Left wing democratically elected Govt overthrown in a coup. (CIA have been involved there in the past). What does Obama do?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8123126.stm
Troops in Honduras have detained the president and flown him out of the country after a power struggle over plans to change the constitution.
President Manuel Zelaya was flown to Costa Rica from an air force base outside the capital, Tegucigalpa.
Mr Zelaya, elected for a non-renewable four-year term in January 2006, wanted a vote to extend his time in office.
His arrest came just before the start of a referendum ruled illegal by the Supreme Court and opposed by Congress.
There was also resistance within Mr Zelaya's own party to the plan to hold the vote.
Reuters news agency reports that police fired teargas at about 500 supporters of Mr Zelaya who had gathered outside the presidential palace.
'Arrested in pyjamas'
Protesters reportedly hurled rocks at the soldiers, shouting "Traitors", AP news agency reports, as tanks rolled through the streets and air force jets flew over the capital.
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Early on Sunday, witnesses saw dozens of troops surround Mr Zelaya's residence.
In other developments:
• At an emergency meeting in Washington, the Organization of American States condemned what it called a "coup" in Honduras
• Mr Zelaya's ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, blamed "the Yankee empire"
• US President Barack Obama called on Honduras to "respect democratic norms, the rule of law"; the EU condemned Mr Zelaya's arrest
From Costa Rica, Mr Zelaya told Venezuelan TV that Honduran soldiers had arrested him in his pyjamas.
"I'm in San Jose in Costa Rica," he said. "I've been the victim of a kidnapping by a group of Honduran soldiers.
"This was a plot by a very voracious elite, an elite which wants only to keep this country isolated, in an extreme level of poverty. It doesn't care about the people, it's not sensitive to them."
The military's dramatic move came after President Zelaya defied a court order that he should re-instate the chief of the army, Gen Romeo Vasquez.
The president sacked Gen Vasquez late on Wednesday for refusing to help him organise the referendum.
Mr Zelaya, who under current regulations leaves office next January, also accepted the resignation of the defence minister.
'US opposed coup'
The referendum was to ask the population if they approved of a formal vote next November on whether to rewrite the Honduran constitution.
MANUEL ZELAYA
Elected for Liberal Party in Nov 2005; beat ruling National Party candidate
Has moved Honduras away from its traditional ally the US
Enjoys the support of Venezuela's leftist President, Hugo Chavez
A civil engineer and rancher by profession
On Thursday, the Honduran Congress approved plans to investigate whether the president should be declared unfit to rule.
In an interview with Spain's El Pais newspaper published on Sunday, Mr Zelaya said a planned coup against him had been thwarted after the US refused to back it.
"Everything was in place for the coup and if the US embassy had approved it, it would have happened. But they did not," Mr Zelaya said.
The arrest of Mr Zelaya took place an hour before polls were due to open.
Ballot boxes and other voting materials had been distributed by Mr Zelaya's supporters and government employees throughout the Central American country.
The president has vowed to transform Honduras, saying the system currently favours the wealthy elite. But his opponents accused him of seeking to rule indefinitely.
Honduras - an impoverished coffee and banana-exporting nation of more than 7 million people - has experienced military coups in the past.
Soldiers overthrew elected presidents in 1963 and again in 1975; the military did not turn the government over to civilians until 1981.
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Thread: Another test for Obama
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28-06-2009 05:00 PM #1
Another test for Obama
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28-06-2009 05:15 PM #2
It looks like the US have already opposed the coup. What else can Obama do, why should unrest in Latin America be seen as a problem for him?
Should the US be seen as an international police for issues such as this?
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28-06-2009 05:28 PM #3This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
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28-06-2009 05:33 PM #4
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Most of it is about self interest. By having allies that they don't necessarilly like or agree with doesn't mean they're not good allies in strategic places. It reeks of double standards but that's just how it is.
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28-06-2009 05:52 PM #5This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
Sad but true, unfortunately morality does not rate very highly in international politics.
givescotlandfreedom - my point was not about the US's current allies, but that the OP was seeing a crisis in Honduras as a US issue. Should we be imploring them to intervene when, as you pointed out, the US may not be the best country to do so.
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28-06-2009 07:18 PM #6This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
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28-06-2009 07:37 PM #7
If Obama wants to prove his 'break from the past' credentials, he should be campaigning for the return of the democratically elected Govt. Chavez has already claimed the CIA is behind it.
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28-06-2009 07:53 PM #8
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28-06-2009 08:00 PM #9This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
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28-06-2009 08:08 PM #10This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
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28-06-2009 08:44 PM #11
I understand the Honduran Supreme Court have said they authorised the removal of Zelaya in order to 'defend the rule of law'.
Putting aside political affiliations, if an elected but time-bound leader looks to change the constitution to allow themselves to potentially remain in power, and such a move is ruled illegal by the courts and the leader acts to carry on regardless - and given that the Honduran constitution is clear that the rules on terms of office are not allowed to be amended - isn't the Supreme Court merely upholding the constitution, as distasteful as that might be for some of us
I'm naturally suspicious of who stands to gain when any leftist government comes to any sort of end, but leaving that aside it's hard to see how any notion of liberal democracy is achievable without justice as its central precept. The mechanisms we use to achieve that tend to be based around constitutional law and a judiciary as arbiters of that. If we don't sign up to that process then it's difficult to see how we can claim to be truly interested in liberalism or democracy.
