Honduran president ousted

[Godslayer Jillian]

Originally Posted by BBC News

New Honduran leader sworn in


A new president has been sworn into office in Honduras, hours after the ousting of President Manuel Zelaya.

Congress speaker Roberto Micheletti will serve as interim president until polls are held, Congress said.

The removal of Mr Zelaya by the army came amid a power struggle over his plans for constitutional change.

Mr Zelaya, who had been in power since 2006, wanted to hold a referendum that could have led to an extension of his non-renewable four-year term.

Polls for the referendum had been due to open early on Sunday - but troops instead took him from the presidential palace and flew him to Costa Rica.

New Honduran President Roberto Micheletti
Roberto Micheletti will govern until elections are held, Congress said.

The ousting of Manuel Zelaya has been criticised by regional neighbours, the US and the United Nations.

In the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, groups of Zelaya supporters were said to have set up barricades, while troops were at key sites.

Mr Micheletti told a press conference that a nationwide curfew was being imposed for Sunday and Monday, running from 2100 (0300 GMT) to 0600 (1200 GMT) on each night.

Days of tension

The swearing in of Roberto Micheletti - constitutionally second in line for the presidency - was greeted with applause in Congress.

"My slogan will be the reconciliation of the grand family of Hondurans... and a grand national dialogue," he said.

Congress said he would serve until 27 January, when Mr Zelaya's term was due to expire. Presidential elections are planned for 29 November.

Both Congress and the courts had opposed Mr Zelaya's referendum, which asked Hondurans to endorse a vote on unspecified constitutional changes alongside the November elections.

Tensions over the issue had been escalating for several days, with the army refusing to help with preparations for the referendum.

Just before dawn on Sunday, troops stormed the president's residence. There was confusion over his whereabouts for several hours before he turned up in Costa Rica.

Mr Zelaya urged Hondurans to resist those who had removed him, calling his ouster "a plot by a very voracious elite, an elite which wants only to keep this country isolated, in an extreme level of poverty".

But Congress said it had voted to remove him because of his "repeated violations of the constitution and the law and disregard of orders and judgments of the institutions".

In Tegucigalpa, groups of Zelaya supporters were setting up roadblocks around the presidential palace, Reuters said.

One man told the BBC that he had been in the city's main square all day, along with 2,000 Zelaya supporters. Jeronimo Pastor described the situation as tense and called on the international community to get involved.

But another resident of the capital said people were relieved at Mr Zelaya's removal. "Now we have a new president and will have elections and things will go back to normal," Kenneth Bustillo told the BBC.

The removal of Mr Zelaya has drawn criticism across Latin America and the wide world.

The Organization of American States held an emergency meeting, while UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for "the reinstatement of the democratically elected representatives of the country".

US President Barack Obama urged Honduras to "respect the rule of law" and a State Department official said America recognised Mr Zelaya as the duly elected president. The European Union called for "a swift return to constitutional normality".

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, meanwhile, blamed "the Yankee empire", and threatened military action should the Venezuelan ambassador to Honduras be attacked.

Center-left president Zelaya had wanted to do a nonbinding referendum to rewrite the Honduran Constitution, and Congress, the Supreme Justice, and the military had deemed it illegal.
Zelaya's plan was to change it so that he would be able to be reelected, and reelection is something frowned upon in pretty much all of Latin America.
However, Zelaya challenged the military's decision not to proceed with the referendum with the people themselves, hosting a protest to demand the referendum materials http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/am...ted/index.html and remember that the referendum was nonbinding.

The Supreme Justice justifies these actions by saying that Zelaya has a record of ignoring the Constitution: "The armed forces, in charge of supporting the constitution, acted to defend the state of law and have been forced to apply legal dispositions against those who have expressed themselves publicly and acted against the dispositions of the basic law" http://www.france24.com/en/20090628-...al-referendum+

Zelaya has been called authoritarian. His desire to be reelected does show his desire for power, and even further he has forced the Honduran media to give him two hours of every day for the airing of government affairs http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6690217.stm

However, this is, at least in simplified terms, an issue between the Constitution, and the referendum. Zelaya was two decimal places away from a majority vote, and that hasn't changed much since he was elected. What is legitimate here?
On the one hand there is the country's national assembly, it's military forces, and its justice branch defending its constitution.
On the other hand there is the rightful, democratically elected president who still has another half year of legitimate power, a nonbinding referendum (I can't stress that enough), and the support of the people.

Law or democracy? This day, they're almost dichotomous.

[Godslayer Jillian]

It bothers me that you guys would be so outspoken about something as futile as gun control or as whimsical as gun ownership; not hesitate in talking about a petition and its futility; but not a single word about an actual event that's unraveling as we speak?

[Deadmanwalking_05]

From the limited bit I'd heard,the Cartels got him because the fellow was going to make all drugs Legal,and the Cartel's didn't want to go out of business.

Just something I'd heard,don't really know if it was true or not.

[Saya]

Sorry dude, been following it on two other forums and don't really want to reword my opinion three times, so here's the hurried version:

Its a coup, it was going to be non-binding, if they didn't like the results they could have just ignored it. There were other changes he wanted to make besides extending his term, I can't find anywhere an outline of what exactly he wanted to do, but Al Jazeera reported on the 27th of June:

Zelaya, who leads the Liberal Party, has said that the constitution does not give enough power to Honduras' poor and that the political elite is benefitting unfairly from the current charter. About 70 per cent of Hondurans live in poverty.

The president's supporters say that a coup d'etat is a prospect.

...But the president has the support of labour leaders, farmers and civic organisations, who say that the changes to the constitution are needed to improve the lives of the majority.

Zelaya has not said what changes he hopes to make to the constitution, but his opponents say that he is trying to rewrite the document to allow him to stand for re-election.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/am...916984792.html

So since he never really stated exactly what was to be done, and it was all non-binding, I don't understand why exactly they felt the need to oust him like that. It seems to have been getting pretty personal too, in that article it also mentions that Congress voted to investigate his state of mind.