Why Obama Won't Use the M-Word for Honduras' Coup

Why Obama Won't Use the M-Word for Honduras' Coup
By Tim Padgett Saturday, Sep. 05, 2009

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Honduran soldiers supported by an armored vehicle remain inside the presidential palace.
Jose Cabezas / AFP / Getty

The Obama Administration tried again this week to take on the coupsters of Honduras. With more than two months passed since Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was exiled in a military ouster — and less than three months to go before his impoverished Central American nation holds new presidential elections — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton jabbed harder at the coup leaders to get them to let Zelaya back into Honduras and finish his democratically elected term. The U.S. cut all non-humanitarian aid to the de facto government, about $32 million; revoked the visas of all civilian and military officials who backed the June 28 coup, and threatened not to recognize the results of the Nov. 29 elections unless Zelaya is returned to office.

The Obama Administration tried again this week to take on the coupsters of Honduras. With more than two months passed since Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was exiled in a military ouster — and less than three months to go before his impoverished Central American nation holds new presidential elections — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton jabbed harder at the coup leaders to get them to let Zelaya back into Honduras and finish his democratically elected term. The U.S. cut all non-humanitarian aid to the de facto government, about $32 million; revoked the visas of all civilian and military officials who backed the June 28 coup, and threatened not to recognize the results of the Nov. 29 elections unless Zelaya is returned to office.

But the Administration also sent a significant mixed signal. It didn't use the m-word: Military. Its lawyers have determined that while Zelaya's overthrow was a coup d'etat, it was not technically a military coup. The main reason: even though soldiers threw Zelaya out of the country at gunpoint, in his pajamas, he was not replaced with a military leader. Instead, Micheletti, a civilian who headed Honduras' Congress, was made President. Other "complicating factors," as the U.S. calls them, include lingering questions about which Honduran institution — Congress, the Supreme Court or the Army — actually ordered Zelaya's removal after he openly defied a high court edict not to hold a non-binding referendum on constitutional reform.

The legal semantics matter. If the State Department labels a coup "military" — the most brutal and anti-democratic kind of overthrow — it automatically triggers a suspension of all non-humanitarian and non-democracy-related U.S. aid. In the case of Honduras, State Department officials insist that those measures have already been taken without the military-coup tag. But critics, who fear Obama is keeping the Honduras coup designation downgraded to mollify conservative Republicans, argue that further steps, like freezing Honduran bank accounts in the U.S., are still available to the Administration.

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