Defending Dictators

When the Honduras Supreme Court booted its thug-in-chief from office in June, after he illegally attempted to trample all over the nation’s constitution, President Obama immediately rose in defense of the would-be dictator. He called upon all political actors in Honduras to “respect democratic norms” and to uphold the “rule of law.”

Yet, as a simple review of the facts reveals, it was former President Manual Zelaya’s utter contempt for democracy and the rule of law that landed him in exile in the first place.

Before 1981, Honduras had a long history of living under military rule, which is why the fledgling democracy drew up a constitution in 1982 that expressly forbids a president to rule for more than one four-year term. Of the 375 articles in the Honduran Constitution, only eightcannot be amended by a two-thirds majority vote in congress. One of those constitutional untouchables is presidential term limits. In fact, Article 239 says that for a president to even suggest an amendment intended to extend his rule is grounds for his immediate removal from office.

Then-President Zelaya first suggested ditching the Honduran Constitution last November, when he proposed that an additional ballot box be added to polling booths across the country. He said he wanted voters to determine whether or not a government body should be established to write a new constitution.

When that proposal failed to get off the ground, Zelaya opted for scaremongering and intimidation—the same tactics his radical leftist ally Hugo Chávez employed to grab permanent control of Venezuela’s government. In March, Zelaya issued a presidential order setting a June 28 deadline for a national referendum on constitutional reforms. The move set the stage for a showdown between the power-hungry Zelaya and the defenders of democracy and the Honduran Constitution, which included the congressional body, the attorney general, the Supreme Court, the nation’s military and a majority of its populace.

Egged on by the anti-American, Chavez-led alba alliance—a Latin American trade bloc made up of several members who have skillfully rigged elections to avoid losing power in their home nations—Zelaya moved ahead with the referendum, even daring his own people to stop him. No law enforcement official in Honduras would ever arrest me, he declared on May 10.

The next day, Honduran Attorney General Luis Rubi obtained a court order which declared the referendum proposal as illegal. One week later, Zelaya’s goons surrounded the attorney general’s offices, wearing masks and brandishing machetes, and demanded the referendum move forward. “We have come to defend this country’s second founding,” their leader said, referring to the referendum. “If we are denied it, we will resort to national insurrection.”

The ugly episode provided Hondurans with a chilling preview of exactly how Manuel Zelaya intended to secure the “votes” he needed to rewrite the constitution and establish authoritarian rule in Honduras.

So, after Zelaya ignored the court order and defiantly pressed ahead with the referendum, the attorney general, backed by the constitution and an overwhelming majority in the Honduran congress, obtained a warrant for Zelaya’s arrest. On June 28, Honduran soldiers, acting on orders from the Supreme Court, arrested Zelaya and exiled him to Costa Rica.

President Obama’s initial response to the action taken against Zelaya was to incorrectly identify it as a coup d’etat. “It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition rather than democratic elections,” Obama said.

Today, though it has backed away from calling the impeachment a coup, the Obama administration still views the crisis through an inverted moral compass. Worse still, Washington now appears to be doing Zelaya’s bidding in Honduras.

Last week, after meeting with Zelaya in Washington, Secretary of State Clinton announced that all U.S. aid to the Honduran government would be permanently cut off as a result of its refusal to reinstall Manuel Zelaya as president. And as if crippling sanctions against one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere isn’t enough, the State Department announced last week that given present circumstances, the United States would not recognize the results of the November free elections in Honduras!

This goes beyond madness, as Ralph Peters wrote earlier this week. We have a government in Washington that has it completely backward when it comes to American friends and foes. While punishing those who are struggling to uphold freedom, democracy and the rule of law, we are actively aiding and abetting the cause of murderous thugs who hate what America stands for and wish to destroy us.

Change has certainly come to America. What a radical turn for the worse we have taken, as we wrote back in January.

As shameful as this whole episode is for the United States, you can’t help but admire little Honduras for sticking to its constitutional guns. In response to Washington’s blatant attempt to bring down the Honduran government, interim Interior Minister Oscar Raul Matute echoed remarks John F. Kennedy made in 1961: “Whether you wish us well or not, we will pay any price, we will bear any burden, we will take on any difficulty, we will support any friend and oppose any enemy to ensure the survival and the success of liberty and democracy in our country.”

That price, with the United States now fully committed to empowering dictators like Manuel Zelaya in Latin American, will be heavy indeed.