Hillary Rodham Clinton – remember her? – announced today that the United States is cutting off all non-humanitarian aid to Honduras and will not recognize the results of the next election, scheduled for November, unless the country restores Manuel Zelaya to the presidency.
The announcement offers no rationale. It admits that “both the legislative and judicial branches of the government” were “participants” in the so-call coup that sent Zelaya into exile. Stated more fully, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Zelaya had violated Article 239 of the Honduran constitution, which forbids the president to seek a second term and automatically removes him from office if he does. The court ordered the military authorities to enforce its decision. They did, and the Congress, controlled by the president’s own political party, also voted to remove him. If that constitutes a coup d’état, could Zelaya have been deposed by any means that the State Department would accept? Have Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton amended the Honduran constitution to make presidents irremovable?
Rick Richman aptly labels the American action “Chicago democracy”. The open question is, cui bono? There’s no visible U.S. interest served by interfering in the internal affairs of a small friendly Central American nation, but someone else, as Mary Anastasia O’Grady observes, cares greatly about what happens there:
By insisting that Mr. Zelaya be returned to power, the U.S. is trying to force Honduras to violate its own constitution.
It is also asking Hondurans to risk the fate of Venezuela. They know how Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez went from being democratically elected the first time, in 1998, to making himself dictator for life. He did it by destroying his country’s institutional checks and balances. When Mr. Zelaya moved to do the same in Honduras, the nation cut him off at the pass.
For Mr. Chávez, Mr. Zelaya’s return to power is crucial. The Venezuelan is actively spreading his Marxist gospel around the region and Mr. Zelaya was his man in Tegucigalpa.
The Honduran push-back is a major setback for Caracas. That’s why Mr. Chávez has mobilized the Latin left to demand Mr. Zelaya’s return.
And the Latin left now has new members: the yanqui President and Secretary of State. The United States is still dictating to Latin America, just as in the bad old days, and displaying contempt for democratic and constitutional processes. The difference is that we used to bully in behalf of banana growers; now we’re providing the muscle for the region’s foremost despot.
Update (9/4/09): We learn more from Assistant Secretary of State Philip J. Crowley. The gist of Crowley’s explanation of the reasons for the aid cut-off to Honduras is that there was no military coup. The Administration simply didn’t like the outcome of Honduras’s constitutional process and has ordered the “de facto government” to reverse it. With Iran and North Korea, we negotiate. To Honduras, we issue unappealable commands.
Maybe the President should appoint Hugo Chávez to Mr. Crowley’s position and cut out the middleman.
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