The very thing undermining the situation in Honduras is the rush to label the ousting of Zelaya as a coup, or a military coup. It was neither.
Yesterday the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee held a hearing to better understand both what happened in Honduras and how best to respond to it. As I listened to the opening statements from the members of the subcommittee, the issue of whether this was a coup or not split right down party lines. Democrats believed it was an illegal coup or military coup, and republicans believed it was both a legal and constitutional act of democracy – not a coup. And the most interesting aspect was that only one side provided proof of their claim.
There was one question/statement offered by the subcommittee chair on the constitutionality of the military removing Zelaya:
“People are arguing that President Zelaya’s removal from power was constitutionally appropriate. The troubling thing and even people in the panel who are saying that President Zelaya violated the law – I mean, can anybody tell me where in the Honduran constitution gives the military the right to remove the President from power at gunpoint and whisk him out of the country? I don’t think that anyone differs from me on that. I don’t think that there is anything in the Honduran constitution that would give the military that power – I see people nodding their heads. So I think that is something that is troubling…”
The problem with this conclusion is that it is based on misunderstanding of the facts which I believe the ranking member Representative Mack seems to settle quite well:
Representative Mack brought up Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution. Here it is (emphasis mine):
“No citizen who has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President. Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform, as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years.”
Article 239 is self terminating. Based on the constitution, when Zelaya “issued a decree ordering all government employees to take part in the Public Opinion Poll to convene a National Constitutional Assembly”, he “triggered a constitutional provision that automatically removed him from office.” And that is exactly what Representative Mack pointed out.
So based on Mack’s assertion, Zelaya was no longer President when he was found guilty of this act by the Honduran Supreme Court vote of 15-0. So in effect, one could assert that when they exiled Zelaya he was merely a private citizen.
And to the point of whether the Honduran Military had the constitutional power to remove Zelaya at gunpoint, it’s clear that this was a governmental action and not a military one. If the Supreme Court authorizes the military to arrest the president, then it is their constitutional duty to do so. In fact it makes sense to me that the Honduran Supreme Court would send the military to do this as it was such a high profile case. If this were to happen in America, I would not expect the Washington DC Police department to handle something of this magnitude, and perhaps not even the FBI.
Now, it is evident that perhaps in retrospect that they should not have exiled him, but I will give the Honduran government the benefit of the doubt on this as it was clearly a difficult decision for them to make for both Zelaya’s saftey and that of the Honduran people. But this does need to be remedied in the current negotiations. I believe that Zelaya needs to return to Honduras to face prosecution and due process.
So as Rep. Mack said, what actually happened here is not hard to figure out. But after listening to Mack’s statements and that of others in the room who were in agreement with this, still most democrats present continued to ignore the facts and refer to this as an illegal military coup and asked questions of the panel regarding stopping more aid to Honduras and the reinstatement of Zelaya to power. It’s as if they didn’t come to the hearing to learn what happened, but rather they came with their predetermined notions and stuck to them. I’m not sure if they just want to be on the side of Obama or if they don’t want to be on the side of ousting a president. I believe it could be both.
UPDATE: I notices that Ed Morrissey wrote a post regarding the hearing today as well. It has a little different take than mine.