On Sunday, 28th June Manuel Zelaya, the president of Honduras, was woken at 5:30 in the morning when more than 200 soldiers, members of his own army, forced their way in the presidential residence. They came, he told Democracy Now!, “with hoods and bulletproof vests, and rifles, aimed their guns at me, fired shots, used machine guns, kicked down the doors and just as I was, in pyjamas, they put me on an plane and flew me to Costa Rica.”
Zelaya had been trying to hold a non binding public opinion poll on possible constitutional reform which his critics say could have him to increase his term limits. Because this poll did not conform to requirements of recent legislation, holding it was deemed illegal by the Honduran congress and the Supreme Court.
Zelaya decided to go ahead anyway, and ordered the army to provide logistical support for the poll. On 24th June, his armed forces chief of staff, Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, refuses to help Zelaya and steps down in protest. He does so among 33 officers, including the chiefs of the army, navy and air force, as well as the Secretary of Defence.
US diplomats shortly thereafter become aware that a coup may be in the offing. “As the crisis escalated,” reports the New York Times, “American officials began in the last few days to talk with Honduran government and military officials in an effort to head off a possible coup.”
Their efforts fail and the Honduran Supreme Court orders that Zelaya be taken from power. On Sunday, hours before the poll is scheduled to take place, he is deposed. That afternoon, Roberto Micheletti, head of congress and constitutionally next in line for the presidency, is installed as the new president. One of congress’s first moves is to accept a letter of resignation from Zelaya, which it emerges later, is signed 25th June, three days before the coup. Zelaya claims categorically that it is a fake.
Leaders from around the world join in condemning the coup. President Obama makes a public statement saying that the “coup” was “not legal.” He goes on to ad: “I think it would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls for the return to democratic norms. “The action… violates the precepts of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and thus should be condemned by all,” she says. “We call on all parties in Honduras to respect the constitutional order and the rule of law.” This statement, which falls short of explicitly demanding Zelaya’s return, will become the US policy on the issue.
The Honduran government immediately cracks down on independent media and initiates a night-time curfew. There are violent pro-Zelaya protests in front of the presidential residence, and on Monday, the next day, 2000 people gather to support Micheletti and the new regime in the central square in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital.
With unanimous international backing, Zelaya appears at the United Nations the following Tuesday. The General Assembly, along with the Organisation of American States (OAS) join in recognising him as the legitimate leader of Honduras.
On Wednesday, the OAS issues an ultimatum to the coup government, saying that if they don’t step down by the following Saturday, the OAS will revoke their membership in the powerful organization. Zelaya, who had originally promised to go back to Honduras Thursday, agrees to put of his return until the ultimatum expires.
The coup leaders are implacable, and refuse to step down, claiming that Zelaya broke the law and that he will be arrested if he returns. On Saturday, facing total inaction from the coup government, the OAS acts on its promise and votes 33 to 0, that the small country’s membership be revoked. It’s the first time this has happened since Cuba was kicked out in 1962 for allying itself with the Soviet Union.
And then on Sunday, 5 July Zelaya attempts to return.
Boarding a Venezuelan plane along with the General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, he flies for Tegucigalpa calling for his supporters to gather at the airport in “without arms.” Anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000 people arrive. In live broadcast from the plane, Zelaya tells Venezuelan Telesur news channel “The blood of Christ is coursing through my veins… Soon I will be with you all to raise the crucifix.”
Rebuffed by the coup government placing army trucks and personnel across the runway, the plane is unable to land. The protests turn violent, with police and army using tear gas and rubber bullets to drive Zelaya supporters away. At least one person is killed. The crowds chant “We want blue helmets!” meaning UN peacekeepers. “I’m doing everything I can,” Zelaya says. “If I had a parachute I would immediately jump out of this plane.” The plane is forced to land in El Salvador.
The following Tuesday, 7 July, Costa Rican president Oscar Arias agrees to mediate talks between the two sides. A Nobel laureate since 1987 for his role ending Central American civil wars, Hillary Clinton says Arias is “the natural person to assume this role.”
The talks hinge on one issue, whether Zelaya will return. Before the talks both leaders issues statement saying that they are inflexible on the issue. On Thursday 9 July, they arrive at Arias’s Costa Rica home. Without ever meeting, they both have individual talks with Arias and leave Friday’s negotiation to their respective delegations. Micheletti says he is “totally satisfied.”
After the talks, Zelaya calls for “the re-establishment of the state of law, democracy and the return of the president elected by the Honduran people.” For his part, Micheletti says “We are in agreement with his [Zelaya's] return here – but to be sent directly to the courts.”
At time of writing, the second day of talks is still underway.
