U.S. may not recognize as "legitimate" the upcoming Honduran elections

U.S. support for ousted Honduran leader baffling

Sept. 8, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Much about the Obama administration's unyielding support for ousted Honduras President Manuel Zelaya is simply baffling.

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton clearly want Zelaya back in office. They just have never explained exactly why.

Zelaya was ousted and banished to Costa Rica in June by the Honduran military on the order of the national Supreme Court - with the blessing of the national Congress, the attorney general and even Zelaya's own party leaders. They saw their president as an unstable, manipulative dictator-in-the-making.
Now, Zelaya wants his job back. And Clinton especially seems determined to fulfill his wishes.

Since June, the president and Clinton have locked arms with many of the Western Hemisphere's worst anti-democrats in demanding Zelaya be returned to office. And they have put teeth to their demands.

The administration stripped Honduran officials of their U.S. visas. It then suspended - and, later, cut entirely - $30 million in aid to the desperately poor Central American nation. Encouraged by the U.S., the International Monetary Fund may withhold five times that amount from Honduras.

Now, Clinton has declared the U.S. may not recognize as "legitimate" the upcoming Honduran elections if Zelaya is not in office supervising them.

Why? The mind boggles.

If the administration immediately had gotten its way - if the "usurpers" of Zelaya's presidency had caved early - Zelaya would have enjoyed a U.S.-backed mandate to pursue his wildest "Dictator for Life" fantasies.

If the U.S. succeeds now at muscling Honduras' interim government, the consequences could be infinitely worse. Political tensions within Honduras' borders are explosive. The sudden, triumphal return of Zelaya could prove catastrophic.

All on behalf of a man who is scheduled to leave office in January . . . presuming he does not successfully bury his nation's constitution before then. With Obama and Clinton in his corner, don't bet against him.

The elections Clinton calls "illegitimate" include candidates from all Honduras' major political parties. All the candidates were chosen prior to Zelaya's ouster. The interim government has invited - indeed, begged for - international observers to oversee the fairness of returns.

"We will pay any price, support any friend, oppose any enemy to assure the survival and the success of the liberties of our people and of our democracy," said Honduran Interior Minister Oscar Raul Matute, echoing President John F. Kennedy.

The interim Honduran leaders have made a convincing argument that their reasons for ousting Zelaya were legitimate and constitutional, even if their handling of the process proved a bit rough. Ironically, poor Honduras may have avoided the wrath of Obama entirely had its leaders simply tossed Zelaya in prison rather than putting him on a plane.

The Obama administration, on the other hand, has provided no meaningful explanation about why the future of representative governance in the Americas is at risk if this close, personal friend of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is not returned to office.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... e1-08.html