(Apologies, this is a little behind the times but I've been away the past couple of days...)
There’s a strange parallelism to the claims currently being offered by both sides in the complex events that are unfolding in Honduras.
Supporters of the “ousters” – the term that the international media is preferring as a more neutral equivalent to coup plotters – claim that (Ex?-)President Manuel Zelaya, “Mel”, was attempting to reform the Honduran constitution to allow him to serve multiple terms and thus establish himself effectively as a constitutional dictator. Designed to limit this classic tendency toward the perpetuation of personalist rule in Latin America, the Honduran constitution explicitly prohibits the alteration of the framework of elections to permit presidents to seek re-election. The key clause is article 239 of the constitution, which reads:
“El ciudadano que haya desempeñado la titularidad del Poder Ejecutivo no podrá ser Presidente o Designado.Thus, the coup was not a coup, it was the legitimate exercise of constitutional power by Congress and the Supreme Court, who controlled and ordered the military. This argument is, of course, rather undermined by the fact that in the process of supposedly defending the constitution, the military set about violating several other due process clauses of the same constitution (against protestors and supporters of Zelaya, not to mention Zelaya himself, who was jetted out of the country under quite peculiar circumstances).
“El que quebrante esta disposición o proponga su reforma, así como aquellos que lo apoyen directa o indirectamente, cesarán de inmediato en el desempeño de sus respectivos cargos, y quedarán inhabilitados por diez años para el ejercicio de toda función pública.”
"A citizen who has held the title of Chief Executive cannot be President or Designate.
"Anyone who breaks this rule or proposes its reform, or those who support either directly or indirectly the same, will immediately cease to hold their respective offices, and will be banned for 10 years from the exercise of all public functions." (With apologies for dodgy translation.)
Meanwhile, the left claims Mel that was operating entirely legally in his efforts to reform the constitutional structure of Honduran government to allow for multiple terms of office. At Counterpunch, Alberto Vallente Thorensen admits that the article says what it says but claims (in my view rather Aesopianly) that Mel was not violating this rule since he was trying to rewrite the constitution, not amend it.
Thus we have the classic elements of a constitutional crisis: both sides claim to be the legitimate parties and the other to be violating the due process of law. Meanwhile, both sides attack each other with what are the deeper, underlying issues: the right accusing the left of being stooges of Chávez and Castro; the left accusing the right of operating as proxies for an elite who will sell out their country to the United States (“vendepatrias”), and noting that many of the military leaders, rather unsurprisingly, have close connections with the US School of Americas / WHINSEC apparatus.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has been going through some rather peculiar contortions, informally accusing the “ousters” of being coup-plotters but not formally saying so, since that would require the US to implement sanctions against the nation. It seems that the Obama administration is unhappy with the precedent that the removal of a Latin American president by the military would set, and afraid of the impact it might have on perceptions of US power in the region (both amongst those who think the US is behind everything and those who think the US is no longer a force to be reckoned with), but not entirely supportive of an individual who has been a regular critic of the US under both Bush and Obama.
Whatever one thinks about the question of blame, one thing is undoubtedly clear. Whilst arguably imposed for the best of reasons, Article 239 has proven to be badly constructed and dangerous. Not in placing term limits; this, given the context, seems an eminently reasonable thing (and I’ve elsewhere criticised Chavez for leading the effort to undermine constitutional legitimacy rather than establish a political tradition outside of personal rule). No, the problem is with the sanction. The requirement for the “immediate removal” of the advocate of constitutional reform provide no opportunity for discussion, investigation or a process of impeachment, which – as the US model shows – allow for a thorough airing of views, and a degree of public (and judicial) examination of the issues before any irrevocable decision is made. Whilst it seems at times that this only builds tension, actually it allows groups to engage in public debate before any final or shattering decision is made. Here, the speed of the action has inevitably left massive doubts about the real motives behind the action and the guilt or otherwise of the president, and it’s now extremely difficult to see how either Zelaya can be reinstated or broader violence averted.
It’s notable that impeachment crises in the US have as often been effective without reaching their end as they were in the final vote. In fact, look at the Clinton impeachment process: the final vote settled nothing that had not already been determined during the trial by media. Often we consider this a bad thing, but actually it allows for a degree of public engagement that this kind of judicial fiat in Honduras precludes.
It seems the best thing that the acting government could do now would be to try to reach some kind of accord which would allow for the safe return of and a trial of Zelaya and a more neutral adjudication of the issues at stake, perhaps under OAS auspices or similar. "If we were able to get to a ... status quo that returned to the rule of law and constitutional order within a relatively short period of time, I think that would be a good outcome," Clinton says (rightly, but with no clear indication of how to get there). Unfortunately, the country is so deeply polarised, a neutral adjudication seems far from probable. Obama will be even more of a magician than I think he is if he is able to wangle the Central American republics out of this one...
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