It's still not the same situation as Honduras. Everything you disagree with isn't necessarily related.

Extraordinary rendition is basically transferring a suspect from the authority of one government to another. It's certainly ugly business, but I could see where it might be expedient to do so. It appears that it's not really the transfer that's illegal, it's using the evidence obtained in the interrogation in court later. But that discussion could have its own thread.

The facts remain that what Zelaya did was not comparable to anything that's happened in America. It's a separate set of circumstances which include the president ignoring the Supreme Court and Congress. Bush never did that. The most you could say is that Congress and the Supreme Court hadn't acted to stop extraordinary rendition and the more hazy bits of the Patriot Act in any material way. If Bush acted beyond his powers, it was through Congress and the Supreme Court NOT exercising their authority, rather than Bush openly defying them. The devil's in the details.


Zelaya acted unconstitutionally when he tried to have a referendum on presidential reelection, and he acted criminally when he ignored Congress and the courts and tried to hold it anyway. For that he was removed.

You're right. It's not the same situation. Zelaya's alleged transgression (expressing a desire to amend the constitution) is extremely tame, and incomparable to some of the heinous legal and constitutional crimes committed by a number of our presidents.

Tell me: what would it take for a military coup to be justified in the United States?

There's no talking to you. I never thought I'd run across intransigent people on the INTERNET, of all places!

Well, it is a debate. But seriously the fact is that Zelaya was going to vote!!!! for a referendum but was dragged out of his own country in his pajamas. And I just came back from Honduras. There were soldiers on many of the main streets.
I could not even go to the store without being stopped by one of them. I also saw a few soldiers pointing their rifles at people who were protesting in their face. I don't know about you guys but to me and a lot of other people it is downright repression of the people's voice. So I definitely hope that this ends soon or else the UN Security Council or even Nato might intervene just like in 1994 with the Serbs.

" The majority of the people of Honduras supports what happened, which seems like the more important figure. "

You have no base to that claim. I live in Latin America, and I can tell you that every single person I've talked about this with is profoundly concerned, from left to right.

And, again, the military can't take the President out, there is (or there should be) a due process to remove a President, and I hope the military takes no part of it, unless when the men has already been effectively withdrawn from his charge, but won't leave.

The military took it upon themselves to decide that what he did was not only wrong, but warranted him losing his position and being exiled in his pijamas.

When the military is allowed, and even encouraged, by people in political positions, to act this way, the next step is the military taking upon themselves to choose wich way the country should go, wich moral should rule us all, and how that moral and views should be enforced.

My country has had 30.000 deaths the last time the military was asked to intervene in such a way.

Honduras' toll so far is much smaller, but things are just starting there.

You have a point about the majority thing. But God, 30,000 during a military intervention.

It lasted 8 years.

The only way this issue can be properly understood is when viewed in the historical-political context of both Hondouras and the greater region in the last several decades.

What all of you have sort of circled around is the issue of what exactly the constitution says. When Zelaya was trying to change the constitition to allow for more Presidential terms, Invictus is right in underlining the fact that it was very against the law. In fact, merely publicly declaring ones support for such changes is in fact tantamount to treason according to Hondouras' constitional law.

Now, you are all thinking, what? This is nuts. I can get sent to jail for talking about changing the constitution?

The fact is, no. But before you can understand this crazy constitution, you need to go back twenty-thirty years.



As some of you are undoubtedly aware, Hondouras, like many of its neighbours, has a history of military coups and repressive governments. During much of the twentieth century, the military was the strongest actor in political affairs. I don't think I need to tell you the negative consequences of such a role.

At the end of the 1970s things began to straighten out and in 1980 a new constitution was written by a constituent assembly to ensure future Democracy. One of its biggest goals? To end military influence (and foreign influence too) in politics.

To that end, the constitution expressly forbid multiple terms to prevent the military from putting puppet leaders in. A number of other extremely harsh measures were also enacted, and for the most part they worked.