US Role
These are the facts, but they leave many questions to be answered. First might be the US role in the events in what is traditionally called its backyard. A mark of the new administration, the State Department has taken behind the scenes role, leaving the public diplomacy to regional players like Arias and José Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the OAS. But what, if any, are the American interests in the situation?
As the New York Times reported, American diplomats were aware that a coup was being planned, and throughout the situation, the US could have applied more pressure to de facto regime. Despite Obama’s statement, the administration has consistently stopped short of an official, legal recognition that what took place was a coup. While US aid has been put on hold for the time being, recognising the coup would mandate the state department to withdraw aid for the country completely, a move they are apparently reluctant to join the World Bank in making.
More than two thirds of Honduras’s US$3.5b budget is reliant on foreign aid, with some US$68.2m to Honduras in 2010, slated to come from the US in 2010 as well as US$43.2m this year. The US is also Honduras’s largest trading partner, and notably absent from public discussion is talk of trading sanctions. The US is also the only country in the region that hasn’t withdrawn its ambassador.
On the other hand, US embassy in Tegucigalpa reports that US$16.5m in military aid had already been suspended, and the coup administration faces the possible loss of another US$180m in the upcoming year.
The Coup’s Story
The de facto Honduran government has maintained throughout the events that Zelaya is a criminal, and he himself has never made it clear what his planned changes to the constitution were to be. Was he trying to extend his term limits, and if so, was it a coup?
The Honduran constitution essentially makes felony to try to create a new constitution. It is legal to modify about 90% of the constitution, but for several key points including term limits. In order to change the constitution, which is legal, you must collect at least 24,000 requests, or have the support of the congress. At the time of the coup, Zelaya claimed he had about 40,000 requests, more than enough to initiate a process of constitutional change.
The poll question only asks whether citizens agree to holding a “constituent assembly” on changing the constitution, and mentions nothing of term limits. This means that the legality of the poll is essentially improvable, unless you could show categorically what Zelaya intended to do.
Not often mentioned in debates of these issues, is that at the time of the coup, Zelaya had an approval rating of only 30%, which had fallen from a high of 57% in January 2007. So even if Zelaya had secured a place in the running, he would have likely lost. If the coup leaders were really only trying to stop him from being re-elected, why not just wait until he was voted from office in November. And if his constitutional initiative had really been as unpopular as the coup claims, why not let it fail?
Zelaya’s Story
Zelaya argues Honduran elites were angered by his populist policies. A landed logging tycoon, Zelaya was elected in 2006 on a centre right platform, and if he’d stuck to it, he’d likely still be in power today. But over the last few years, he’d drifter internationally and domestically to the left.
He joined the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, and Petrocaribe, both regional trade blocks initiated by Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez to foment regional autonomy from US interests. Throughout the last few week, Chávez has been doing everything he can to help the deposed leader. “This is a coup against Venezuela!” he said immediately afterwards and even make threats of armed action.
Domestically, Zelaya had started a free lunch school and computer lab program in schools, lowered the cost of public transportation and nearly doubled minimum wage. He says these are the real reasons for the coup. “Honduras is controlled by a group of 10 families that control the entire economy,” he told Democracy Now! hosts Amy Goodman. “It would be difficult for us, with our training, to have a relationship with a leftist government,” Honduran army attorney Col. Herberth Bayardo Inestroza said after the coup. “That’s impossible.” More public members of the coup government have not directly answered Zelaya’s accusations, preferring to maintain their argument that he is a criminal.
Possible Resolutions
The first two days of talks appear unlikely to yield a resolution. “It’s possible that this is going to take more time than we could have imagined,’’ Arias said. “It is difficult to talk about a successful negotiation if President Manuel Zelaya is not reinstated.”
State Department officials have floated several possible outcomes. They include some kind of power sharing arrangement between Zelaya and Micheletti, and Zelaya returning to serve the rest of his term, but with limits on his power. Regardless, they all include some form of Zelaya returning.
A group of almost 40 American intellectuals including Noam Chomsky have written and co-signed a letter to Hillary Clinton calling for Zelaya’s immediate reinstatement. “Anything less than the urgent restoration of President Manuel Zelaya to office would be an usurpation of the will of the Honduran people,” the letter reads.
It calls against early elections, saying they would, “currently would take place under a coup regime that has suspended civil liberties, and where the conditions for free elections do not exist.”
“There is one legal, just, and democratic solution to Honduras’ current crisis,” the letter reads, “the swift restoration of President Zelaya and the imposition of economic sanctions-trade as well as aid, on the illegal regime.” But with the State Department sitting back, talks going nowhere and the Honduran government unwilling to budge, what may happen is unclear.
So Zelaya comes back and retakes his place as a democratically elected president (as were Hitler and Chávez). Then what happens? Will he be able to rule the country in a correct, peaceful way – considering the fraction between the three Honduran powers? What happens afterwards?