Honduras will be holding an election in a couple of months.
Washington is threatening not to recognize the result. Would the
Obama administration prefer a full-blown military dictatorship
take power?
The saga of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya has entered its
third month. On June 28 the Honduras military, in response to an
arrest warrant from the nation’s Supreme Court, rousted Zelaya
from his bed and deported him. Since then the U.S., Organization
of American States, and most of Honduras’ neighbors have pressed
for his return.
The controversy can best be described as a muddled mess. Zelaya’s
term was set to expire in January; elections, in which the
candidates already had been chosen, were scheduled for November.
Zelaya, who moved sharply left after his victory and allied
himself with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, proposed a
National Constituent Assembly to amend the Honduran constitution.
The subject to be addressed was not specified, but Zelaya was
suspected of wanting to follow Chavez’s example of using a
national plebiscite to drop term limits, which are enshrined in
the Honduran constitution. Indeed, the constitution specified
that to even propose their elimination is grounds for immediate
removal from office.
Presuming that this was his intent, the Honduran high court
voided the poll. Zelaya attempted to hold the vote anyway,
causing the Supreme Court to issue the warrant. After his ouster
the National Congress name legislative head Roberto Micheletti
interim president.
The result is a perfect legal imbroglio. Zelaya claimed the
military mounted an illegal coup. The Micheletti government says
the military never took power and acted at the behest of the
Court and Congress (the constitution does not provide for
legislative impeachment). There was no legal authority for
exiling Zelaya, but the Honduran authorities claimed exigent
circumstances. Much depends on an assessment of his intentions,
and whether those assumptions should be treated as facts.
Was Zelaya a dedicated populist or putative dictator? There are
grounds for suspicion, yet his popularity had dropped sharply
before his ouster and he was opposed even by many in his own
party. Polls show Hondurans to be sharply divided, agreeing that
there were legal grounds for the military’s action but opposing
Zelaya’s ouster.
The best
position for the U.S. would have been to stay out of the
controversy. Let the Hondurans work it out themselves. The
Micheletti government has been heavy-handed in breaking up
demonstrations. But this is not North Korea, Burma, or Cuba, in
which liberty has been extirpated and regime critics face prison
or worse. Nothing required Washington to do anything.
However, Zelaya immediately became the latest cause
célèbre of the Left in America. Activists who earlier
demonstrated denouncing U.S. intervention suddenly began churning
out blog posts demanding that Washington “restore democracy” in
Tegucigalpa. The means: obnoxious and officious U.S. meddling.
The Obama administration, OAS, and neighboring countries all have
insisted that Zelaya be returned to power. Costa Rica’s Oscar
Arias, among others, has proposed a compromise recalling Zelaya
while restricting his authority. But the bottom line is the claim
that Zelaya remains Honduras’ rightful president.
The Micheletti government, backed by most of the nation’s
traditional power centers, including the Catholic Church, has
refused to consider any Zelaya restoration. Roberto Micheletti
has offered to step down, but those backing him believe Zelaya’s
presidency was legitimately ended by an authoritative decision of
the Honduran Supreme Court.
The OAS is essentially powerless — it suspended Honduras’s
membership, but can do little more. Honduras’ neighbors are
unlikely to do anything other than lecture. The European Union
suspended some foreign assistance, but can do no more. Thus, if
anyone can force Tegucigalpa into line, it is the U.S. In fact,
Zelaya contended that Washington needs “only tighten its fist” to
restore him. However, other than mounting a military invasion or
imposing a trade embargo, America’s power, too, is limited.
The administration initially suspended $22 million in aid, mostly
for the military, and invalidated visas for officials in the
interim regime. Moreover, last week Obama officials said they’re
reconsidering the status of America’s four-year $215 million aid
program. So far the Micheletti government has refused to bend.
Thus, the administration is ratcheting up the pressure. The State
Department froze all non-immigrant visas. Roughly 30,000 visas
are granted for business and tourist purposes every year, which
means about 2,500 people a month are being inconvenienced by the
U.S. action. State explained that it was “conducting a full
review of our visa policy.”
No one explained exactly how preventing a Honduran businessman
from traveling to America to complete a deal will help Zelaya’s
quest. Perhaps President Obama expects frustrated children hoping
to go to Disney World to rise up and overthrow the Micheletti
administration. In fact, outside sanctions typically encourage
people to rally around their governments rather than back the
interfering outsiders.
Even more bizarre, the State Department suggested that it might
not accept the winner of the upcoming election. When asked if the
U.S. would recognize the victor — the race is between Zelaya’s
former vice president and the opposition party candidate whom
Zelaya defeated four years ago — an unnamed administration
official opined: “We understand that the elections loom in the
non-distant future. We certainly want this resolved before then.”
State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley was even blunter:
“Based on conditions as they currently exist, we cannot recognize
the results of this election. So for the de facto regime, they’re
now in a box.”
Actually, it is the people of Honduras who have been placed in a
box. The interim administration has nothing to do with the
election — the holding of which offers further evidence that
there was no coup, at least as commonly defined. Balloting is
scheduled for Nov. 29, with the new president to take over on
January 27. There have been no allegations that the present
government intends to fix the vote, or prevent the real winner
from taking office. The Obama administration is threatening to
deny the legitimacy of the president to be freely chosen by the
Honduran people in order to pressure the outgoing authorities to
give Zelaya four more months in office.
It is an act of desperation by those who want Washington to
impose its will in Tegucigalpa. Vicki Goss of the Washington
Office on Latin America said: “It’s critically important that the
U.S. government has stated that they won’t recognize the November
elections.” Yet this step would hurt not the supposedly
illegitimate temporary regime, but its successor — headed by a
president who would have replaced Zelaya even had he never been
removed.
Moreover, what happens on January 27 if the Honduran authorities
still say no? Would the Obama administration refuse to recognize
the new government because the previous administration refused to
restore to power a man no longer authorized to serve under any
interpretation of the Honduras’ constitution? How then would
Washington allow Tegucigalpa to escape the box — delay the
inauguration of a new chief executive and bring Zelaya back for a
few more months? Talk about being in a box: the Obama
administration either would have to stick with sanctions which
had lost their raison d’être or initiate a humiliating
climb-down from its moral high horse.
Washington is attempting to destroy democracy in the name of
saving it. And to do so by behaving like the worst sort of
Yanqui-imperialist from yesteryear.
Even of the U.S. succeeded in imposing its will, the likely
result would be to worsen the crisis. Observes Eric Farnsworth of
the Council of the Americas, State’s action “limits our options,
a violation of the first law of diplomacy, by taking off the
table the one means by which the crisis could naturally be
resolved.” Imposing an outcome from the outside, an outcome
unsatisfactory to many Hondurans, via U.S. diktat likely would
deepen political divisions within Honduras. Greater, not lesser,
social strife likely would result.
Julia F. Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations complains: “If
they can’t get the cast of characters in Honduras to behave the
way they want them to, how are they going to deal with
Afghanistan or Iran?”
But Afghanistan and Iran matter in ways that Honduras does not.
Nothing important enough is at stake in Honduras to warrant
active intervention in a complex and emotional political struggle
that concerns the people of Honduras, not America.
