an issue, you should re-think your position." What he said.