The REAL issue in Honduras: Honduran Constitution "worst in the world"--Oscar Arias

Please see my OP discussing Oscar Arias' recent remarks on the Honduran Constitution, to a Latin American forum in Miami. The on-again/off-again (still on) talks in Tegucigalpa, between the fascist Junta that took over the country and the elected president, Mel Zelaya, whom they violently evicted (and who is now hosted by the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa), have been held up on the issue of restoring Zelaya to his rightful office, but the crisis goes much deeper than this--and involves the dire poverty of the majority of people in Honduras, rule by the "ten families," the untoward power of the military, and--most important of all--the Constitution written by Reagan's henchmen in the 1980s, to entrench the power of the rich and deny the people of Honduras any real voice in the running of their own country.

Oscar Arias recently called Honduras' Constitution "the worst in the world." I noticed his quotes in a Greg Grandin article in The Nation, and found a more extensive news report on what he said. But it hasn't gotten much currency at all, in our corpo/fascist press. Here is my OP quoting much of the article, and my discussion of it in the DU Latin American Forum.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x24760

The Honduran people are suffering under martial law, and need our support for a stronger US policy to oust this Junta, restore democracy in Honduras, provide truly fair and transparent elections, and promote badly needed fundamental reform--including a constitutional convention ("Constituent Assembly") to rewrite the world's "worst Constitution," with all segments of Honduran society participating in that revision.

and it's a pure, fascist piece of trash that has no provision for amendment of any type whatsoever. Challenging it like Zelaya did and calling for a vote on trying to hammer out a new one is treason, and that allowed the far right to swoop in, kidnap and expel him, and form their own government under it.

Reagan and his boys did so much damage to this country and the rest of the world that we'll likely spend the next ten generations trying to undo it.

Should all constitutions be respected?

to even DISCUSS the absurd provision limiting the president to ONE term in office (4 years), on the other, does not deserve a lot of respect. Nor does a Supreme Court that never reconciled those completely contradictory provisions.

That's how they convicted Mel Zelaya of "treason," in his absence--by claiming that his proposal for an advisory vote of the people on forming a Constituent Assembly to rewrite the Constitution was the same as if he had advocated lifting his own term limit--which he never proposed, and which the advisory vote could not have done.

Oscar Arias is right--it is the "worst Constitution in the world." And you don't need a Constitution to respect human and civil rights--only to fight for them when they are denied. Decent leaders DON'T NEED A LAW to tell them that using live ammunition on protestors (peaceful protestors, at that), torture, rape, beatings, arbitrary arrests, suspension of habeas corpus, banning free speech and freedom of assembly, pouring chemicals on news broadcasters' equipment and confiscating their equipment, to shut them up, and other such actions, ARE WRONG--undemocratic and WRONG.

The Junta has violated the existing Constitution in so many ways it isn't even funny. THEY are the traitors. They are the ones who ripped up the Constitution, not Zelaya, who merely wanted to exercise the God-given right of the Honduran people to agree to their Constitution! "We, the People" and all that! Jeez.