The Coup in Honduras: A Set Back for both Democracy and U.S.-Latin American Unity

Over a month has passed since the Honduran Congress ordered the military ousting of the country’s legitimate Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, sparking hemispheric-wide unrest and nasty flashbacks to a recent history of military coups, which many had hoped were no longer part of the landscape. Last month’s Honduran coup, which was almost unanimously decried across the hemisphere as unlawful, has brought global focus to Latin America. But while scores of various governments and international bodies have come together against the coup, their efforts to restore the lawful president to power have so far fallen flat in an effort which, has basically run out of steam, even though the golpe regime is friendless and an international pariah.

The de facto regime, lead by now-president Roberto Micheletti, remains comfortably in power while Zelaya can do little more than hold interviews from Nicaragua and taunt the government in Tegucigalpa by poking his toes in Honduran soil for scant minutes at a time. Of course a higher reality is being played off camera, as the interim regime runs out of international reserves, inflation mounts, and factional strife begins to break out, not the least amongst the military. This multiplicity of factors working against him are certainly the driving force behind Micheletti’s mixed support of the San José accords, orchestrated by Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, that would reinstate Zelaya as President of Honduras, but forbid him to change the constitution, and would also move elections forward.

Micheletti has now requested a special envoy, Enrique V. Iglesias, to come to Honduras to build support for reconciliation among business leaders and the other two branches of government, the Congress and Supreme Court, which both helped mount the coup. However, the Honduran Supreme Court has already ruled out early elections, and the Honduran Congress is still evaluating the proposal, and it will remain to be seen whether mounting international and domestic pressures will cause them to change their tune.

While this ordeal has clearly fractured Honduran democracy, it has also served to re-drive a wedge between the Obama Administration and the left-leaning governments of Latin America, despite the American president’s recent assurance that Washington would begin a new relationship with the region. Honduras has turned out to be a Latin American toxic asset, which is poisoning hopes for the Obama Administration to restore a constructive relationship between the U.S. and its neighbors.

http://www.coha.org/2009/07/the-coup-in-honduras-a-set-back-for-both-democracy-and-u-s-latin-american-unity/