| Commentary |
|
 |
Published: Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Bylined to: Bill Weinberg
Honduran Connection: Bush-appointee Otto Reich mobilized to support putsch
World War 4 Report (Bill Weinberg): No nation has recognized the regime that took power in Honduras June 28, when the military summarily deported President Manuel Zelaya to Costa Rica in his pajamas. Nonetheless, the political right in both the United States and Honduras is trying to build political support for the coup regime.
Zelaya's opponents, who argue that the coup was not a coup, cite Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution, which states that any President who proposes an amendment to allow re-election "shall cease forthwith" in his duties. Missing from this explanation is acknowledgment that the Constitution was crafted by a military-dominated state in 1982, and that this measure was aimed at keeping elected leaders subordinate to the generals.
Zelaya was removed on the day his non-binding popular referendum on whether to open a constitutional convention was to be voted on. He had pledged to go ahead with the vote despite a Supreme Court ruling barring it. Hours after his removal, the National Congress read a forged "resignation letter" from Zelaya. It then passed a resolution giving legal imprimatur to the removal and making Roberto Micheletti, head of the congress, president.
Actually, it was impossible for Zelaya to extend his term through a constitutional reform, given that the binding vote establishing a constitutional convention (following the referendum scheduled for June 28 to establish a popular mandate) was to take place in November ... simultaneous with the presidential election.
At best, Zelaya would be able to run again in four years. In his calls for a constitutional convention, he had emphasized the need to strengthen the labor code and to ensure public control of the telecom and power industries -- not to abolish term limits.
In May, the Honduran Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CODEH) filed a case in the Honduran courts alleging that a military coup was in the works and calling on judicial authorities to intervene. Then, just days before the coup, the Supreme Court received an accusation against Zelaya --apparently by one Robert Carmona-Borjas, of the D.C.-based Arcadia Foundation. This was rushed through the legal process, and Zelaya wasn't given an opportunity to respond to the charges. Regardless of whatever constitutional violations Zelaya may have committed, the military abrogated the democratic process entirely by having the president deported.
Enter Otto Reich?
One of the grassroots groups mobilizing for Zelaya's return, the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH), issued a statement on July 3 asserting the "undeniable involvement" of former US Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich in the coup d'etat. Similar claims were made at the emergency session of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, D.C., where Venezuelan representative Roy Chaderton said: "We have information that worries us. This is a person who has been important in the diplomacy of the US who has reconnected with old colleagues and encouraged the coup: Otto Reich, ex-sub-secretary of state under Bush. We know him as an interventionist..."
Chaderton also cited Reich's purported involvement in the attempted coup d'etat against Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez in April 2002. In 2001, President Bush used a recess appointment to make Reich (a far-right Cuban exile)
|
Constitution of the
