www.CostaRicaTicas.com

Kicking out Marxists...what a cool concept!

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Soldiers seized the national palace and sent President Manuel Zelaya into exile in Costa Rica on Sunday, hours before a disputed constitutional referendum. Zelaya, a leftist ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, said he was victim of a coup.

The Supreme Court said it was supporting the military in what it called a defense of democracy, and the Honduran ambassador to the Organization of American States said the military was planning to swear in Congressional President Roberto Micheletti to replace Zelaya.

Zelaya was arrested shortly before polls were to open in a referendum on whether to change the constitution. The Supreme Court ruled the referendum illegal and everyone from Congress to members of his own party opposed it. Critics said Zelaya wanted to remove limits to his re-election.

It was not immediately clear who was running the government. Tanks rolled through the streets and hundreds of soldiers with riot shields surrounded the presidential palace in the capital, Tegucigalpa.

The constitution mandates that the head of Congress — Micheletti — is next in line to the presidency, followed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Zelaya, arriving at the airport in the Costa Rican capital, San Jose, called the military action illegal.

"There is no way to justify an interruption of democracy, a coup d'etat," he said in a telephone call to the Venezuela-based Telesur television network. "This kidnapping is an extortion of the Honduran democratic system."

Zelaya said he would not recognize any de facto government and pledged to serve out his term, which ends in January. He said he would attend a scheduled meeting of Central American presidents in Nicaragua on Monday. He siad Chavez, which is also going, would provide transportation.

Chavez, who along with the Castros in Cuba is Zelaya's top ally, said Venezuela "is at battle" and put his military on alert.

President Barack Obama said he was "deeply concerned" by Zelaya's expulsion and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the arrest should be condemned.

"I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter," Obama's statement read.

Zelaya told Telesur that he was awoken by gunshots and the shouts of his security guards, whom he said resisted troops for at least 20 minutes. Still in his pajamas, he jumped out of bed and ducked behind an air conditioner to avoid flying bullets, he said.

He said eight or nine soldiers in masks escorted him onto an air force plane that took him to Costa Rica.

Chavez said troops in Honduras also temporarily detained the Venezuelan and Cuban ambassadors, beating them.

Zelaya called on Honduran soldiers to desist, urged citizens to take to the streets in peaceful protests, and asked Honduran police to protect demonstrators.

Zelaya ally Rafael Alegria, a labor leader, called for protests.

"We demand respect for the president's life," he told Honduran radio Cadena de Noticias. "And we will go out into the streets to defend what this has cost us: living in peace and tranquility."

About 100 Zelaya supporters, many wearing "Yes" T-shirts for the referendum, blocked the main street outside the gates to the palace, throwing rocks and insults at soldiers and shouting "Traitors! Traitors!"

"They kidnapped him like cowards," screamed Melissa Gaitan. Tears streamed down the face of the 21-year-old, who works at the government television station. "We have to rally the people to defend our president."

Honduras has a history of military coups: Soldiers overthrew elected presidents in 1963 and 1972. The military did not turn the government over to civilians until 1981, under U.S. pressure.

Micheletti has been one of the president's main opponents in the dispute over whether to hold the referendum. The head of the Supreme Court was also opposed to the nonbinding referendum, on whether to ask voters whether they want to convoke an assembly to rewrite the constitution.

It appeared that the vote would no longer take place.

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Maboman
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I like my women just like my coffee...100% colombian!

It's about time that one of Chavez's allies got overthrown. Somebody should tell Chavez that he's next. Zelaya was being defiant against the Supreme Court and his own political party. He's just another madman like Chavez.

ah yes, Greengo....but let us NOT forget the lumpenproletariat factor when you're writing about vanguard of the party types.....fair's fair....

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"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."
- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Ch. 16

These leaders latin countries fall left and right like dominos...

Years ago yes but not anymore.

According to the Associated Press:

"Coups were common in Central America for four decades reaching back to the 1950s, but Sunday's ouster was the first military power grab in Latin America since a brief, failed 2002 coup against Chavez. It was the first in Central America since military officials forced President Jorge Serrano of Guatemala to step down in 1993 after he tried to dissolve Congress and suspend the constitution."

