Violence and unrest in Honduras & China – we need to continue to stand up for human rights and democracy around the world!
I regret the military takeover in Honduras, but it’s clear President Zelaya was in violation of his country’s constitution.
The Hill writes:
McCain’s statement runs in direct conflict with the Obama administration’s position on the coup. Last week, the president said that the coup was “not legal” and that Zelaya is still the president of the Latin American nation.
Members of Congress have generally been mum on the situation, but some tensions are beginning to show, especially amongst Republicans. Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) said that Zelaya “trampled on the Honduran constitution” and called the Honduran president’s effort to extend his term a “blatant power grab.”
Zelaya proposed a constitutional referendum that would allow him to seek reelection, superceding term limits layed out in the country’s constitution. Members of the Honduran military arrested him and forced him into exile on June 29.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with the ousted president today.
The Honduran Constitution specifies that Presidents are only allowed to serve one-term. The current President Zeyala decided that things would be better if he were allowed to serve indefinitely. He tried to arrange a referendum to redo the Constitution so that he could serve a second term.
The Supreme Court declared that the Constitution does not allow the president to call a referendum, only the Congress can do that. So, they ordered the army to prevent the dictator from carrying out his plan to seize power anyway.
But Obama loves communist dictators. He would not side with the Iranian people against their Islamo-fascist dictator, and he will not side with the Honduran people against their communist dictator. It makes you wonder what Obama has against Constitutions, liberty, free market capitalism and limits on power, doesn’t it?
The latest
Obama’s UN representative introduced a resolution in the United Nations, along with other Marxist dictatorships in Venezuela and Bolivia, to support the Marxist dictator of Honduras.
The U.S. co-sponsored a successful U.N. resolution supporting Honduras’s ousted leader Tuesday as Republicans began to speak out against the Obama administration’s condemnation of the overthrow.
Manuel Zelaya, who was arrested and forced into exile Sunday, addressed the U.N. General Assembly after the unanimous vote on the resolution sponsored in part by Bolivia, Mexico, Venezuela and the United States.
“The resolution that the United Nations has just adopted unanimously … expresses the indignation of the people of Honduras and the people worldwide,” said Zelaya, who began his speech by thanking Venezuela and Ecuador.
Obama even wants to speak with the exiled dictator:
…”I believe, if he — if he does come either today or tomorrow, that he will likely meet with officials from the State Department, some of whom, as I said, have been in contact,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said in Tuesday’s briefing, repeating this when pressed by a reporter about whether Zelaya would meet with Obama.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has urged Zelaya to try to speak with Obama while in D.C., saying the American president’s support would “deliver a major blow” to Honduras’s interim government.
But the Republicans in Congress are siding with the Honduran people, and against socialist dictators:
“Manuel Zelaya trampled the Honduran Constitution by pushing for his illegal referendum to allow him to rule indefinitely, and by firing the top military official, General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, when he refused to comply with Zelaya’s unconstitutional orders,” Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) said in a statement to The Hill on Tuesday.
“There is little doubt that Zelaya, in his blatant power grab, has moved Honduras down a dangerous path toward less freedom, less security, and less prosperity. He consistently ignored the checks and balances which are essential to a democratic government.”
The referendum had been judged illegal by Honduras’s highest court and was opposed widely through political and military circles, including within Zelaya’s own party.
Hondurans are understandably afraid that, backed by Chávez agents and money, it could lead to similar antidemocratic subversion there. In Tegucigalpa yesterday, thousands demonstrated against Mr. Zelaya, and new deputy foreign minister Marta Lorena Casco told the crowd that “Chávez consumed Venezuela, then Bolivia, after that Ecuador and Nicaragua, but in Honduras that didn’t happen.”
It’s no accident that Mr. Chávez is now leading the charge to have Mr. Zelaya reinstated, and on Monday the Honduran traveled to a leftwing summit in Managua in one of Mr. Chávez’s planes. The U.N. and Organization of American States are also threatening the tiny nation with ostracism and other punishment if it doesn’t readmit him.
…As for the Obama Administration, it seems eager to “meddle” in Honduras in a way Mr. Obama claimed was counterproductive in Iran. Yet the stolen election in Iran was a far clearer subversion of democracy than the coup in Honduras. As a candidate, Mr. Obama often scored George W. Bush’s foreign policy by saying democracy requires more than an election — a free press, for example, civil society and the rule of law rather than rule by the mob. It’s a point worth recalling before Mr. Obama hands a political victory to the forces of chavismo in Latin America.
Meanwhile, the Honduran people marched in the streets against Obama and his communist dictator buddies, reports Gateway Pundit.
Hondurans protest against the unilateral meddling in their national affairs by Cowboy Socialist Barack Obama
Imagine what conservative Christian Republicans like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush would have done in a similar situation. They would have defended the rights and liberties of the people from the arbitrary power of socialist dictators. But they understood the value of liberty, democracy and human rights. They were prepared to take stands against the tyrannies of communism and fascism. They did not want to be loved by evil tyrants.
Why does Obama only meddle when the pro-democracy side is winning?
(Image from IBD’s Michael Ramirez, sent to me by ECM).
First, I really recommend you take a look at this beautifully-written article by Mary Anastasia O’Grady in the WSJ. It explains how the Honduran military was authorized by their Supreme Court to prevent their leftist dictator from extending his reign beyond the term limits required by law.
Excerpt:
It seems that President Mel Zelaya miscalculated when he tried to emulate the success of his good friend Hugo in reshaping the Honduran Constitution to his liking.
…That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.
But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.
But O’Grady is not optimistic that it will stick, especially with the pro-dictator Obama offering support to the dictator Zelaya via Hillary Clinton:
But Honduras is not out of the Venezuelan woods yet. Yesterday the Central American country was being pressured to restore the authoritarian Mr. Zelaya by the likes of Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Hillary Clinton and, of course, Hugo himself. The Organization of American States, having ignored Mr. Zelaya’s abuses, also wants him back in power. It will be a miracle if Honduran patriots can hold their ground.
Read the whole thing, it’s worth it.
But the best ongoing coverage of the Honduras situation is at Fausta’s blog. The main the thing I want to note from her coverage is that she has many links to other sites.
Excerpt:
This is why Zelaya was removed from power: all branches of government and the country’s institutions recognized that he had broken the law.
The Obama administration worked in recent days to prevent President Manuel Zelaya’s ouster, said a senior U.S. official. The State Department, in particular, communicated to Honduran officials on the ground that President Barack Obama wouldn’t support any nondemocratic transfer of power in the Central American country.
“We had some indication that a move against Mr. Zelaya was afoot,” said a U.S. official briefed on the diplomacy. “We made it clear it was something we didn’t support.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined Obama Sunday in criticizing the Honduran coup and calling for the restoration of the democratic process.
“We call on all parties in Honduras to respect the constitutional order and the rule of law, to reaffirm their democratic vocation, and to commit themselves to resolve political disputes peacefully and through dialogue,” Clinton said in a statement.
We saw above that everything that the Honduran government did was within the rule of law, and yet Obama and Hillary are following Chavez’s lead and making it sound like Zelaya was following the law!
WINTERY KNIGHT 