Coup leader in Honduras a graduate of Pentagon-run military academy, School of the Americas.

http://www.soaw.org/

A military coup has taken place in Honduras on Sunday, June 28, led by School of the Americas (SOA) graduate Romeo Vasquez. Members of the Honduran military surrounded the presidential palace and forced the democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya, into custody. He was immediately flown to Costa Rica.

The Honduran state television was taken off the air. The electricity supply to the capital Tegucigalpa, as well telephone and cellphone lines were cut. The people of Honduras are going into the streets. Labor unions are planning for a general strike. From Costa Rica, President Zelaya has called for a non-violent response from the people of Honduras, and for international solidarity for the Honduran democracy.

(SOA Watch news service.)


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http://www.soaw.org/presente/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=217&Itemid=74

EXCERPT:

Caracas, Venezuela - The text message that beeped on my cell phone this morning read “Alert, Zelaya has been kidnapped, coup d’etat underway in Honduras, spread the word.” It’s a rude awakening for a Sunday morning, especially for the millions of Hondurans that were preparing to exercise their sacred right to vote today for the first time on a consultative referendum concerning the future convening of a constitutional assembly to reform the constitution. Supposedly at the center of the controversary is today’s scheduled referendum, which is not a binding vote but merely an opinion poll to determine whether or not a majority of Hondurans desire to eventually enter into a process to modify their constitution.



Such an initiative has never taken place in the Central American nation, which has a very limited constitution that allows minimal participation by the people of Honduras in their political processes. The current constitution, written in 1982 during the height of the Reagan Administration’s dirty war in Central America, was designed to ensure those in power, both economic and political, would retain it with little interference from the people. Zelaya, elected in November 2005 on the platform of Honduras’ Liberal Party, had proposed the opinion poll be conducted to determine if a majority of citizens agreed that constitutional reform was necessary. He was backed by a majority of labor unions and social movements in the country. If the poll had occured, depending on the results, a referendum would have been conducted during the upcoming elections in November to vote on convening a constitutional assembly. Nevertheless, today’s scheduled poll was not binding by law.



In fact, several days before the poll was to occur, Honduras’ Supreme Court ruled it illegal, upon request by the Congress, both of which are led by anti-Zelaya majorities and members of the ultra-conservative party, National Party of Honduras (PNH). This move led to massive protests in the streets in favor of President Zelaya. On June 24, the president fired the head of the high military command, General Romeo Vásquez, after he refused to allow the military to distribute the electoral material for Sunday’s elections. General Romeo Vásquez held the material under tight military control, refusing to release it even to the president’s followers, stating that the scheduled referendum had been determined illegal by the Supreme Court and therefore he could not comply with the president’s order. As in the Unted States, the president of Honduras is Commander in Chief and has the final say on the military’s actions, and so he ordered the General’s removal. The Minister of Defense, Angel Edmundo Orellana, also resigned in response to this increasingly tense situation.



But the following day, Honduras’ Supreme Court reinstated General Romeo Vásquez to the high military command, ruling his firing as “unconstitutional’. Thousands poured into the streets of Honduras’ capital, Tegucigalpa, showing support for President Zelaya and evidencing their determination to ensure Sunday’s non-binding referendum would take place. On Friday, the president and a group of hundreds of supporters, marched to the nearby air base to collect the electoral material that had been previously held by the military. That evening, Zelaya gave a national press conference along with a group of politicians from different political parties and social movements, calling for unity and peace in the country.


SNIP - FOLLOW LINK

http://www.soaw.org/presente/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=217&Itemid=74

Please proceed to the nearest government-media outlet for re-education.

and try an old-style DU thread (they really existed) in which we each add to the case or counter with considered skepticism. Even though of course I agree you have a point in what you say. Thanks!

Thanks for the initial posting, this is good information.

:wave:

"Kristel Meza's photos on Aporrea show the true size of the demonstrations outside the Presidential Palace."







where are the twitterers?

that the phone system, the net, communications had been shut down and she was unable to get through for the moment.

But, weirdly, I also saw a Telesur reporter walking through the presidential residence and pointing out all the damage from when they broke in to grab Zelaya.

The situation seems very chaotic right now.

sorry for the sarcasm...

hard not to be cynical.

Cool agit-prop, though.

He was trying to re-write the constitution, without congress.

You want more links?

There's this totally cool thing called "google".

the other poster asked for some confirmation.

you answered "it's complex".

your response to me has nothing to do with the original claim.


ps: as i read the news, zelaya was trying to hold a public referendum on the question of term limits. this doesn't = "rewriting the constitution by himself".

and he hasn't been impeached.

so you might try the google yourself.

