While I don't understand why President Obama is so enamored with a would-be-dictator, the law that the ex-President of Honduras broke is pretty bizarre.
According to Half Sigma, the English translation is:
Article 239 — No citizen that has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President.I have never heard of a law that makes itself immune to efforts to change it... hard, yes, but never impossible. Not exactly a sign of a healthy democracy.
Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform, as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years.
19 comments:
Are you honestly saying you don't understand why the Obama admisitration and other governments around the world have condemned the military over-throwing a democratically elected president?
As for Obama being "enamoured", the US remains one of the few, if not the only, country in the Americas that hasn't withdrawn its ambassador. I've read that some Republicans in congress have been upset about trying to restore Zelaya to government, since he's an ally of Venezuela's Chavez, but even the right-wing government of Colombia's Uribe -which almost went to war with Venezuela last year- has withdrawn its ambassador, because it's an issue of maintaining democracy against a military coup.
I'm not exactly sure what the political situation in Honduras was in 1982, when the constitution was written, with this bizarre clause banning any political figure from attempting to amend the law, but it was only a year after he formal end of the military dictatorship, the military was still operating a death squad to kill its opponents, and the military maintained close ties with military dictatorships such as Argentina and Chile, so the country certainly wasn't a healthy democracy at that time.
If the Honduran constitution is trash to begin with, wouldn't that make the recently deposed President fairly illegitimate to begin with?
And if it's not trash, then would there be a problem if a non-military group was enforcing the law?
I am sympathetic to the argument that the "no modifications" is undemocratic and therefore shouldn't be enforced, but I haven't heard anyone condemning the coup make that claim.
A military coup is a blow to cripple or kill democracy. The decisions of the population, represented through the nation's legal structures, are cast aside by those who control the nation's armed forces and can threaten to unleash its violence upon their opponents.
It makes all the difference in the world whether Zelaya's political opponents worked within the democratic structure of the country -have the attorney general charge him, have the senate declare him unfit for office, wait four months and simply defeat him in the next scheduled election- or whether they rolled tanks through the streets. The first is democratic, and the second isn't.
(My comments on the constitution were simply meant to confirm your comment that the strange clauses indicated the country was in poor shape when it was written and to point out that the Honduran military has a history of preventing democracy. The weird clauses aren't an indication of the health of the democracy immediately prior to the coup. The US constitution has provisions on counting slaves when calculating the number of congressmen. In Britain, the House of Lords has to pass legislation and still contains a few hereditary lords and representatives from the Church of England. That's not a reflection on the current health of these democracies.)
I presume then that you don't believe the claims that the Honduran Supreme Court ordered Zelaya's arrest, or that the new President is not a military puppet?
I don't know either way, but I haven't read anything yet that makes it clear this a coup in the traditional sense of the word.
No one is claiming that the supreme court heard a case and issued a ruling that Zelaya should be removed from office. Imagine the US army had kidnapped Nixon and exiled him to Switzerland, rather than wait for months of media scandal and the beginning of impeachment. It would have demonstrated that power rests in the hands of the armed forces, not the democratic, political branches of government.
Well, the New York Times and Bloomberg are certainly reporting claims that the military acted under court authority, and other news outlets are reporting that as if it were fact.
The New York Times also says Zelaya's reinstatement is heavily opposed by the Honduran Congress.
The clause is meant to prevent dictators for life. It's not bizarre - it's understandable. I agree with Raven that making it just really, really, difficult to change might make more sense, but I don't think that makes it bizarre.
On the strangeness of the law: Term limits are a good idea and make a lot of sense. It's a law which bans anyone for attempting to modify those limits which is strange.
On the supreme courts orders: I said that no one claimed the supreme court had held a hearing or issued a ruling. The NY Times reports an order signed by "a" judge. Boston.com reports an order by "the supreme court". Bloomberg reports that, 3 days after soldiers were in the street, an order signed by all the supreme court judges was made public. Bloomberg also said that this followed an investigation "supervised" by the supreme court, that the order was for an arrest, and that there was no trial. Thus, none of these sources report claims that the supreme court held a hearing, or even conducted an investigation itself, or that it issued a ruling, which would follow after a trial. As one of the experts quoted in the Bloomberg article said "'No country on earth' can legally force an elected official into exile without a formal proceeding". Yes, Zelaya, was breaking the law, trying to extend his rule, and may have been unpopular. Yes, members of the supreme court and Zelaya's political opponents in the senate were complicit in removing him, but that doesn't stop it from being a coup.
