Coup Fears in Honduras
Civil society organizations and UN General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto have warned of a possible coup attempt by the Honduran military. D'Escoto's spokesperson said that the Assembly President “clearly and strongly condemns the attempted coup d’etat that is currently unfolding against the democratically elected Government of President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras.” Fears of a coup stem from a military deployment around the Presidential Palace and the Toncontín airport on Thursday.
The military and President Zelaya have been at odds over the President's initiative to hold a popular consultation on June 28 to decide if November's presidential elections should include a referendum where citizens would vote on whether or not Honduras should write a new constitution.
Mexico's El Financiero reports that President Zelaya believes his problems stem from his decision to join the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's alternative to the US-supported Free Trade Area of the Americas.
However, Venezuela's TeleSUR reports that Honduras' current problems stem from that country's free trade agreement with the United States:
Carlos Reyes, an independent Honduran presidential candidate, reported on Thursday that s ince 2005, when the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States was approved, popular movements "said that that was the final blow to the Constitution, and therefore a new Constitutional Assembly was necessary."For that reason, President Manuel Zelaya has taken up the cause and has rallied Hondurans around the necessity of holding a referendum during the upcoming elections, explained Reyes in a telephone interview with TeleSUR.
"This has unleashed the wrath of powerful groups, of the dominant classes that have been waging a terrible campaign. Yesterday they were even talking about a coup," he noted.
Honduras' Supreme Court ruled the June 28 consultation illegal. Following the Supreme Court's decision, Honduras' Congress unanimously voted to ask the Organization of American States (OAS) to withdraw the three observers it had sent to observe the consultation. Congress argued that the OAS observers' presence legitimated a process that had been declared illegal by the Supreme Court.
Honduras' La Tribuna reports that following the Supreme Court decision, the military refused to distribute the ballot boxes as originally planned.
High-ranking military officials have refused to distribute the ballot boxes and the rest of the materials necessary for carrying out the consultation.
In retaliation, Zelaya fired the head of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Romeo Vásquez, and accepted the resignation of Minister of Defense Edmundo Orellana.
Likewise, the commanders of the other branches of the Armed Forces, Military, Navy, and Air Force, quit in solidarity.
La Tribuna reported that the military deployment around the Presidential Palace and the airport immediately followed the firing and resignations.
President Zelaya has called for mass mobilizations in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa "to make decisions in favor of Honduran democracy and development." Peasant leader Rafael Alegría told TeleSUR that peasants, indigenous people, and workers from around the country have set out from around the country towards the capital to support the president, and that some have already arrived.
Today President Zelaya and a caravan of supporters entered the Hernán Acosta Mejía air force base to recover the ballot boxes for the June 28 consultation that the military had refused to distribute. The president and his supporters loaded the ballot boxes into trucks and removed them from the base so that they can be used for the Sunday consultation.
A correspondent from Radio Es Lo De Menos who travelled with the caravan to the air force base reports that 25,000-30,000 people participated. The Associated Press, on the other hand, reports that only "dozens" of people entered the base to recover the ballot boxes.
One caravan participant, interviewed by Radio Es Lo De Menos on a bus on his way to the military base, called for international solidarity in the form of actions at Honduran consulates and embassies: "This is a call to the people and unions of the world to plan actions in solidarity with the Honduran people at consulates and embassies so that this coup doesn't happen."
Meanwhile, the Honduran Congress has convened an investigation into the president's "mental health" to determine if he is still capable of governing the country.
Email this page
The President is clearly insane.
Submitted on June 26th, 2009 by Jeff SimpsonThe congress is correct to question his mental health. The man walks on to a military base with a few dozen civilians, the day after the military surrounds him with tanks? Obvious nutcase.
A few dozen? Or 25 - 30
Submitted on June 26th, 2009 by arevleone (not verified)A few dozen? Or 25 - 30 thousand. Depends on who you believe. I wish that we would not so easily dismiss out of hand the struggle of a people, and a president, to create a truer government for, by and of the people. I find calling President Zelaya an "obvious nutcase" incredibly offensive.
Sarcasm. See below.
Submitted on June 26th, 2009 by Jeff Simpsonnt
honduran president removed,coup or no coup
Submitted on June 28th, 2009 by markbonam (not verified)I lived in honduras for 2 years and i guarantee you one thing, the truth is being surpressed by those who stand to lose the most. Life is cheap in Honduras but dinero / pisto (money) talks. Both those who live in the country and those wealthy hondurans abroad will be behind this power play. It is too easy to right off the president as a leftist. It is impossibleto stand against conglomerates in central America and not be considered leftist. The one good thing is that the Americans didnt back, move on or cause this potential coup. Watch Chavez posture and do nothing. But with Ortega, Chavez along with the Bolivian president all moving away from an american trade agreement this is going to get worse sadly before it gets better. Surprise surprise the little man loses again.