I see nothing in the Guardian article linked by boppers about Vazquez, or about who the military leaders of the coup are who kidnapped Zelaya and installed Roberto Micheleti as the new president, only affirmative coverage of Micheleti and a clumsy attempt to turn this into a bizarre battle between Chavez and Micheleti (because of Chavez's statements). It's not. He's quoting Chavez among foreign leaders, but the condemnation of the coup is, at least on the surface, universal.

Most significantly, the Guardian article cited by boppers does not present any information to conflict with what I see on the SOWA site about Vazquez!

..........

If Zelaya was to hold a popular referendum to get himself a shot at another term, then that puts him substantially above New York Mayor Bloomberg, who overturned the term limits despite these having been imposed by popular referendum, without holding a new referendum, and is now running for a third term financed solely by his own billions, with no chance of losing to a competitor.

The people would have still had to vote yes for Zelaya's proposal, the constitutional assembly would have still had to decide on term limits. By the logic used to justify this coup, Bloomberg should have been overthrown by the NYPD and a dictatorship of the police chief imposed in New York.

Yeah, to hell with the Constitution and law, lets have popular elections totally over-ride it?

Uhm, no, that's morally, and intellectually, so wrong, I barely know how to respond.

So, as a response: Change law, if it seems unjust. False claims of injustice do not help, and can hurt.

If there was a constitutional crisis, it should have been argued in court.

The vote he wanted wouldn't even have changed the constitution. It was more like a poll to see if people would approve a committee to study a proposal for a constitutional amendment. :crazy:

The vote itself was not political. It was politiCIZED as an excuse for the wingnuts to throw him out.

Changing their constitution is reserved to their congress.

He then wanted the military to take the issue to a vote, anyways.

another legal proceeding, not a kidnapping. For example, had he run the voting, the results could be challenged in court.

The right wing always has an excuse for their violent offronts to democracy.

He had exhausted the state's legal bodies.

If he went ahead, the results could be challenged in court.

Why do you think the violent overthrow of an elected government is a solution to anything, boppers? It just usully gets people hurt and dead and stuff.

It's a simple question.

Are you saying the judicial system in Honduras is broken?

Zelaya announced he wanted a referendum. Haven't been able to find out exactly when so far.

Then Congress (Tuesday!):

"On Tuesday, the Honduran Congress passed a law that appeared to block these plans. The new bill prevents the holding of referendums or plebiscites 180 days before or after general elections."

So Congress passed the law after Zelaya started the referendum process - apparently to block what had previously been "legal".

So when did their SC take the case? Who brought the case to the court, or was it just a ruling, similar to the SC's ruling on the bush-gore vote?

Looks like nobody involved gives much of a shit about process.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8120161.stm

the results could still be challenged as illegitimate.

the only remaining alternative.

He was ordering the military to help conduct the referendum (distributing ballot boxes and so on). They refused, citing the Supreme court decision that his action was illegal. So then her fired the general in charge, who was reinstated by the supreme court.

'If there was a constitutional crisis, it should have been argued in court.' Um, it was by all accounts.

'The vote itself was not political. It was politiCIZED as an excuse for the wingnuts to throw him out.'

Then why did he want to use the state referendum apparatus? You don't get to hold a special election just because you want the results of an opinion poll.

the elected president of Honduras? There isn't a single world body that agrees with that.

I'm disagreeing with the specific arguments you made in your post above, nothing more and nothing less.

and that I was giving the CLIFF NOTES version.

And I don't need to put words in your mouth to extend the logic.

I presume you mean some other post you made around the same time. I can't help you with this. I've already stated several times that I do not support the military coup, and your attempt to 'extend the logic' has no basis in fact.

But since you say you're referring to this conversation: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5949704&mesg_id=5952170

You surely saw the opening line where I explicitly said "I don't support the coup". So it appears your suggestion that I was supporting the kidnapping, beating and expulsion of (ex?) President Zalaya was a deliberate false statement on your part.

And when you attempt to justify the illegality of kidnapping, beating and expulsion, you attempt to justify the illegality of kidnapping, beating and expulsion.

I don't know why you find the statement 'I do not support the coup' so hard to parse. I don't have to support it to make factual observations about the legal environment in which it took place, or speculate that Zelaya appears to have tried to circumvent Honduras' constitution, which requires a 2/3 majority in the legislature to approve any referendum (see article 5).

I think it would have been far better for the military to let Zelaya argue it out with the legislature; the sole point in the military's favor is that they appear to have installed the appropriate civilian official as President rather than instigating military rule.

What exactly is the problem with that?

To a complex question.

"What is the ingredient in Salsa" does not merit a simple answer. The question belies ignorance about the topic.

The constitutional fix was implemented by the courts, the military, and their congress. Since the executive branch had gone nutty, they changed it, as they had the power to do so.

As far as your idea on term limits, the constitution of their state prohibits ever changing term limits. EVER. They are tired of dictators.

