Part 1: To coup or not to coup? That is the question

The International Media and International Community have quickly and swiftly condemned the actions that transpired on June 28th in Honduras as a military coup. By doing so, they fail to understand at its most basic level and principle what a coup d’état is, and the elements which characterize it. What follows is my personal attempt at a brief and concise explanation aimed at clarifying this ghastly oversight. A coup d’état, in its most general sense, can be defined as the violent, forceful and sudden removal of a legitimate government by the military, and its replacement by a new civil or military government. Throughout human history political scholars, historians and analysts have classified different types of coups in an attempt to differentiate them in cause and form.

1.Breakthrough coup d’état: enacted by junior officers (colonels or lower rank) or noncommissioned officers (sergeants), essentially a mutiny led by a minority group of the military aimed at overthrowing the legitimate government and the military’s top commanding officers. The most recent example is Hugo Chavez who in 1992, as a lieutenant colonel in the Venezuelan army, led a breakthrough coup d’état against then president Carlos Andres Perez.

2.Veto coup d’état: enacted by the military’s top commanding officers, the army rejects or vetoes the people’s right to govern themselves and starts a large scale campaign aimed at repressing, controlling, and killing the popular masses. The most recent example is Pinochet and the Chilean military coup, who in 1973 removed Communist-Socialist President Salvador Allende from power.

3.Guardian coup d’état: enacted by the military’s top commanding officers and aimed at restoring or improving public order, government efficiency, and ending corruption as military officers temporarily assume public office. It is seen by its executors as an unfortunate necessity but necessary evil, and generally does not cause any fundamental changes in the structures of power or government. One example is Argentina between 1930 in 1980.

4.Self coup d’état: enacted by the country’s democratically elected leaders, usually its Head of State, and aimed at dissolving one or more of the three branches of government (legislative, judicial, and executive), usually by annulling the current constitution, drafting a new one, and granting dictatorial powers to the Head of State. The most recent example is former President of Peru Alberto Fujimori, who in 1992 attempted to exercise absolute power over his government by controlling the judicial and legislative branches. Historically the most infamous is Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon I, who in 1851 as the first president of the French Republic became Emperor Napoleon III.

5.Bloodless coup d’état: in the absence of bloodshed, and when the mere threat of violence suffices to depose the legitimate government, all of the above may be further classified as a bloodless coup d’état.

6.Pronunciamiento(The Pronouncement): a term derived from the Spanish language, it differs in form and function from any of the previous. Enacted by the military and aimed at deposing the current civil government with the purpose of installing a new civil government. The new civil government respects the previous structure and form of government, and the military’s commanding officers usually do not assume any roles in the new civil government.

At this point it is noteworthy to mention that the English language lacks a native term to properly denote a coup d’état, and perhaps this has only added and contributed to the existing confusion and misrepresentation of the situation in Honduras. We must remember the term coup d’état in its current state was adopted from the French, and as such has its etymological roots in classic Latin and modern French; where coup is derived from the Latin collaphus, meaning a “stroke or blow with a fist”, and d’état is derived from French meaning “of state”. Thus the inclusion of the word in the English language and the poor understanding of its origin by the general population is an inherent cause for its misuse; as a non native term it lends itself to a great deal of inflexibility in its semantic use.

Many around the world have been swift to vibrantly and energetically condemn the actions that transpired in Honduras as simply a military coup, failing to make an analytical, logical and scholarly use of the proper terminology detailed above. Such behavior can only be seen as partial, reckless, uninformed and naïve, for they as well as the leaders and citizens of this world have and share the responsibility to see the facts as they are, objectively and without prejudice, and to only pass judgment once they have conducted a proper analysis. What follows is an analysis of what happened in Honduras before and on June 28th 2009, but first we must state in chronological order the facts.