Military coups and banana republics
Jorge HEINE
If President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras finds himself back in office
as a result of concerted international pressure, it would show a new
measure of hemispheric cooperation.
The ouster by the military of President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras,
taken unceremoniously from his official residence in Tegucigalpa, and
flown, still in his pajamas, to San Jos‚, Costa Rica, is a novel
challenge. Leaving military coups behind is one of Latin America's great
accomplishments. Democracy, albeit with imperfections, is the norm, with
the single exception of Cuba, and the times when the region was chiefly
known for "coups and earthquakes" seemed to be over.
Forced to leave
This does not mean that civilian, elected Governments have had some
sort of blank cheque guarantee to last. In this decade alone, several
Presidents were forced to leave before their time was up. They were
unable to deal with economic and social crises, mass demonstrations and
widespread popular opposition to their rule.
Although these 'falls from grace' of Presidents like Fernando de la
R£a in Argentina, Gonzalo S nchez de Lozada in Bolivia and Gustavo Novoa
in Ecuador, among others, were sometimes described as 'soft coups,' that
was not really the best term. Sometimes, Governments just fall apart,
and although in parliamentary systems there are ways and means of
dealing with such crises, in the more rigid presidential systems in
Latin America, there is no such flexibility, and some messiness ensued.
But it is one thing for a Government to fall apart, it is quite
another to have the generals give it a push, by bursting into the
President's bedroom at 5 o'clock on a Sunday morning, manhandle him at
gunpoint, put him on a plane and send him off to a neighbouring country.
Once that is condoned, anything goes, and that way lies the road back
to the heyday of the Pinochets, Somozas and Stroessners of our world.
In marked contrast to what happened in 2002 in the coup against
President Hugo Ch vez in Venezuela, the international community,
including Washington, has been unanimous in condemning the coup.
Soft coup
Aware of treading dangerous ground, the Honduran military immediately
worked with Congress to have a new President take office. This is
Roberto Micheletti, the President of Honduras' unicameral Parliament,
sworn in after the Congress approved President Zelaya's resignation in a
letter the latter denies having written (so much for parliamentary
procedures).
Far from being a "soft coup," this was pretty harsh. Eight Cabinet
members were arrested, as was the mayor of the country's second largest
city, San Pedro Sula. In a bizarre act, the ambassadors of Cuba,
Nicaragua and Venezuela were apparently arrested and roughed up. In the
best tradition of such events, a curfew was declared on Sunday night and
the military is throwing its weight around, particularly against Mr.
Zelaya's supporters.
Political crisis
Honduras did find itself in the midst of a political crisis. This had
been triggered by Zelaya's efforts to call for a referendum, to be held
last Sunday, that would have opened the possibility of a change to the
Constitution in next November's elections (when Zelaya's four-year term
was up), allowing the President to be re-elected. Given the refusal of
Army General Romeo V squez to help run the referendum, Zelaya sacked
him, something opposed by the Supreme Court which proceeded to reinstate
the general. The Supreme Court also stated that any such referendum
would be unconstitutional.
In short, according to one perspective, this has been largely a mess
created by Zelaya's own power-grabbing attempts. By trying to secure a
second term in office, he ended up creating the conditions for his own
ouster, something for which he would have no one to blame but himself.
Another explanation has been more political. Although a rancher and
businessman from a conservative background, who favours a bushy
moustache, cowboy hats and boots, elected on the ticket of the
right-wing Liberal party, President Zelaya had a change of heart of
sorts. He had the audacity to visit Cuba, to strengthen ties with
Venezuela, and to actually have Honduras join ALBA, the Bolivarian
Alternative for the Americas, led by Mr. Ch vez, and also formed by
Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua. This is one reason President Ch vez has
been in the forefront of those who have denounced the coup, and has even
intimated, perhaps not altogether prudently, that he might send his own
troops to take care of the situation and put Mr. Zelaya back in office.