At least thousands
Submitted on June 26th, 2009 by Kristin BrickerThe 25-30 thousand estimate by independent radio looks like it was high, but the AP's estimate was low. Stay tuned later today for a more decisive answer, but sources are saying that about 5,000-10,000 people joined the President on the military base. That's a very impressive number, given that the President essentially hopped on a bus and said "follow me" and mobilized thousands of people in a matter of hours.
Unless something very big happens and requires another article, I'll be posting updates to this article in the comments section here.
That was a joke.
Submitted on June 26th, 2009 by Jeff SimpsonThe president's actions were obviously extremely courageous. I guess my point was how ridiculous the AP's lowballing is. If Zelaya had gone to the base with so few, I don't think he would have left with the ballots. Dig me?
Videos of the rescue of the ballot boxes
Submitted on June 26th, 2009 by Kristin BrickerYes, that's exactly what I was thinking when I read that outrageous AP claim.
Mel en la caravana | 
Llegada a la base | 
Llevando las urnas
Here's some videos posted by Chiapas Indymedia:
Videos de la caravana:
That's 1. Mel (Zelaya) in the caravan (that's him in the cowboy hat); 2. Arriving at the base; and 3. Taking the ballot boxes.
They're not the greatest in terms of seeing exactly how many people arrived at the base, because none of them pan the whole crowd. One of them shows a shot of a crowd of people arriving at the base, but they're still trickling in during the video, so it's impossible to tell how many were there in all. They arrived in a motorized caravan, reportedly with 24 standing-room-only buses and at least 50 cars. It progressed very slowly through Tegucigalpa, surely picking up more vehicles along the way as it crawled through heavy traffic.
What is impressive is that the President managed to mobilize this number of people in a very short period of time, with more due to arrive from the countryside today.
By contrast, anti-Zelaya students held an event where they read excerpts of the Constutition and handed out free copies. You can see in this video of the event that all of the participants fit under a small tent (in other words, it was poorly attended). The students are in their school uniforms, and don't display the name of any student organization. Yet they were organized enough (or sufficiently funded by some third party) to get together the money to rent a tent and rush print plastic banners in support of the current Constitution.
With the ballot boxes now under Zelaya's control, the June 28 citizen consultation (a vote on whether or not to have a vote on whether or not to write a new Constitution) is scheduled to go on as planned, with ballot boxes being distributed to every municipality in the country.
June 28 will be a decisive day. Up until now, the military has simply taken a passive-agressive stance. They refused to distribute the ballot boxes, though they didn't use force to prevent the people from removing them from the base. They've surrounded the Presidential Palace and the airport, but they haven't detained Zelaya.
The Supreme Court has declared the June 28 consultation illegal, and Congress and the military support the Supreme Court decision. On June 28 it will be Zelaya and the people against the entire Honduran federal government, as citizens go to cast their votes in the consulation. We'll see if the military stands aside on June 28, or if it decides to uphold the Supreme Court decision by force.
Sounds like he could be crazy...
Submitted on June 26th, 2009 by Dennes Longoria``Mexico's El Financiero claims that President Zelaya's problems stem from his decision to join the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's alternative to the US-supported Free Trade Area of the Americas''
I checked out your link and it says that's what Zelaya claims, eg: that his attacks are based on him joining the Bolivarian Alternative. El Financiero's then goes on to say that internal organizations are all saying the guy is unfit to lead. I quote:
``El mandatario hondureño se escuda en que es objeto de ataques porque integró a Honduras a la Alternativa Bolivariana de las Américas (ALBA), pero a nivel interno su gobierno ha sido calificado como un "desastre" por las diversas organizaciones de la sociedad civil. (Con información de Notimex/GCE)''
Correction
Submitted on June 27th, 2009 by Kristin BrickerCleared up the El Financiero confusion.
Didn't the Supreme Court rule the process illegal?
Submitted on June 27th, 2009 by Dennes LongoriaI don't understand Zelaya's insistence in pursuing something that's been rendered illegal... so the results will probably not have any legal standing or change anything, but we'll see I guess...does he not understand what the term 'illegal' means? Means don't do it...