A commenter notes that Ed Morrissey points to a Google translation of an editorial that reports on an UN report (no link provided) that purports to have proven that that the removal of Manuel Zelaya from power in Honduras was legal.
First off, that’s not exactly a high bar when it comes to sufficient evidence to reach a conclusion of any kind. I would also note that while I am unfamiliar with Hondudiario, it has been the case that the media in Honduras have clearly taken sides and we also know that media in opposition to the de facto government have been harassed. As such, a Honduran media source sans other corroboration, especially one with such a vague report, is hardly dispositive.
Second, I will be interested in seeing said report. However, if what it does is conclude, like the CRS report that I noted over the weekend, that there were legal grounds from the Supreme Court and Congress to act against Zelaya because he was poised to defy a court order over his plebiscite, then this is not a justification for what happened nor does it alter the fact that the process was ultimately a coup.
Here’s the deal as simply as I can put it: even if their were legal grounds to remove Zelaya from office, his seizure and exile in the absence of an actual legal proceeding was a coup.
Put another way: if an arrest warrant was issued for a murderer for whom there is slam dunk evidence of guilt and instead of arresting the suspect the police simply shoot him in his bed the fact that there was an legal case with proper legal authority behind the arrest warrant does not mean that the police officer in question wouldn’t be charged with murder for shooting the suspect. The police officer could not simply say that the killing of the suspect didn’t matter and it wasn’t murder because there was some legal authority behind the original charges.
Likewise, even if legal authority existed for the SC and Congress of Honduras to act against Zelaya’s plebiscite, that does not justify events as they happened, nor does it change the definition of what happened. One cannot divorce the exile from the overall process.
I am curious as a) why this is so hard to understand, and b) why so many people are hellbent on supporting the actions of the de facto government.
Of course, I do know that at least part (and perhaps all) of the answer to “b” is a combination of chavezphobia and opposition to any position taken by the Obama administration.
(It is, of course, likely, that all of my desire to understand the process, as well as my respect for institutions just makes me a Commie lover (amongst other things), but so it goes…)
October 14th, 2009 at 9:52 am
You’re spot on wrt b) and the reason for a) is something you touched upon in your previous post commenting on the batshit insanity that now passes for intellectualism in the right wing, not to mention the literal worship of stupid for the same reasons as b) above (although, more broadly, intellectualism and actual knowledge being well known left wing traits which must be countered, not merely Obama positions).
October 14th, 2009 at 10:24 am
You got hate comments! You are important!
Oh, and we should all love commies and everyone because love is good. Alas, some people have their lovability increase in inverse proportion to their power to be above the rule of law.
October 14th, 2009 at 10:29 am
You got hate comments! You are important!
I’m sorry, but exclamation points are inadequate. If you could right those comments in all caps, I might actually see them.
October 14th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Again, Steven Taylor is absolutely correct.
Should those who approve of military coups be called dictatorship lovers or fascists as they call those who point out coups Commie Lovers?
October 14th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Media in opposition to the coup government have not been merely harassed, but shut down by military takeover and “legal” decrees. See this video of security forces shutting down Channel 36 (made possible by their failure to disable the surveillance cameras first; d’oh!). Channel 36 has been dark since September 28, and Radio Globo has silent except for those with internet access (a significant blow to Hondurans, though the audience outside the country quadrupled).
A tentative agreement on restoring Zelaya to office has been reached today, apparently, but it has yet to be signed by Micheletti.
The U.S. strategy of delaying Zelaya’s restoration during the summer (by failing to apply any real pressure until very late, and then too little, and by refusing to declare this what it was — a military coup) has had the unintended effect of galvanizing a broad pro-democracy resistance movement, uniting many different sectors of Honduran society around a demand for real participation in governance — a national constituent assembly to rewrite Honduras’ constition. The National Resistance Front will continue to be a force in Honduran politics regardless of what happens in the next few days.
October 14th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
The UN has officially and explicitly disavowed the existence of any such report; this is just more desperate nonsense by the coup-owned press, trying to cover for the illegitimacy of the current “government”.