Banana republics
There is an element of comic opera in all this, and we should not
forget that Honduras was the country that originally gave rise to the
very term 'banana republic'. Until a few years ago, its capital,
Tegucigalpa, had neither a traffic light in all of its city grid, nor a
building high enough to warrant an elevator. But the stakes are high,
the game is dead serious and I am afraid the Honduran military and its
supporters may have bitten off a piece bigger than they will be able to
chew on, let alone swallow.
President Zelaya did not handle his somewhat clumsy attempt at
securing his re-election very adroitly, to put it mildly.
But that is neither here nor there. The country was heading directly
into a political crisis, but there are constitutional mechanisms to deal
with it. Some solution should have been found through a compromise
between the government and the opposition, or, if push came to shove,
through some mediation efforts. The notion that whenever there is a
major disagreement between the Executive and the Legislature, the way
forward is calling in the Army is something that was tried in the past
in Latin America (and elsewhere) and found wanting.
Santiago Assembly
Having said this, the challenge to the international community, and
particularly the hemispheric one, is not a minor one. Over the past two
decades, starting at the Organization of American States (OAS) Assembly
in Santiago de Chile in 1991, and culminating in the one held in Lima,
Peru, on September 11, 2001, when the Inter-American Democratic Charter
was unanimously approved, the Americas have put the strengthening of
democratic institutions among their foremost concerns. Many of the
countries in the region have 'low-intensity' democracies, but
democracies nonetheless.
Ibero-american Summit
A 'democratic clause' in many regional integration treaties means
that those who stray from the democratic path are excluded and penalised.
A variety of international political cooperation mechanisms, like the
Rio Group, the South American Community of Nations (UNASUR), and the
Ibero-american Summits have also embraced this democratic clause, while
democracy promotion and electoral assistance has been one of the
defining features of a revitalised OAS. Coup attempts in Paraguay and
elsewhere have thus been foiled.
Will they be able to "roll back" a coup that already took place?
President Lula of Brazil, perhaps the leader with most credibility
south of the Rio Grande, has said Brazil will not recognize any Honduran
President except Manuel Zelaya. President Bachelet of Chile, the pro
tempore chair of UNASUR, has been canvassing its members, which are
taking the same line as Brazil. The OAS has unanimously condemned the
coup. Miguel D'Escoto, president of the United Nations General Assembly,
has already announced that he will invite President Zelaya to address
the UNGA in New York.
President Barack Obama has also condemned the coup, and the State
Department has indicated that it worked for several days to stave it
off, albeit unsuccessfully.
Second key test
The US has troops in Honduras, to train the Honduran Armed Forces and
to work on counter-narcotics and disaster relief in Central America, and
thus has some leverage. Honduras is also part of the CAFTA-DR agreement
with the U.S. If the benefits from this trade agreement are denied to
Honduras, its products will have a hard time competing in the U.S.
market.
Honduras is part of the Central American Common Market. If it is
excluded from it, it will be costly. In many ways, this is the second
key test of Obama's new policy towards Latin America.
Democratic development
Ironically, the first also took place in Honduras, in early June, at
the OAS General Assembly meeting that unanimously lifted the 1962
resolution that suspended Cuba's membership in the organisation.
President Obama has indicated his commitment to working with the
countries of the region, through multilateral institutions, to further
economic progress and democratic development. If Zelaya finds himself
back in office (however briefly, his term has only seven months to go),
as a result of concerted international pressure, it would show a new
measure of hemispheric cooperation.
The so-called 'facts on the ground' have their own dynamic, and
reversing such military takeovers are never easy, though by no means
impossible. This is what happened in Venezuela in 2002, when President
Ch vez, three days after being ousted, found himself back in office.
Honduras poses a true litmus test of the commitment of the hemispheric
community to democratic stability and continuity. If the Inter-American
Democratic Charter is not held up now, and the semi-farcical, Keystone
Cops Honduran coup is not reversed, it means that much of the political
progress we have seen in the region since 1990 can far too easily be
undone. Courtesy: The Hindu |