ia the BBC: VClashes as Honduran crisis grows
At least one person was killed when Honduran troops dispersed supporters of ousted President Manuel Zelaya at Tegucigalpa airport, officials say.
Thousands tried to reach the airport as Mr Zelaya’s plane flew in from the US while the interim authorities insisted it would not be allowed to land.
One gets the impression that the Honduran official who ousted Zelaya actually thought that if they could just dump him out of the country that that would be that.
Another thought: if there was a legal basis for the ouster, why not let him land and just arrest him and give him the trial he didn’t get in round one? I think that the answer is contained, at least in part, in the aforementioned impression. There doesn’t seem to have been sufficient thought given to the entire process.
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July 6th, 2009 at 10:43 am
I’m on record in Forbes as stating that the military didn’t think out the repercussions of exiling the President, so I can’t disagree with you there.
But I think you’re being a little too abrupt in trying to outplay the interim government. Micheletti wants one thing: to have Santos win the upcoming election. Letting Zelaya land and then forcibly arresting him doesn’t do anything to advance that goal, ends the possibility (however small) of an electorally valuable compromise, and runs the risk (also however small) of inciting more violence. Not much gain.
The big error here, I think, is that the OAS keeps misreading the interim government. Once they start thinking in terms of the November election, then they’ll be able to broker a compromise. Right now, though, they keep willfully misunderstanding the other side’s objectives, and that’s a problem.
July 6th, 2009 at 10:58 am
I suspect that trying to run out the clock if part of the goal here for the interim government (if not the main goal).
However, doing so undercuts their fundamental argument, i.e., that they acted legally and constitutionally in ousting Zelaya. To put off a chance at having actual due process screams that they never wanted a trial in the first place.
July 6th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
“Oust” is vague, but if you mean “exile,” the military’s chief lawyer has already admitted that was a violation of the law.
July 6th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Yes, but if the case was simply that the military was over-zealous with the exile part and the SCJ and friends were all ready for a real trial, then why not let him land and give him that trial?
July 6th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Well, what I wrote in my first comment above.
Imagine the following: I, Noel Maurer, am the interim president of Honduras. Well, I know myself, and I know that I would have preferred to arrest Zelaya and put him on trial. (Heck, I would have preferred to let him go ahead with his referendum, but let’s say that the Supreme Court and military and rest of my party called it and I’m here holding the bag.)
Still, despite my preferences, he was in fact exiled, and in turn the entire OAS turned against the new government. Now his plane is circling overhead demanding to land. What do I do?
I can let him land and arrest him, but what would that accomplish? Pretty much nothing. The OAS has given no sign that their position would change; nor have foreign governments. I would have the satisfaction of showing time-consistent ideological preferences, but that and two bucks will get me a ride on the T.
(I think. I have a Charlie Card. What does a ride cost? I just feed twenties into the machine every week and wave the card in front of the black pad. But I digress.)
On the other hand, if I don’t let him land, it costs me nothing. I can continue to bargain with the OAS, if they decide to bargain with me. I keep all my options open. I continue to run out the clock on November, at which point all sanctions will likely be dropped. I avoid the uncertainty of a trial, both legal and political.
I am not anticipating that my troops will shoot anyone, but even in retrospect it seems unlikely that having let him land would have headed off that horrible incident.
So while I would have preferred to have arrested him at the beginning, it didn’t happen, and the OAS has given me no sign that arresting will do anything to improve the situation. Bridge, water, lemons, lemonade … don’t let him land.
So if that’s what I would do in Micheletti’s position, and I consider myself a pretty strong constitutional democrat, I can’t use the fact that the current Honduran leadership is doing the same thing to argue that they are not constitutional democrats.
I’m not arguing that this is Micheletti’s thinking, because while I can say that I think it’s likely, I certainly can’t prove it. Future evidence could easily prove me wrong, and you know by now that I change my opinion pretty easily when new facts come to light. (Yes, you can take credit, sir!) Perhaps the civilians always intended to banish the President, constitution be damned. I don’t know, even if I currently suspect not.
But I am arguing, fairly strongly, that the current actions of the interim government do not provide any evidence for the proposition that Zelaya’s civilian opposition intended to exile him from the very beginning and care nothing for legality.
I hope that’s clear; as you probably know, I’m not one for contention.
July 6th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
If the civilians were all ready for a trial and believed that Zelaya was guilty and could be proven as such, then they should still welcome his return and a fair and transparent trial would go a long way towards diffusing the international part of this problem.
If Michelettie let Zelaya back in and formally charged him, what is the OAS going to do about that?
Plus, if this was all just the military screwing up, then why not arrest the ones who violated the constitution (art 102, I think) by exiling Zelaya and tell the world about it? Demonstrate a commitment to rule of law rather than shooting protesters, curtailing civil liberties and messing with the free press. They just aren’t aren’t acting like innocents in all of this and ramblings about the Nicaraguans massing troops and having having to step back the remarks isn’t making Micheletti look good.
I am far from convinced that the military wen rogue in exiling Zelaya, but we shall see.