The new government shuts down the media, imposes a curfew enforced by the army during which parts of the constitution are suspended, and you're still not sure if it really is a coup?
@Pieter, Do you mean 'strange' as in 'bad', then?
According to this article
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0702/p09s03-coop.html
it was not a coup d'etat.
"The Supreme Court and the attorney general ordered Zelaya's arrest for disobeying several court orders compelling him to obey the Constitution."
"He was detained and taken to Costa Rica. [...] This decision was taken by the 123 (of the 128) members of Congress present that day."
Finally,
"The Honduran military acted entirely within the bounds of the Constitution."
@Tony: This website says that the Chilean supreme court approved Pinochet's coup in 1973 a couple days after it happened too.
What happened in Honduras last week was a coup. The president was exiled before the parliament voted on removing him and before charges against him were publicly released. There's soldiers in the street. The media has been shut down. The constitution has been suspended.
The link at the beginning of my post and the one in yours merely demonstrate that there's usually a pretext for a coup and always apologists.
Here is a news report from the CBC:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/07/03/honduras-coup-oas070309.html
"Zelaya was expelled from the Latin American country by the military last Sunday just hours before a rogue referendum on constitutional reform he had called, defying the courts and the country's national congress."
Am I misreading something, or did this happened *after* he had defied the courts, not before?
In response to your final point, there is usually a pretext for an elected official becoming a dictator, and always apologists.
No country on earth' can legally force an elected official into exile without a formal proceeding
According to who? Is this a UN "law"?
Beyond that, does the Honduran constitution make any provision for how impeachments are handled? A secret trial is certainly bad news, but it's formal...
It looks to me like one group of losers vs another group of losers. And I'm not convinced I prefer democratically elected losers to the other kind, which is what prompted me to question Obama's support for one side.
The "no take backs" clause in the law that establishes term limits is really offensive to me. Laws are supposed to reflect the wishes of the living, not the dead.
I suppose the "safe" way to go about changing a clause like that (assuming there isn't a military standing ready to coup your ass...) would be to amend the constitution to replace the position of president with something else. Then the presidential term limits just become obsolete.
@Anthony (I figured, if you're signing Anthony on the board, it might be polite to use that name, even if I have hard time adjusting in my mind.): The court never issued a ruling saying Zelaya should be removed from office. They had plenty of opportunities to do so: first, when they ruled against the referendum (which seems to have then been changed to a non-binding plebiscite) and again when they reinstated the general Vasquez (which Zelaya accepted). If they had issued such a ruling, it would be a very different situation.
Perhaps you're right and Zelaya had aims to become a dictator, but there's no evidence to suggest that he wouldn't have done the same as Chavez: hold a referendum to remove term limits, unhappily accept that he lost the referendum, and then, like the BQ, try to keep asking the question the same question vainly hoping he'd get the answer he wanted. Since his term limits run out in 4 months, there's not much at risk. On the other hand, its clear that the military and its backers support a coup, since they already have done so.
The Honduran congress did not vote to recognise a new government knowing that Zelaya had been removed; they voted to accept what they were told was a resignation letter from him. The difference is crucial. You can search google for "Congreso acepta renuncia de Mel Zelaya", but you have to check the version from google cache because the link (fourth on google.co.uk) in the Honduran newspapers now points to a different story.
also, your link is broken, becaue there's a "p" in coup.
@Raven: I thought it was very clever of you to suggest changing title to avoid term limits, until I realised you were stealing someone else's idea.
Raven, is there a comments feed for the blog (not just for a particular post)?
@Pieter, I am not familiar with Honduran law, so it's not clear to me that what you are saying is the proper process, is the proper process according to Honduran law. (I.e., that the court can or must issue a ruling saying the President be removed from office, if he is in clear violation of a Constitutional provision which says he must therefore be removed from office.) If you can show that the military acted improperly according to Honduran law, I would be more inclined to accept your characterization of the situation as a military 'coup'.
Indeed: Site Comment Feed
I have added a sidebar link as well. Thanks for the suggestion.
Thx.
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