The AP today with the first English-language report on the Honduran Congress’s decision to approve constitutional reform measures that would allow for popular referendums on issues including what it calls “once-taboo” subjects like re-election and term limits – currently non-amendable, or “petrified,” issues according to the Honduran constitution (Art. 374). The AP on the irony of the reforms, which received a first vote of approval Wednesday:
“There is a measure of irony in the changes approved Wednesday night: Congress justified the removal of the leftist Zelaya in large part on his attempt to hold a referendum that might allow presidential re-election.”
Per the reforms, the constitutional article on referendums and plebiscites would be altered so as to “remove a reference to a ban on such ‘set-in-stone’ constitutional clauses,” says the wire service.
The measure must now be approved a second time when a new congressional session begins Jan. 25 before going into effect. However, the AP does also note that the country’s Attorney General or Supreme Court could still challenge the constitutionality of the reform measures. A spokesman for the Attorney General’s office tells the AP that a decision about a possible challenge will not be made until after a second vote later this month. Ex-Honduran foreign minister Ernesto Paz Aguilar tells AFP that he believes the reforms could provoke “another political crisis.”
From exile in the Dominican Republic, Manuel Zelaya responded to Wednesday’s vote saying “What two years ago was considered a crime, today is constitutional.” For his part, current Honduran President Pepe Lobo, who has backed the reforms, repeated an old but never proven line to differentiate his reform project from that of Mr. Zelaya in 2009. Lobo: “[Zelaya] had wanted to stay (in power), but I repeat my pledge to the people that ... I will not stay one day longer in office.” But Lobo, quoted in BBC Mundo’s coverage, seemed quite clear that he would not oppose the right of Hondurans to approve re-election, should they desire such changes. Again Lobo:
“If the people want there to be re-election, there will be re-election. If they do not, there will not, period. What we cannot do is take away the right of the people to decide.”
Juan Barahona, a leader of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (FNRP) criticized the reform measures Thursday, maintaining they were another attempt by the Lobo government to “sanitize the coup d’etat” of June 28, 2009. Barahona: “For us, you cannot reform a constitution that does not exist, that was made void on June 28, 2009; from that point, we entered a ‘de facto’ period.” Another Zelaya backer, Doris Gutiérrez, says a constituent assembly – not a “cosmetic” constitutional reform “managed by the conservative sectors” remains the demand of social movements that protested the former president’s ouster. Gutiérrez: “Democracy must be about the ‘tortilla y frijol,’ she says, “not only about elections every four years – elections in which only a select few are able to run.”
On that last point, Honduras’s La Tribuna this morning says the Congress’s VP Marvin Ponce of the left-leaning UD says that, beyond the current constitutional reform process, he has received assurances from Congress president Juan Orlando Hernández and President Pepe Lobo that they will support the creation of a “gran asamblea popular” in March. No further details yet about who would be part of such an assembly.
To other stories:
· In Ecuador, new details about another referendum process that is taking shape in Ecuador. Argentina’s Pagina 12 says the referendum being forwarded by President Rafael Correa will include ten questions, ranging from matters related to the media, the restructuring of judicial system with international assistance, reforms to the banking sector, and matters of public security. The drafting of the questions was expected to be complete this week before moving to the Constitutional Court for approval. According to FLACSO’s Adrian Bonilla, the vote also has another principal objective: to restore the legitimacy and power of the president after the coup attempt of Sept. 30, 2010.
· The Economist on-line this week has a new interactive map of the changing flows of drugs moving through Mexico. According to the magazine, the “ominous feature” of the new map is its “southern edge” which illustrates how cartels are increasingly moving out of Mexico and into Central America.
· In other Mexico headlines, another mayoral murder, bringing the total to three already in 2011. This time the shooting occurred in Oaxaca, the AP reports, where the mayor of the small town of Santiago Amoltepec, Luis Jimenez Mata, was killed while visiting the state capital of Oaxaca. AFP, meanwhile, reports on a Mexican delegation’s visit to Central America beginning Thursday. Officials from El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras began with a visit to Guatemala before traveling to El Salvador and Honduras – a first attempt to deal jointly with migration security issues. And Foreign Policy highlights the fall of Mexico from “free” to “partly free” in Freedom House’s latest “Freedom in the World” index. According to Freedom House, the change comes because of the Mexican state's failure to “protect ordinary citizens, journalists, and elected officials from organized crime.”
· Also new in the Freedom House report, says Foreign Policy, the organization’s argument that emerging powers, including Brazil, have become “neutral or perhaps negative actors” with respect to international “democracy promotion. Freedom House’s director of research, Arch Puddington, with his take on Brazil, South Africa, and India specifically:
“Former Brazilian President] Lula [Da Silva] certainly was an enabler for Iran and also for Venezuela. South Africa -- even though the black majority relied so heavily on the international measures taken against the apartheid government -- they feel no sense of solidarity with other people who are suffering in the developing role. India is just completely realpolitik. In its own region, it could certainly help in Burma, but chooses not to.”
At World Politics Review, a different take on Brazil’s foreign policy under new President Dilma Rousseff. Elliot Brockner for ISN looks at how Colombia has deepened ties with Brazil and Venezuela – part of an emergent regional consensus around foreign policy issues. Also, from Brazil’s Folha, news that Dilma Rousseff plans to continue Lula da Silva’s habit of meeting with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez every four months, suggesting a continuation of what some have called the Caracas-Brasilia axis.
· EFE reports on the use of a new regional trade currency, the SUCRE, in a recent sale of Ecuadorean palm oil to Venezuela.
· Reuters reports on Democratic congressman Sandy Levin’s (D-MI) travels to Colombia to “observe conditions relevant to the Colombian FTA.” That trade agreement is the subject of an opinion in today’s Washington Post by former Asst. Sec. of State for inter-American affairs, Bernard Aronson. For Aronson, at least part of the logic for the passing the agreement now seems to involve Hugo Chavez. “Friends of Hugo Chavez get subsidized Venezuelan oil. Friends of the United States get thrown under the political bus,” he concludes.
· The AP reports on the suspension of three federal judges in Nicaragua for ordering the release of 10 convicted drug traffickers. Their release was held up after federal prosecutors successfully filed an appeal challenging the judges’ decision. According to the AP, “Nicaraguan Supreme Court spokesman Roberto Larios says the judges have three days to present a report explaining why they dismissed the cases against alleged drug boss Carlos Enrique Robles Ceiza and nine of his purported accomplices.”
· In Haiti, President Rene Preval officially received the OAS’s report and recommendations on the country’s Nov. 28’s elections. The AP says Preval is unhappy with the OAS’s recommendation that government-backed candidate Jude Celestin be removed from a second-round runoff in favor of Michel Martelly. Sources tell the AP the President wanted to revise portions of the OAS report, which, while not officially public yet, can be read in its entirety at through the Center for Economic and Policy Research’s site.
· Al-Jazeera reports that Guyana has become the latest South American state to offer diplomatic recognition to an independent Palestinian state.
· In Cuba, the AP says that a US diplomat, deputy assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, Roberta Jacobson was allowed to meet with jailed US contractor Alan Gross this week. Jacobsen was in Cuba for previously scheduled migration talks. She also met with Cuban dissident groups – meetings the Cuban government strongly rebuked.
· Finally, two opinions. Chris Sabatini in Foreign Affairs with his take on the current situation in Venezuela – including the passage of the “enabling law” in December, the economy, and human rights issues.. And historian Dana Frank, in The Nation, on US policy toward Honduras as conservatives take power in the US House.
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