Honduras Votes Not to Reinstate Zelaya

Last week, Honduras finally held their elections.

On November 29, the people of Honduras took a step toward resolving the five-month political and diplomatic crisis that has divided and impoverished their nation. Voters selected a new president, legislators, and municipal councils through a constitutionally scheduled election process that was universally acknowledged by observers to be free, fair, and transparent. The U.S. should swiftly endorse the election results and work with the incoming Lobo team to rebuild U.S.-Honduran relations.

The winner wasn't nearly as important as the fact that turnout was brisk, up to 60% of the population, and that there was no visible signs of fraud and intimidation. In fact, the only one challenging the legitimacy of the election was its deposed former leader Jose Zelaya. Zelaya claims that the turnout was much smaller, in the neighborhood of 40% and he claims widespread fraud and intimidation.

Then, earlier this week, the Honduran voted again to keep Zelaya from returning to power.

Honduras' Congress ended hopes of reversing a coup that has isolated one of the poorest countries in the Americas, voting against reinstating ousted President Manuel Zelaya despite intense international pressure to do so.The vote Wednesday was part of a U.S.-brokered deal to end Honduras' crisis that left it up to Congress to decide if Zelaya should be restored to office for the final two months of his term - and lawmakers voted against the idea by a resounding 111-14 margin.

So, the Zelaya era is officially over and elections have been held. The only thing left is for the U.S., and the world community, to recognize the elections and the government and restore relations. Honduras is a third world nation constantly on the brink of civil war. Without international support and recognition, this government will fall, chaos will reign, and something much worse than Jose Zelaya will come to power.

Power Sharing in Honduras

It's a time honored tradition in third world nations that when there's a dispute the answer is a power sharing agreement. Back at the beginning of 2008, Kenya's election was full of fraud. It spun out of control and bordered on genocide. The United Nations stepped in and the violence stopped with a power sharing agreement between the two parties. In Zimbabwe, we had a similar agreement following that election in which there was widespread fraud. The only good news was that it was the first check to the power of strong man Robert Mughabe. More recently, there were folks that wanted to create a power sharing agreement between Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah following widespread fraud in the Afghan elections.

Everytime there's a crisis, constitutional or otherwise, in a third world nation you can bet that the crisis will be resolved through a power sharing agreement. That appears to be the result in Honduras.

Representatives of ousted President Manuel Zelaya and Honduras' interim government signed an agreement late Thursday that could open the way for Zelaya's reinstatement four months after he was ousted in a coup.

No text of the accord was immediately released, but it was greeted by all sides as a resolution to the long-running political dispute that has polarized the country and subjected it to international sanctions.

"Tonight I am pleased to announce that ... I authorized my negotiating team to sign a final accord that marks the beginning of the end to the political situation in the country," interim President Roberto Micheletti said in a televised address

Now, imagine if in December of 2000, we decided that the election was just too close and so Al Gore and George Bush would "share power". What do you think the reaction in the States would be? There would be outrage and total chaos.

Power sharing is one of those nice sounding and diplomatic words that makes it seem as though grown ups are in charge. They aren't. In each case I highlighted a serious issue caused a crisis. In each case, the crisis wasn't resolved. Instead, both sides came together to share power. The fact that elections were stolen through mass fraud became irrelevant. That's because the chaos following the situation was so extreme that all sides just wanted the chaos to stop.

The same thing is happening now. Manuel Zelaya tried to subvert the Constitution. There are no ifs, ands or buts. That's what he did. He went around what the Constitution allowed in an attempt to govern for life. He was stopped and removed. A crisis insued. The crisis was resolved by allowing both to share power. The crisis following the coup is now resolved, but the Constitutional crisis has not been resolved. If Zelaya can subvert the constitution and keep his power, then the Constitution in Honduras has little worth. That's a much bigger problem for that nation than the violence created.

Confrontation Brewing in Honduras (UPDATE)

The deposed leader of Honduras, Jose Zelaya, is right now standing on the Nicaraguan side of the border of Honduras and Nicaragua on his cell phone with a series of supporters presumably in preparation of re entering the nation.

Estoy en la zona intermedia en la frontera de Nicaragua” declared ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, on video broadcast around the world, while speaking with someone reported to be from his family, whom he had hoped to meet at the border. Zelaya is, as of 15:55 EDT, today, about to re-enter Honduras from the territory of Nicaragua, amid a “caravan” of supporters. It is thought to be possible he is communicating with Honduran security forces.

Zelaya was ousted by a military intervention in June, after a ruling from the
nation’s highest court found that his attempts to organize a referendum to alter the constitution and serve a third term were illegal. The governments of the US and the EU, as well as diplomats from the UN and other international bodies, have called the military intervention illegal, despite Zelaya’s actions having been judged to be outside his constitutional authority.

His critics, and those who set up the interim government, say the Honduran constitution does not have any formal process for impeachment and that actions judged illegal by the courts amount to a “self-implementing” removal from office. Zelaya’s defenders, and observers in the international community have said Zelaya was not found guilty of crimes, but was simply told his hopes of organizing a referendum to allow for a third term were not to be realized.

The current interim president, Roberto Micheletti, has pronounced that he would arrest Zelaya if he tried to re enter. Police have been dispatched to the border and so this appears to be a Mexican stand off of the highest order brewing. This is a breaking story and so details are still coming.

(Update)

Now there are reports of tear gas fired.

Clashes erupted on the Honduran border Friday as ousted President Manuel Zelaya arrived just meters away in Nicaragua ahead of an expected showdown in a second attempt to return to power.

Zelaya arrived at Las Manos, on Nicaragua's border with Honduras, at around midday (1800 GMT) as anti-riot police fired tear gas on hundreds of his supporters massed on the other side.Zelaya supporters, including some armed with stones, faced off with hundreds of soldiers and anti-riot police, while the Honduran government imposed an 18-hour curfew in border areas.