Fast-forward a while. Despite strict instructions the contrary, the constitution HAS been altered multiple times already to reflect the changing face of the Hondouran situation.

No-one today takes seriously charges that talking about changing the constitution democratically amounts to treason.

In fact, a large portion of the politcal class as well as a large portion of the population in fact supported the initiative to allow for chagning rules surrounding elections (including multiple terms among other changes). The spectre of the military was seen as greatly reduced.



So why did Zelayas attempt spark this crazy response?

It all is tied to two factors- special interest groups and the politics of the man himself.

On the political spectrum Zelaya is a bit of an enigma. Its hard to place him and his policies anywhere squarely.

But what is for certain is that he is a divisive figure; both with his populist aura and his 'attachments' to Chavez.

The reason for the upset feelings and the reason for the military being allowed carte blanche in the arrest is that the main political classes in H see Zelaya as a threat to thier traditional hold power.

The real irony is that the constitution drafted to prevent coups is now being used to support one.

The way I've understood it, their constitution doesn't permit him specifically to propose extending term limits. It doesn't mean it can't be done, it just doesn't allow the person who would benefit from pushing it through. This seems like an entirely sensible precaution to me. He took the office presumably aware of the rules that were in force, then he violated those rules. Case closed.

NPRZ: You forget about things like due process, wich are usually available for any citizen, but should be much tougher regarding a President.

Let's assume that you shoplifted a Nintendo Wii yesterday. Someone caught it on tape.

Now, instead of taking it to the police for an investigation, or to a judge (who should ALWAYS be the one to put out an arrest order), the shop owner calls a friend in the military, and the military promptly takes you out of your home and exiles you to Mexico.

You are definitively a shoplifter, no doubt. But wouldn't you say that somewhere along the line, your rights have been trampled?

@Xapi

Good point about due process. Everyone just seems to be shrugging it off with 'oh, well, thats how things happen in Latin America after all..."

There was a rather good article in a conservative newspaper here in Argentina, wich explained that Micheleti and his allies had all in their favor to solve this political crisis (wich is obviously prior to the actual coup), but in today's Democracy, when you make the first move out of the democratic rules, you loose.

Actually, the due process example isn't very good. If you are caught shoplifting you're arrested by the police right away. A judge doesn't issue an arrest warrant in that case, he just charges you at the arraignment. Do you really think police have to get an arrest warrant from a judge to be able to cart off a guy they just caught shoplifting? If you're from Latin America you probably aren't in a common law jurisdiction, but I doubt countries using civil law have to make use of such a loony rigmarole.

Also, shoplifting isn't comparable to the crime Zelaya undoubtedly committed. What he did was ignore a court order and break a law legitimately passed by Congress, quite a different thing from larceny.

The Supreme Court ruled that he had broken the law and lost the powers of his office pursuant the anti-reelection clause in the Constitution to and therefore ordered the military to arrest him. It could very well be that he military WOULD be the legitimate organization to arrest Zelaya because Zelaya's crime pertained to elections and apparently the military runs elections in Honduras. That's simply speculation, of course.

What they did wrong was send him out of the country instead of incarcerating him prior to a trial. If they had done that there probably wouldn't be any ambiguity about who's right and who's wrong.

"The Supreme Court ruled that he had broken the law and lost the powers of his office pursuant the anti-reelection clause in the Constitution to and therefore ordered the military to arrest him."

This is simply not true, and even if it were, they didn't have the right to have him arrested.

To further explain:

The Supreme Court did establish that the referendum was illegal, but they didn't send out an order for his arrest.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/world/americas/02coup.html?_r=1

"The detention order, signed June 26 by a Supreme Court judge, ordered the armed forces to detain the president, identified by his full name, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, at his home in the Tres Caminos area of Tegucigalpa, the capital. It accused him of treason and abuse of authority, among other charges."

bump

I think that deserves a response.