Military Coup Overthrows Zelaya Gov't in Honduras

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was overthrown in a military coup on Sunday, in what the New York Times points out was the first military backed toppling of a democratically elected government in Central America since the end of the Cold War. After armed men raided the presidential palace, deposed the president-still in his pajamas-and whisked him off on a military plane to Costa Rica, the Honduran Congress voted Zelaya out of office and replaced him with the President of the legislative body, Roberto Micheletti. Zelaya immediately rejected assertions by coup backers that he had resigned. Leaders from around the hemisphere, however, were unified in their condemnation of the coup. As the NYT writes, the Honduran military's actions united countries as "ideologically disparate as Havana's communist rulers and conservative Colombia." For its part, President Obama issued a statement calling on Honduras to "to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic charter." By Sunday night, U.S. officials said they had spoken with Zelaya and were working for his return to power in Honduras-in distinct contrast to the U.S. position vis a vis the 2002 coup against Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. Interestingly, just hours before the coup, the Washington Post reports that Zelaya had praised the U.S. "Everything was in place for the coup, and if the U.S. Embassy had approved it, it would have happened. But they did not. I'm only still here in office thanks to the United States," Zelaya told Spain's El País on Saturday. However, Micheletti responded to the words of hemispheric leaders yesterday, saying the military had acted on orders from the courts to "defend respect for law and protect the principles of democracy." "'Nobody, not Barack Obama and much less Hugo Chavez, has any right to threaten this country," Michelleti declared. The ALBA bloc of nations to which Honduras is a member is expected to meet today in Managua, Nicaragua to discuss Sunday's events in Honduras and Zelaya will be present there. I have not seen good reports yet detailing any bloodshed that may have followed the military ouster, although one rights group, Freedom of Expression, is reporting that left-leaning legislator Cesar Ham died in a shootout with security forces trying to detain him. There were also unconfirmed reports that members of the Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan diplomatic corps in the country had been roughed up by the Honduran military forces. Meanwhile, in South Florida, the Miami Herald writes that some Honduran ex-pats took to the streets in support of the military coup. "The military is supposed to protect the country and that's what they did today," a Honduran store owner told the paper while labeling President Zelaya a communist. Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady also supports the military coup in her column, berating Zelaya, per usual, as a stooge of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. She even goes so far as to claim the Sunday coup plotters were "strictly following the constitution."  

Meanwhile, in other major news over the weekend, the ruling Peronist faction of the Kirchners conceded defeat in Sunday's legislative elections in Argentina late last night. As the Wall Street Journal reports, former President Nestor Kirchner conceded to the party list led by rival Francisco de Narváez after trailing the businessman 34.5% to 32.2% after 91% of votes had been tallied. Sunday's vote appeared to go off without irregularities, says the paper,  

The Washington Post has a report on Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's visit to the White House this week. Uribe arrives in Washington on Monday, and it is expected that he will face tough questions about human rights abuses in his country. While the Obama administration offered no official word on Uribe's visit, "four people who have met with policymakers in the Obama administration say the United States is concerned about the wiretapping and surveillance of Uribe's critics by an intelligence agency controlled by the presidency and reports that as many as 1,700 civilians have been killed by Colombian army units in what a preliminary United Nations investigation characterized as ‘cold-blooded, premeditated murder.'" According to Adam Isacson of the Center for International Policy, "One of the first priorities of the Obama administration was to increase the number of friends [in Latin America], and he's made overtures to Mexico, Chile and Brazil. To Colombia, that's bad news because they become one of many friends, not the only friend." The WSJ also comments on the Uribe visit on its opinion page over the weekend. The paper argues that Obama should push for a U.S. military base in Palanquero, Colombia and be willing to push the stalled FTA with Colombia. "A U.S. military presence in the region is important, and the Palanquero option in Colombia is about the only one open to the U.S.," the paper provocatively writes.  

And the LA Times has news of new violence in Mexico. A deadly clash in Guanajuato between security officials and suspected drug traffickers ended with at least 12 dead on Friday. Police came under fire while attempting to raid a home in the rural central Mexican state. Also, from Mexico, the AP reports that 93 police officers were detained over the weekend, Mexican officials announced Sunday. The officers from the state of Hidalgo are suspected of aiding the Gulf Cartel's Zeta hitmen.

In other news, the U.S. ambassador to Haiti, Janet Sanderson, announced she would be stepping down after 3 ½ years on the job. According to the MH, "Sanderson's tenure, say Haiti observers, reflects not just her own even-keeled temperament, but the changing tenor of U.S. policy in Haiti following years of political turmoil when the United States was seen as an aggressive bully favoring regime change but speaking with a contradictory voice." In Sanderson's own words, "When I first got here, nobody was going out, there were no police on the streets, no elected president in office, no functioning parliament. It was unclear to a certain extent what direction the country was going." Also, Venezuelan ambassador to the U.S. Bernardo Alvarez returned to Washington on Friday, saying the restoration of top envoys was "the first step in normalizing relations." The U.S. is expected to return its top diplomat to Venezuela this week. 

Finally, in an opinion piece published before Sunday's ouster of Manuel Zelaya, Andres Oppenheimer writes in the MH that the nine-nation ALBA bloc is promoting an erosion of democratic values in the region by championing constitutional amendments that end presidential term limits. I think it is safe to say that now, after Sunday's coup against Zelaya, the terms of the discussion over the matter have changed significantly.