Obviously that's no concern for the revolutionariesThere's only one thing better than a Hibs calendar and that's two Hibs calendars
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28-06-2009 08:46 PM #12This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
"Everything was in place for the coup and if the US embassy had approved it, it would have happened. But they did not," Mr Zelaya said.
Obama quote below from the BBC article, what more can he do...Military intervention to support democracy...that was an unprecendented success in Iraq and Vietnem.....
The White House denied any involvement; President Barack Obama urged Honduras to "respect the rule of law"
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28-06-2009 08:55 PM #13This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/06/25/77002.html
http://newsfromrussia.com/world/2005/12/02/68996.html
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id...onid=351020704
http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/23/stor...2305281700.htm
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28-06-2009 09:00 PM #14
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He certainly knows a lot about everything eh.
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28-06-2009 09:05 PM #15This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
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28-06-2009 09:36 PM #16This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
Also, term limits are really, really stoooopid.
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28-06-2009 09:45 PM #17This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
2) I'd be very surprised if the U.S. didn't have nukes trained on Havana.
What's your point?
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28-06-2009 10:02 PM #18
Oh, and although it would be slightly foolish to say outright that the CIA/US were behind it, it's not really a surprise to learn that the leader of the coup, Romeo Vazquez, is a graduate of the School of the Americas.
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28-06-2009 10:19 PM #19This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
)and putting aside your view on term limits;
If his actions were ruled to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court then isn't it intrinsically unjust for him to be allowed to carry on trying to carry them out?
As I said, it might not sit comfortably with a lot of us but if you have a constitutional democracy, you have a mechanism for interpreting it (and that tends to be the judiciary) and in this case the mechanism acted, it would appear, within the legal framework granted to it.There's only one thing better than a Hibs calendar and that's two Hibs calendars
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28-06-2009 10:27 PM #20This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
Then again, maybe I'm just a despot at heart and don't have the requisite level of respect for 'venerable' democratic institutions.
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28-06-2009 10:39 PM #21This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
There's only one thing better than a Hibs calendar and that's two Hibs calendars
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29-06-2009 10:41 AM #22
Another left wing Latin American head of state wanting to extend his term of office without the inconvenience of a democratic mandate. What a surprise! The certifiable Hugo Chavez has been trying this one on for years, and Castro wouldn't know a democratic mandate if it got tangled in his beard. A sizeable chunk of his population has already voted with their feet (or boats, rafts or whatever will get them away from the economic disaster inflicted on their country).
The Nicaraguan Sandanistas - darlings of the North London Guardianistas, at least did submit themselves to democratic elections - and were roundly humped. Their comrades are obviously determined not to repeat that mistake.
Conveniently, when the people they claim to represent get teed off with these power-greedy Marxist demagogues, they can always blame the CIA.
Amending your country's constitution can be a good and positive thing. Doing it to cling on to power in the face of yet another populace discovering that socialism is just state-created poverty in the making is just the first step on the road to dictatorship.
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29-06-2009 10:43 AM #23This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
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29-06-2009 11:37 AM #24This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
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All in all, one of the most astonishingly innacurate posts I think I've ever read on here.
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29-06-2009 12:16 PM #25This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
The Sandanistas were defeated in the 1990 elections and remained in opposition until 2006. They won that election due to a last minute split in their major opponents, the Liberals, who would otherwise have won easily.
This much is conceded even by the Wikipedia article on the FSLN which is outrageously biased in their favour. Or to put it in your terms, "accurate".
Mel Zelaya's referendum was judged unconstitutional by the country's supreme court, not the armed forces. After his removal a member of Zelaya's own party was sworn in to replace him by the Honduran Congress, who I think are closer to the voice of the Honduran people than Hugo Chavez. So there has been no military coup and the same party remains in power.
The only threat of outside intervention so far has come from the increasingly demented Chavez, who has threatened military intervention to reinstall Zelaya. Now who's nosing into other countries' affairs? Or is Chavez perhaps a tool of the CIA?
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29-06-2009 12:54 PM #26This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
Chavez goes on about Yankee involvement in everything yet it is he that is busy using his oil to further his own political agenda in South America (and beyond..fuel for London buses anyone?).
As for the OP, I don't see this as an American problem or issue but it is forever interesting that despite being denounced regularly for meddling America is always the first port of call when such problems as these arise and might need some sort of resolution...
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29-06-2009 12:58 PM #27This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
Your point about the 2006 election is correct, but you also fail to mention that there was an almost exactly equivalent split within the Sandinistas.
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I notice I still haven't been furnished with an example of a right wing coup against democratically elected, Latin American left-wing government that hasn't had the support or backing of the U.S./C.I.A.
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29-06-2009 01:06 PM #28
Oh and it's rather interesting to compare and contrast the OAS response to events in Honduras with their response to the overhrow of Aristide in Haiti in 2004. Rather enlightening.
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29-06-2009 01:27 PM #29This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
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29-06-2009 01:45 PM #30This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
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