http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124623220955866301.html
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 cons ution.
It seems that President Mel Zelaya miscalculated when he tried to emulate the success of his good friend Hugo in reshaping the Honduran Cons ution 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.
[THE AMERICAS] Associated Press
That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a cons utional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A cons uent 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 uncons utional, 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 cons ution, 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 cons ution. 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 ins utions 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.
Not to mention the majority of the rest of the world. i.e. nations who don't think we should be supporting military coups as the best way for international leaders to come into power.
And since the OP consistently can't wrap his brain around the existence of the political forum, I thought I'd post a link to help him get his bearings:
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=8
Oh yeah, we need to save the club for your important threads like "Eric Clapton Totally Looks Like Gordon Freeman"
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104373
Bite me.
And BTW this wasn't a military coup.
People loved that thread. And yes, that's what the club is for- threads about pop culture, music, etc.
Not your garbage ass political takes.
kiss my ass.The Club (132 Viewing)
Discuss anything that is on your mind. Let it all hang out
Whatever. Quit being an uninformed, stupid, subversive little and just go back to your normal routine of dropping semi-creepy sexual innuendo on the domes any female poster you can find.
who appointed you junior forum cop? did you get a badge and a secret decoder ring?
probably lost in his calvin and hobbes fan club tote bag
Viva, do you just keep your mouth on-call, by CC's (small) genitalia 24/7? Along with your tired C&H joke?
Any time he needs fellation you seem to be ready and waiting.
And BTW, you've gone to great lengths to repeatedly insult me over having a cartoon character for my avatar. Which besides being laughably ineffectual, is odd, considering you too, have cartoon characters as your avatar. Guess I picked the wrong cartoon, huh?
And BTW again. There are no Calvin and Hobbes fan club tote bags. The only piece of officially licensed C&H merchandise was a t-shirt that was sold to benefit a charitable organization. No C&H fan club would ever disrespect Watterson by producing products with stolen imagery. Duh.
Last edited by balli; 06-29-2009 at 06:15 PM.
Look dude, I could really care less what you think. You are the one that came in guns blazing and tried to throw down with a bunch of weak smack...now it degenerates to genitalia smack?...epic fail.
You clearly like Obama, Hillary, Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chavez. Gee, what a surprise.
Remember those SAT questions about "which one doesn't fit"?
There was a time that the answer to the group of:
President of the USA, Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chavez would have been obvious.
You got your ing "change". Why are you still so bitter?
Last edited by CosmicCowboy; 06-29-2009 at 06:31 PM.
If you wanted my take on this you could have gone to the flourishing thread about it in the political forum and asked me there. As it is, I don't know about Honduras, except that their president was democratically elected and in-term, but was captured by the military, in the dead of night and exiled out of the country before a new leader was "declared" and put into power without a single vote being cast.
And regardless of how I feel about Obama, Hillary, Raul Castro and Chavez, I know I don't support that kind of power grab. So yeah, I guess that means I'm some kind of a Stalinist?
If you were following Honduras you would know that the power grab was coming from Zelaya. They followed their cons ution to the letter. It was basically as if our President had been impeached and refused to yield the seat to the cons utionally designated next in line elected official.
Last edited by CosmicCowboy; 06-29-2009 at 06:43 PM.
CC- The UN, EU, Org. of American States and just about every single international political force has condemned this military action. It's been entirely unanimous. I'm sorry that for different reasons, some leftist leaders you don't like, are condemning the action too. But your weak little guilt by association, "Obama's a commie" argument, if you want to call it that, is a joke.Remember those SAT questions about "which one doesn't fit"?
There was a time that the answer to the group of:
President of the USA, Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chavez would have been obvious.
You might as well be saying Hugo Chavez likes y mus , Hugo Chavez is a commie. Barack Obama likes y mus . Therefore he's a commie too. Literally, that's the quality of your argument.
Winehole's about 15 steps ahead of you in the thread that matters, so if you have the intellectual grit (you don't) take your theories there, where they've already been gutted.
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=129914
LOL
Wineholes arguments have a many holes in them as that pathetic Hobbes doll you cuddle with every night while you suck your thumb.
Did he seriously go comic book geek and say that "What the official C&H fan club REALLY comes with..."
i did 'cause the last time i said something derogatory about c&h, you acted like a 10 year old girl that couldn't get jonas bros tickets, and this....
.......furthers my point.
I just hope one day Cuba and the U.S will be on 100% good terms. I want Cuba to be free, I want to go home!
i just had to do a search to verify my claim. i'm glad i did.
Dissing Calvin and Hobbes does make you look like a tool, FWIW.
i just had to do a search to verify my claim. i'm glad i did.
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