Honduras coup: ambivalent feelings

The creative graffiti in the streets of Tegucigalpa turns Mel Zelaya to Mel Ze Vaya (Mel Go Away)

Honduras' legitimately elected president, Manuel Zelaya, has been ousted in an alleged coup.
I say alleged because in spite of the international backing of Zelaya, so far I have seen no clear evidence that his removal from office was illegal -after all, the move to attempt re-election violated articles of the Constitution that forbid changes to the presidential limit of one four-year term and establish the legal procedure for constitutional amendments- however, the mode of his removal seems hardly a democratic measure and adds legitimacy to Mr. Zelaya's claims. In any case, declarations from OAS, UN, and the US, state their support for Zelaya and demand his return to power. Perhaps I should humbly assume they know exactly what they are doing and are acting out of their selfless devotion to Democracy. I'm not being sarcastic this time (really, I'm not).

Elected on a center-right platform, Mr. Zelaya decided he liked the left better half-way through his term. After he became friendly with Venezuela's Chavez, he embraced a Chavez-style leftisit/populist campaign to have a referendum to change the constitution so as to allow for a consecutive second term.

The Supreme Court, his own party and other government bodies declared such a referendum unconstitutional, and declared his lack of compliance to stop the referendum as an illegal act. Soon after the military flew him to Costa Rica in his pajamas. The Honduras Congress produced a dubious letter of resignation -which Zelaya says he never wrote- and appointed Roberto Micheletti as his replacement.

If you're like me, you must be thinking this is pretty strange. If congress voted him out of power, and Zelaya's actions were truly illegal, why the coup-like forceful exile?

Let me take a wild guess at the story behind the story...

1. Zelaya becomes friends with Chavez

2. Chavez starts courting Zelaya.

3. Zelaya makes a 180 degree ideology turn

4. The Honduran government and upper classes think: "this guy wants to stay in power forever by using populism to appeal to the impoverished masses, just like Chavez did... if it worked for Chavez, it can probably work for Zelaya -after all, the poor here don't read the news and have no idea that Chavez is ruining Venezuela and trying to become pseudo-king. We can vote him out of power, but with Chavez's funding, he can find a way to get reelected or stage a coup. This isn't good, we have to do something or it's bye-bye democracy (and bye-bye our elite privileges)"

5. Zelaya gets free one-way trip to Costa Rica.

6. Regional leaders don't want anyone getting bad ideas about overthrowing elected leaders, decide to show strong condemnation of coup.

7. The international community at large, fearing a return of civil war to the region, threatens sanctions and withdraws ambassadors, pressuring Honduras to undo the coup.

8. The US, complying with new foreign policy, repudiates coup publicly and pressures Honduras as well (though many breath easier in private. Same for many Latin American countries).

9. Chavez delights in being able to parade around region making noise and taking the high moral ground, feeling important and siding with his protege.

In this article of El Heraldo of Honduras, a Venezuelan citizen writes to congratulate the people of Honduras and thanks them for showing Venezuela that would-be dictators are not invincible and wishes they could do the same with Chavez. Many others ad comments to second the thought.

While I sympathize with the writer, it seems like Zelaya has plenty of popular support in Honduras, though it isn't clear if his supporters outnumber his opposition. Given the mounting international pressure, it seems possible that a negotiated return to power of Zelaya may happen, in which he agrees not to attempt to run for a second term. This of course, would be ideal, but the question hanging in the air is: is it OK to risk a second Chavez in Honduras? While Venezuela had the oil boom to mitigate Chavez's devastating policies and corruption, Honduras is already very poor to start with, and a Chavez-style regime would likely bring utter ruin and even more corruption. Unfortunately, if the Honduran people chose to go that route, knowingly or not, they have every right to do so, and should not be opposed by force or unlawful actions -otherwise we are no better than the Zelayas of the world.

Article by Alvaro Vargas Llosa