The reality is simple. Sr Zelaya is shown by a recent Mexican poll to be the most disliked, distrusted, and discredited politician in Central America. Both of Honduras' major parties--including Zelaya's own--as well as the Catholic Church, the Congress, all the major media outlets and over two-thirds of the people want Zelaya out of office. Sure, this impressive majority was willing to see Zelaya finish his term in office and leave next January, but, when he seemed to be lusting after some sort of legitimate way to become Strongman For Life, both the country's Congress and Supreme Court said, "You have been here too long, get thee hence."
The Army carried out the direction of the Supreme Court and removed Zelaya. While there have been a few quite minor protests against this action, the real opposition resides external to Honduras.
Sr Zelaya has his supporters. They are headed by Hugo Chavez, a man whose love of democracy is questionable but whose distaste for the United States is monumental. Other supporters include Daniel Ortega, who once upon a time headed a group which shot its way into power but was finally forced to back down, regroup, and ultimately seek office via election. Ortega's one time companion in revolutionary arms, Miguel d'Escoto Brockman, who abandoned the priesthood to become Nicaragua's foreign minister and current president of the UN General Assembly, has served as chief cheerleader for the ousted fellow leftist from Honduras.
The lesser cheerleaders--all of whom are on the far left shores of politics and most of whom seek to emulate Hugo Chavez by gaining constitutional changes which will allow presidencies-for-life include Ewo Morales and Rafael Correa. Neither of these have shown any reluctance in supporting Sr Zelaya irrespective of his genuine popularity among the homeboys of Honduras.
Zelaya has made a close and attentive study of the ways in which the staunch upholders of Left Socialism under its new name, "Bolivarianism," sought and retained power by exploiting not only the legitimate hostility engendered among the lower orders by the exploitative actions of a distant, haughty elite but also by manufacturing fear and loathing of the United States. Doing the latter requires no great effort considering the alternating fits of total indifference and daring interventionism of varying sorts which typify whatever passes for US policy toward Central and South America.
In recent days both Chavez and Ortega have threatened military intervention on behalf of Sr Zeylaya. The deposed wannabe dictator has vowed to return to his country in triumph. In a response which is not surprising, the military and acting president of Honduras, Roberto Michelletti, have pronounced the republic to be in peril and have summoned the reserves back to the colors.
In large measure due to the urgings of Miguel d'Escoto and the out-to-lunch approach of the Obama administration, the UN has inserted itself in the dispute. The decisions of the congress and supreme court of Honduras as carried out by the military are strictly an internal affair of Honduras. There is absolutely no justification under the UN Charter for that entity to involve itself in the matter.
Admittedly the UN has consistently expanded its view of its own importance and scope of its missions far beyond those seen by the drafters of the UN Charter over sixty years ago. Some of the "mission creep" seen by the UN in recent years can be marginally justified by asserting that internal disorder resulting in refugee generation at a level which threatens the stability of neighboring countries constitutes an actual or potential "breach of the peace."
By that interpretation the UN General Assembly and Security Council have the precedent on their side should they be so bold (or ill-advised) as to further involve the organisation in the ongoing affrays in Somalia or Sudan. But, even this broad understanding of UN Charter derived authority cannot be used to excuse any meddling in the current situation in Honduras. Other than the normal "migrant" population drifting north, there are no "refugee" hordes streaming across international borders.
The Organisation of American States (OAS) has some fig leaf of respectability in its efforts to defuse any crisis which may now attend the accomplished feat of Zelaya's removal. In any such efforts the OAS would only undercut any legitimacy it may possess should it either heed or give a platform for voices such as those of the Ortega regime or that of Hugo Chavez, which have a, shall we say, badly checkered past in the transparent practice of pluralistic democracy department.
The Obama administration would be wise if it were to quit hyperventilating over the removal of Zelaya and accommodate the new reality in Honduras. We do nothing constructive by damning the new government, halting our normal course of business with the regime and its military. All we do is surrender the field to the biggest mouths of the region. That is not in our interests. Nor is it in the interests of the people, stability, and future of Honduras.
Instead the Obama administration had best focus on the proliferation of destabilizing violence related to drug trafficking which is scourging not only Mexico but other countries in Central America. The Mexican situation has deteriorated from last year as the body count shows. This has occurred in spite of the strong effort to counter the violence made by the Calderon administration;
Crime--including kidnappings, murders and lesser forms of assault--dominate the upcoming election. The Green Party has even taken the quite unthinkable step of calling for the reimposition of the death penalty for kidnapping and murder. That in and of itself demonstrates the effect the narcotrafficking based crime tidal wave has had on the Mexican population.
Mexico is not alone. The press of Guatemala is filled with reports detailing assassinations, kidnappings, run-of-the-mill robberies which sound as if they should be datelined "Juarez" or perhaps "Chicago--1930." By some accounts the body count per day runs ahead of that seen in Mexico. Overall, a person is safer in Iraq or even Afghanistan than he is in Guatemala or portions of Mexico.
The pattern is repeating itself in Costa Rica and--during Zeylaya's watch--Honduras. As has been seen over the past two decades and more, the cycle of drug trafficking, violence, and political corruption by the those involved in these criminal activities can threaten the stability of a state. Just review the history of Columbia.
If outsiders seek to exploit to their political advantage the rents in the social and political fabric made by the violence and money of drug trafficking, the resultant instability can be far more difficult, perhaps impossible, to combat. For this reason alone the Obama administration should deal with reality as it is in Honduras--and elsewhere--not play meaningless and potentially counterproductive rhetorical games over the need for democracy to be observed regardless of the outcome.
Climb down from progressive fantasyland, Mr President, your country and the region to our south needs realism. Get a grip on it.
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