"Impeached" is not a Spanish term. He was found (a closer translation) "unfit to be in office". I apologize if the language gulf created confusion.

and since you now deign to try to answer the question, it apparently wasn't so "complex".


the constitution was written in 1982, following dozens of other constitutions.

provisions in constitutions can be changed if people want to change them; thus, a referendum on the question. a referendum being a vote of the people.

if the constitution could *not* be changed, even if most people wanted it changed, that would also be "dictatorial".

According to the WSJ, being declared "unfit for office" = impeachment, & that process is not yet resolved:

"Mr. Chávez's comments came as Honduras' Congress, including members of Mr. Zelaya's own Liberal Party, began discussions over whether to impeach the president by declaring him "unfit for office.""

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124607117649864407.html

Maybe it happened sometime between when this report came out on Saturday & now, but so far as I can tell, e.g.: http://lasvegas.craigslist.org/pol/1244205720.html

they just decided to kidnap & overthrow him instead of taking the trouble of debating impeachment.

Because military coups are *so* much more "democratic" & "constitutional" & "non-dictatorial" than referendums.

Yeah, it's "complex". lol.

It's ironic you said something like, term limits prevent dictatorships in a region that has suffered from too many of them. That ignores that the Latin dictatorships rarely come from election of demagogues; almost all of the dozens of examples have been military coups!

When the military settles the question of who rules, all it means is that the gun is sovereign. The Guatemalan military once again asserts its absolute sovereignty, in a country that has seen a series of military coups and regimes that ruled by the death squad and bombed their own people. Hundreds of thousands have died at the hands of military regimes since the 1950s, that's the history of Guatemala. It's one of the few US-supported atrocities that attracted a declared apology from Clinton in the 1990s.

Please tell us: What was expected to happen in this referendum? Were the people about to vote to initiate a constitutional change, or not? The institutions who you say opposed the referendum and possibly supported the coup are the very same ones that would have been challenged and modified by a new constitution! Their solution to Zelaya's supposedly "illegal" referendum is to install a military dictatorship?

This reminds me of the old saying, "if elections could change anything, they would be illegal."

not to mention a few other things, such as Zelaya's contention that the referendum was nothing more than an opinion poll and non-binding (in which case, why use the state voting apparatus?).

Thanks! Stupid. Sorry. I shall leave this site for a few days now, except, on your additional point: a non-binding referendum is certainly more conclusive than an opinion poll. Presumably he hoped to use the results on behalf of his plan for a constitutional convention, which an opinion poll couldn't do.

(Don't blab and post - check all. Stupid. Ouch.)

though technically, he is indeed just the militant arm of the social class and foreign forces responsible for the event, however you seem to be disputing more than the semantics that I would.

There's a Commander in Chief. In Honduras, it's the president, Micheletti.

and on camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jll0OsxxDw

Well that changes, uhm...

Nothing.

almost every Latin American leader say this was a coup.

You may not agree.

This is not some fucked up "Chicken or Egg?" fable -- clear timelines are established here and should be considered.

Oh, and speaking of interesting things to consider -- take a minute (Google is your friend) and research the specific forces that initiated that illegal 'removal' (following the equally illegal *phyiscal* removal, and the initial rounds of assaults, kidnappings, and executions that preceded and followed the arrest) and revocation of the people's will (you know, those pesky elections thingy); not the crew I'd be backing.. these are the scum that fired thousands of workers after that filthy commie dared to raise minimum wage. Lie with pigs if you must.

I lie with pigs, by definition.

Geez, what an apologist for military thugs.

I get it now. The military terrorized the nation and murdered hundreds of thousands of people after the coups of 1954 and again in the 1980s. Civilian government was finally restored. Then they have another military coup, but this time, after exiling the elected president and establishing who holds power, they had the Congress hold a vote and chose a civilian to play president. And you want to find justifications for this? (I can only imagine how the sophistry would have justified the 2002 coup if the elected government of Venezuela had been overthrown.)

There was a military coup in 1954. In Guatemala. Honduras is a different country, to the south of Guatemala.

As with post 64 above. Sorry. I'll recuse myself for a while and feel really stupid. Everyone needs to expose themselves as capable of utter idiocy, hopefully as a temporary matter. Thanks.

we learned this formula not too long ago, after another 'Red Menace' dared to hold those silly election thingys.. when will these fools realize that real democracy occurs when the New York Times editorial board approves of your actions (or at least pretends not to notice them)? The nerve!

Is it like CSPAN?

That and the CIA. Both need to go NOW. But especially the SOA. It is time we stopped interfering in central American politics.

:eyes:

and yet most Americans have no idea, they just assume people around the World are just jealous or hate Americans for their slavery to consumerism.

CLOSE THE SOA!!!!