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

Before we jump up and down with glee that another leftist has been ousted, know that Sr, Chavez has threatened to send in Venezuelan Armed Forces to re-instate his Honduran ally. This can get real serious real quick.

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"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

The guy may have been a leftist but he was elected by democratic means. The military goons who threw him out of the country should be ashamed of their nazi like tactics. ID was right with his comment that coups in latin america have gone out of fashion as democracy has flourished.

The president will regain his presidency as no other countries will recognize the new illegal government. The organization of american states will not recognize the new government either.

Honduras Defends Its Democracy
Fidel Castro and Hillary Clinton object.

By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY..

Hugo Chávez's coalition-building efforts suffered a setback yesterday when the Honduran military sent its president packing for abusing the nation's constitution.

It seems that President Mel Zelaya miscalculated when he tried to emulate the success of his good friend Hugo in reshaping the Honduran Constitution to his liking.

But Honduras is not out of the Venezuelan woods yet. Yesterday the Central American country was being pressured to restore the authoritarian Mr. Zelaya by the likes of Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Hillary Clinton and, of course, Hugo himself. The Organization of American States, having ignored Mr. Zelaya's abuses, also wants him back in power. It will be a miracle if Honduran patriots can hold their ground.

Associated Press .
That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.

But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.

The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.

Calculating that some critical mass of Hondurans would take his side, the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court's order.

The attorney general had already made clear that the referendum was illegal, and he further announced that he would prosecute anyone involved in carrying it out. Yesterday, Mr. Zelaya was arrested by the military and is now in exile in Costa Rica.

It remains to be seen what Mr. Zelaya's next move will be. It's not surprising that chavistas throughout the region are claiming that he was victim of a military coup. They want to hide the fact that the military was acting on a court order to defend the rule of law and the constitution, and that the Congress asserted itself for that purpose, too.

Mrs. Clinton has piled on as well. Yesterday she accused Honduras of violating "the precepts of the Interamerican Democratic Charter" and said it "should be condemned by all." Fidel Castro did just that. Mr. Chávez pledged to overthrow the new government.

Honduras is fighting back by strictly following the constitution. The Honduran Congress met in emergency session yesterday and designated its president as the interim executive as stipulated in Honduran law. It also said that presidential elections set for November will go forward. The Supreme Court later said that the military acted on its orders. It also said that when Mr. Zelaya realized that he was going to be prosecuted for his illegal behavior, he agreed to an offer to resign in exchange for safe passage out of the country. Mr. Zelaya denies it.

Many Hondurans are going to be celebrating Mr. Zelaya's foreign excursion. Street protests against his heavy-handed tactics had already begun last week. On Friday a large number of military reservists took their turn. "We won't go backwards," one sign said. "We want to live in peace, freedom and development."

Besides opposition from the Congress, the Supreme Court, the electoral tribunal and the attorney general, the president had also become persona non grata with the Catholic Church and numerous evangelical church leaders. On Thursday evening his own party in Congress sponsored a resolution to investigate whether he is mentally unfit to remain in office.

For Hondurans who still remember military dictatorship, Mr. Zelaya also has another strike against him: He keeps rotten company. Earlier this month he hosted an OAS general assembly and led the effort, along side OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, to bring Cuba back into the supposedly democratic organization.

The OAS response is no surprise. Former Argentine Ambassador to the U.N. Emilio Cárdenas told me on Saturday that he was concerned that "the OAS under Insulza has not taken seriously the so-called 'democratic charter.' It seems to believe that only military 'coups' can challenge democracy. The truth is that democracy can be challenged from within, as the experiences of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and now Honduras, prove." A less-kind interpretation of Mr. Insulza's judgment is that he doesn't mind the Chávez-style coup.

The struggle against chavismo has never been about left-right politics. It is about defending the independence of institutions that keep presidents from becoming dictators. This crisis clearly delineates the problem. In failing to come to the aid of checks and balances, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Insulza expose their true colors.

Write to O'Grady@wsj.com

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A11

Hey Pidd, I was just about to post that article but you beat me to it. O'Grady's article makes some very good points.

What Chavez said was that he had put his troops on alert and would take action should the Honduran army make a move against the Venezuelan Ambassador or its Embassy. He never threatened to use the Venezuelan army to reinstate Zelaya.

