Honduras Defies U.S. Requests: "Israel And Taiwan Have Said They Support Us, And I Have Faith That Other Governments Will Follow"

Rueters reports that "the Honduran administration has so far rebuffed any attempts to bring back" President Manuel Zelaya. Interim leader Roberto Micheletti argued the ouster of Zelaya was legal as it was ordered by the Supreme Court to stop Zelaya from trying to extend the presidential four-year term-limit. They say Zelaya was himself acting illegally. One of several clauses that cannot be legally altered in the Honduran constitution limits presidents to a single, 4-year term, and the Congress of Honduras said Zelaya, whose term ends in January, modified a ballot question at the last minute to help him eventually try to seek re-election. Zelaya's popularity dipped to around 30 percent in polls recently as he was pushing for the illegal referendum that the Honduran Supreme Court said violated the country's constitution. Chavez, whom Zelaya strongly supports, has used referendums in Venezuela to win the right to run repeatedly. Micheletti was named by the Honduran Congress to replace Zelaya, not by the military, and Micheletti is from the same political party as Zelaya. He was the head of the Congress of Honduras. He said that Zelaya could be met with an arrest warrant if he returned and warned that the only way his predecessor will return to office is through a foreign invasion. He told the Associated Press that “no one can make me resign,” stating that removal of Zelaya was not a coup but a "constitutional succession." He has pledged to go ahead with the presidential election scheduled for the end of November and has even told reporters he would be "in total agreement" with bringing forward the November 29 presidential election "if it would be a way of resolving these problems."

"Israel and Taiwan have said they support us, and I have faith that other governments will follow," Michelletti has also said. Israel and Taiwan are so far the only two countries in the world to express support for the current government of Honduras.

The Supreme Court of Honduras is also defending its decision. Supreme Court Justice Rosalinda Cruz said in an interview that “[t]he only thing the armed forces did was carry out an arrest order. There’s no doubt he was preparing his own coup by conspiring to shut down the congress and courts.” She said that “some say it was not Zelaya, but Chavez governing.” The arrest order she cited was approved unanimously by the court’s 15 justices. I strongly recommend the Christian Science Monitor article below explaining the legal background, written by a lawyer who is a former presidential adviser (2002-05) and minister of culture (2005-06) of the Republic of Honduras.

The New York Times reports that the chief lawyer for the armed forces held up a detention order signed by a Supreme Court judge and insisted that what soldiers carried out over the weekend when they detained President Manuel Zelaya was no coup d’état. “A coup is a political move,” the lawyer, Col. Herberth Bayardo Inestroza Membreño, said Tuesday night in an interview. “It requires the armed forces to assume power over the country, which didn’t happen, and it has to break the rule of law, which didn’t happen either.”

The L.A. Times reports that while "Zelaya addressed a supportive United Nations audience in New York, Hondurans in Tegucigalpa were demonstrating against and, in smaller numbers, in favor of the deposed leftist leader. In Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, several thousand opponents of Zelaya filled a downtown square waving blue-and-white Honduran flags and denouncing Zelaya's ties to Latin American leftists, including Venezuela's Hugo Chavez... 'It wasn't a coup!' the crowd chanted. 'Democracy, yes! Communism, no!'" Apparently the United Nations disagreed as the a unanimous vote Tuesday by the U.N. General Assembly condemned Honduras. This would be far from the first time the United Nations was wrong.

"They have only listened to (Zelaya) abroad, they haven't listened to the population. But that doesn't matter. We will continue alone," said Adela Guevara, a hotel worker. How right this hotel worker is.

The AP reports that the Obama administration said Wednesday it has suspended joint military operations with Honduras to protest the military action that forced President Manuel Zelaya into exile. At the State Department, spokesman Ian C. Kelly said the department's top diplomat for the Americas, Thomas Shannon, met with the Chavez-wannabe Zelaya at OAS headquarters on Tuesday evening. Zelaya thanked the administration for supporting his unconditional return to power. The Obama administration appeared to be counting on the threat of Honduras having its OAS membership suspended as leverage in getting Zelaya back in power. The OAS, which groups most of the countries in the Western Hemisphere including the United States, has given the interim leader until Saturday to restore Zelaya or be suspended from the body. Further, the U.S. has suspended some aid to Honduras. "We’ve taken some actions to hit the pause button on assistance programs which we would be legally required to terminate” if the events in Honduras are found to have been a military coup under American law, Kelly told reporters in Washington.

"I'm surprised that Barack Obama is not better informed," retired Honduran Col. Natanael Guevara, 56, said, referring to U.S. condemnation of Honduras for removing Zelaya. "If Honduras falls, Central America falls and then Mexico. I'm ready to put my uniform back on if it means defending my country from Hugo Chavez."

Barack Obama has been meddling on behalf of a Chavez wannabe, but refused to be seen as "meddling" in the Iranian rigged election in which the Islamic fascist dictatorship was killing protestors in the streets. Obama is a bit confused, he has got it backwards. Any time an American president takes the side of the UN-Chavez-Castro-Ortega gang, it should send off alarm signals that something is very wrong. Obama himself refused to sound the alarm immediately in response to Iran's dictatorial brutality, yet immediately sounded the alarm regarding Honduras's removal of Zelaya where in fact there may be no cause for concern at all.

The following are a few more opinion pieces explaining the situation, demonstrating a chorus of criticism of Obama:

1. Washington Post, "Honduras's Coup Is President Zelaya's Fault," by the director of the Center on Global Prosperity at the Independent Institute Alvaro Vargas Llosa, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/01/AR2009070103210.html

2. Christian Science Monitor, "A 'coup' in Honduras? Nonsense," by former presidential adviser (2002-05) and minister of culture (2005-06) of Honduras Octavio Sánchez, at http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0702/p09s03-coop.html

3.New York Post, "A Coup To Protect A Constitution," by the Heritage Foundation's Ray Walser, at http://www.nypost.com/seven/06302009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/a_coup_to_protect_a_constitution_176799.htm

4. New York Daily News, "Obama 'meddles' in Honduras -- and chooses the wrong side," by assistant editor of The New Republic James Kirchick, at
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/07/02/2009-07-02_obama_meddles_in_honduras__and_chooses_the_wrong_side.html

5. Wall Street Journal, "Honduras Defends Its Democracy," by Mary Anastasia O'Grady, at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124623220955866301.html

6. National Review Editorial, "The Honduran Counter-Coup," at http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Njg4MTU5NzU0OTNkYWZlZjk2ZWZkYzcwNDc0Y2ViMjY=

7. The Weekly Standard, "A Coup for Democracy," by Jaime Daremblum, at http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/678eepbj.asp

The following are a couple photos from some of the anti-Zelaya protests:


The message on the American flag below reads: "Obama, help us to defend our democracy, constitution and freedom. Do not support the following Chavez":

Supporters of Honduras leader Roberto Micheletti holding a copy of their constitution:


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