...

Update

CNN is reporting that Zelaya has now just crossed into Honduras.

Ousted Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya walked under a border chain Friday and returned to his country nearly a month after being removed by a military-led coup.

Zelaya was surrounded by supporters as he attempted to fulfill a vow to return after being removed by a military-led coup in June.

His arrival at the border came minutes after police and soldiers fired on his supporters in El Paraiso, CNN en Español correspondent Jorge Jimenez said. Two people were wounded, he said.Neither the shooting nor the injuries could be independently corroborated.

The police and soldiers fired tear gas at the demonstrators for about 15 to 20 minutes before letting off a barrage of 15 to 20 shots, Jimenez said.

...

(UPDATE) Zelaya only took a "symbolic" step into Honduras according to Steve Harrigan. Zelaya continues to be on the Nicaraguan side of the border.

Showdown in Honduras?

It appears that former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya is tiring of talks.

An ultimatum from ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya left little room for compromise in U.S.-backed talks Saturday aimed at resolving a crisis that has become the latest test for democracy in Latin America.

Zelaya, who was forced into exile in a June 28 military coup, gave negotiators meeting in Costa Rica until midnight to restore him to office, threatening to return to Honduras in secret and attempt to retake power on his own if no agreement is reached. He indicated he would reject any power-sharing agreement, a proposal to be discussed at the talks.

"If at that time, there is no resolution to that end, I will consider the negotiations in Costa Rica a failure," Zelaya said at a news conference Friday night at the Honduran embassy in Nicaragua. "I am going back to Honduras, but I am not going to give you the date, hour or place, or say if I'm going to enter through land, air or sea."

Zelaya's foreign minister, Patricia Rodas, claimed that upon entering the country he would organize a "parallel government" and the situation might lead to a "civil war". In fact, the vision that Zelaya and his allies have described if the talks fail is a total nightmare for the country he presumes to want to lead. Yesterday, I pointed out the dangers of putting a line in the sand with regard to Iran.

Zelaya's ultimatum does exactly that. The Costa Rican President, Oscar Arias, was "hopeful" about the talks though Zelaya has rejected any sort of power sharing agreement. This move could be meant to do all sorts of things. It could be meant into bullying the current Honduran leadership into backing down. He might be serious. It might all be bluster.

Either way, if I am advising Roberto Micheletti, the current Honduran President, I would advise him to stand firm and not back down. Zelaya has some support among the citizenry and they've proven it with near daily demonstrations since his removal. Still, he has absolutely no support from the government, military, police, or bureaucratic structure. It's hard to imagine he could pull off what he's attempting. More than that, if he's ever back in power everyone associated with this overthrow would likely be summarily arrested and executed. He would have to turn Honduras into a totalitarian state because that's the only way he'd be able to maintain power moving forward.

The current Honduran leadership has no choice but to dig in and insist that he never return to power in Honduras again.

Navigating Foreign Policy in a World of Bad Actors

When I first heard about the coup in Honduras, I immediately thought of something that Bill O'Reilly once said. He covered the war in El Salvador. He said that when he speak to common folk in El Salvador, they told him both sides, the military lead government and the leftists militias, were rotten to the core. The outbreak in Honduras has immediately turned partisan. Supporters of the president also now support deposed leader Manuel Zelaya. Here's an example of that support from the Huffington Post.

Viewed from a distance, the streets of Honduras look, smell and sound like those of Iran: expressions of popular anger - burning vehicles, large marches and calls for justice in a non-English language - aimed at a constitutional violation of the people's will (the coup took place on the eve of a poll of voters asking if the President's term should be extended); protests repressed by a small, but powerful elite backed by military force; those holding power trying to cut off communications in and out of the country.

These and other similarities between the political situation in Iran and the situation in Honduras, where military and economic and political elites ousted democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya in a military coup condemned around the world, are obvious.

Meanwhile, conservatives have called the coup totally legal and necessary. They have taken defending most of the actions of the new government. The fact is this. Military stormed the quarters of the leader of the nation and arrested him at gun point in the early morning. To not see that this is wrong is to be willfully blind. Furthermore, these same folks are now cutting off television signals, detaining journalists, and imposing martial law. These are not necessarily nice folks.

Of course, Maneul Zelaya is far from a good guy himself. This all started when attempted to move forward with an election the Supreme Court had ruled illegal. He has alligned himself with Hugo Chavez and he was clearly on the road to a leftist dictatorship.

So, what does President Obama do? He had three options. The first was to declare this an internal issue and distance himself. This was a long term untennable stance. At some point, he would either have to recognize the new government, and inherently support the coup, or to cut diplomatic ties, and inherently make it illegal. The other two options were to support the coup or Zelaya.

Obama, of course, chose the third option. The first problem with Obama's decision is that he made an absolute moral stance. This situation has no absolute morals. In Obama's view, coups are inherently evil and thus, we must oppose this coup. What about the rise of leftist dictators? Aren't those equally as evil?Why wouldn't we oppose the rise of another leftist dictator?

Furthermore, he has condemned the coup without condemning the actions of Zelaya that lead to the coup. If the coup is "illegal", how does President Obama view a leader that ignores the ruling of the highest judiciary?

The second problem is that he has alligned himself with someone that gives America no strategic value. In fact, all this does is strengthen the hand of our enemy, Hugo Chavez. In El Salvador, the U.S. wound up supporting the military government not because they were beacons of goodness, but because they were the enemy of our enemies, the leftists. We have the same situation here. The new government is not a beacon of goodness, but they are opposing a leftist alligned with Hugo Chavez. There are no good options, but ultimately, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. President Obama chose the wrong side.