That is just some saber rattling as he really is aware that the Honduran army is not going to make any moves against either.

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

The other posters are correct that coups d'etats are not the best way to deal with problems in a properly functioning democracy whether its in Honduras or Ecuador (which had brief overthrows in 2000 AND 2005) OR EVEN Venezuela where the US backed an attempted a coup against Chavez in 2002 (Zman, ID never said that coups in LATIN America have gone out of fashion but he was correct that CENTRAL America hasn't had one since Guatemala in 1993). The problem with too many of these new so-called Democracies is that far too often their "democratically" chosen leaders gain power by equally questionable elections and then go to undemocratic means to hold on to power beyond their constitutional limits. That has happened in Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and now Honduras (interestingly all countries allied with Chavez). Say what you want about CR, but at least its leaders accept the end of their term gracefully (while going well beyond what would be allowed in the US to insure their handpicked successor gets elected to replace them).

Having read Mary Anastasia O'Grady in the WSJ for many years, I've come to the conclusion that there hasn't been a right-winger she didn't like or a left-winger she did. I'm not trying to vitiate the facts she presented, merely giving some perspective on this writer.

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"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

I don't know about Mary O'Grady's politics or the slant she might be giving to the "facts". But the facts themselves ARE that he WAS trying to extend his term by changing the Honduran constitution AND there is a very good reason so many Latin American countries HAVE term limits in their constitutions. In those countries, with histories of corrupt leaders and dictatorships, many leaders, whether military OR civilian, whether INITIALLY elected or having taken power by force, have used the powers of their offices to RETAIN that power. If you don't like Ms. O'Grady's political slant try reading these other articles instead:
http://www.hondurasthisweek.com/communityblogs/Re-Writing-the-Constitution-of-Honduras.html?blogger=Marco
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honduran_constitutional_referendum,_2009
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1115412.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124607117649864407.html (where, incidentally, Hugo Chavez was quoted as saying "We aren't going to stand by with our arms crossed... we're willing to do whatever it takes to ensure the sovereignty of Honduras and its people are respected" ie not just their embassy and ambassador)
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/06/29/term_limits_and_constitutional.html?wprss=44

This last article comes from a somewhat conservative newspaper but was particularly interesting because it was mainly about Colombia President Alvaro Uribe's attempt to change his country's constitution to allow him to run for another term and Uribe is a LOT closer to those "right wingers" that conservatives like Ms. O'Grady love so much. BTW, that article also mentioned recent constitutional reform efforts in Ecuador, which is yet another Chavez ally I forgot to mention above. One key difference between all these Bolivarean countries and Colombia is that Uribe doesn't buy his support with Venezuelan petro-dollars and he is highly popular right now in his country with citizens at all socio-economic levels.

Most leaders and news outlets have expressed disapproval of the coup in Honduras itself. As Ms. O'Grady herself said everyone from Castro to Clinton have objected to THAT. The issue of the constitutional reform efforts that prompted the coup is a completely different story. The only news sources that I've found which support that are news outlets that are EASILY as biased to the left as you say Ms. O'Grady is to the right. However, in the interest of providing their side of things, I'll leave you with this link to "Free Speech Radio News" :
http://www.fsrn.org/audio/headlines-friday-june-26-2009/4959

The reference to Hugo Chavez stating he was willing to use military force was a comment Jazzbo made that Chavez had threatened to send in the military. The reply about his having made it conditional on specific acts or threats to the Embassy or Ambassador can be found at

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/ ... 28?sp=true.

His comment concerning "we will do whatever is necessary" does not directly threaten military action and comes after the specific threat to use military force.

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

US Military currently has about 750 soldiers In Honduras who are there in different capacity for years. So who are we to think we did not know what is going on before it happen. So with that I say. If we don’t say anything as to whether we like it or not they MR Castro and his buddy would say it’s the work of Uncle Sam. So we have to say it’s wrong but silently we are saying the people has spoken. Not GODS Truth but 99.999% close to it. turst me on this...

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"THE TRUTH IS' EVERYBODY IS GOING TO HURT YOU. YOU JUST GOTTA FIND THE ONE WORTH SUFFERING FOR"
Robert Nesta Marley