Honduras 2009: naivety and utopias

The following article is the first collaboration to Worldwide (and let’s hope, more to follow) from Benjamín Blanco Abarca, journalist at the International desk in the newspaper La Tercera from Chile.



Benjamín Blanco Abarca, SANTIAGO DE CHILE

What happened these weeks in Honduras show us the ingenuity of the leaders in the central Latin American country, one of the poorest in the continent.

On one side we have a democratically elected president, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, who was trying a reform to the Constitution without the support from the Congress, the military or the judges. A utopia.

On the other side there are the powers named before, who made a coup without the political scoop to be aware of the outcome of their actions, including that neither international organization nor any country would recognize them as a legitimate government. Honduras is right now a pariah state, as they were 20 years ago South Africa, Chile, Israel or Taiwan. Today, when all the region’s countries have democratically elected governments, pretend a coup is a utopia too.

Zelaya, a politician from the right wing Liberal party, was sworn in 2006. He ruled the country for two years under the parameters of his collectivity. But after getting closer to Hugo Chavez and master himself in the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA for its acronym in Spanish) sponsored by the Venezuelan president, Zelaya made a 180 degrees turn in accordance to the Administrations close to Chavez, including proposing a constitutional reform to be reelected.

The coup supporters argue now that attitude of Zelaya, close to Mr. Chavez, to justify the coup itself, that with a series of tricks, they call “constitutional succession”.

However, is vital to take Hugo Chavez out from the equation

What Zelaya pretended to make last Sunday was a non-binding referendum on the possibility of, in next December’s elections, having another box where people could express themselves about the question of a possible modification in the Constitution. Taking into account that the elections are due at the end of 2009, and letting aside the hypothetical results of the query that never was made, they were still six months until the elections. Time more than enough to discuss these issues with Zelaya and seek a negotiated solution to the troubles Zelaya was getting the country into. Even José Miguel Insulza, General Secretary of the Organization of American States (OAS), was traveling to Tegucigalpa to mediate in these affairs.

Not to mention about the execution of the coup itself. Decades of history and stories about coups in Latin America apparently haven’t teached anything to the ones now in power in Honduras.

In the midnight of last Sunday, shots between the presidential guard and elite troops from the army woke up Zelaya. He was detained under the effect of a warrant from the Supreme Court who blames him of disrespect to the Constitution. But he is not detained, as it should had been if that order really existed, he is brought into an airport and sent out of the country. Costa Rica, by far the most democratic country in the region, assists Mr. Zelaya in quality of “guest”.

Later the tanks invade the streets, electricity supply is cut and there is a media blackout. Only Radio America transmits, in favor of the coup, informing every half an hour about the election of Roberto Micheletti, speaker of the Congress and also from the Liberal party, as new president of the country. Meanwhile, all the countries around the world, from Russia to the USA, going through Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Argentina, condemn the coup.

Later in the afternoon, the military and the coup supporters release a letter in which Zelaya allegedly certifies his resignation (why then detain him if he resigned?). But that night they say Zelaya was pretending to dissolve the Congress after the referendum.

But if there is something clear in all this is that this is new for America as a continent. Never before the USA had been against a coup in his backyard and never before had been such unanimity in the rejection of the coup.

What will happen now? Any scenario will be new and will set a precedent. The most plausible one can make the coup supporters to back down while Zelaya will return to the country and will announce elections in the next months.

However, Honduras will lose its credibility and unsuspected figures can take benefit from their actions during this crisis. For sure Insulza, Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega and of course, Obama, will be in the winning side (whatever happens in Honduras).

In Honduras, however, everyone will pay a high price for their naivety.



Photo: Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty


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