Rebuttal to Injustice Under Law

Hondurans are not happy with the social and economic status quo in their country, but they were not so naive as to fall for Mr. Zelaya's claims of acting on behalf of the poor.

First of all, Manuel Zelaya was not flown out of the country in his pajamas. This fact was revealed in visual evidence submitted during the recent trial of the military leaders who oversaw the mission whereby Mr. Zelaya was shown wearing his normal clothes. The pajamas were a last minute prop used by Mr. Zelaya to manipulate public opinion in front of the cameras. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that President Óscar Arias of Costa Rica would be ignorant of the farce of this quick-change artist. OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza stopped talking about pajamas following his first visit to Honduras after the overthrow when he was shown the visual display of Mr. Zelaya's arrest.

Contrary to Mr. Gutman's characterization, Mr. Zelaya was not "abducted", he was arrested, as ordered by the Supreme Court, for a long list of alleged crimes, including corruption, treason, and fraud. Other charges such as theft of government funds, were added as evidence came to light. The arrest order did not not originate from Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez. It was issued at the behest of the Attorney General of Honduras. At this stage, referring to Mr. Zelaya's arrest as a "military coup" borders on ignorance.

The Congress approved Mr. Zelaya's removal from office by a vote of 124-4, and the Supreme Court confirmed that the action represented a valid constitutional succession. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) recognized that Mr. Zelaya's actions just prior to his arrest made him ineligible to be president for one day longer. Human Rights Ombudsman Ramón Custódio declared that the human rights of all parties were fully respected. All possible legal and constitutional entities in Honduras with jurisdiction in the matter agreed.

Contrary to Mr. Gutman's view, everybody did not call it a coup. Fueled by misinformation from some major news agencies, governments quickly took official positions against Mr. Zelaya's ousting based on initial visual impressions. Once taken, these positions were difficult to reverse, even in light of more balanced, less sensationalistic investigative reporting from other news sources such as the Wall Street Journal.

Many North American and European expatriates in Honduras gave their differing interpretation of the events in Honduras to anyone who would listen. Many US citizens living in Honduras who had voted for President Obama were confused about his support for Mr. Zelaya, who it was commonly believed intended to remain in power indefinitely. Members of Brazil's Parliament were surprised to find such strong support for the interim government of Roberto Micheletti among Brazilian residents in Honduras. I sense that part of Mr. Zelaya's initial discomfort at the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa was the disdain held for him by some of the Brazilian staffers there.

Also, it was not Mr. Micheletti who refused to return Mr. Zelaya to the presidency, it was the various governing institutions of Honduras protecting the country's constitutional order, including Congress which voted to remove Mr. Zelaya based on his multiple constitutional violations and crimes. Mr. Micheletti did not have the legal authority to override the Constitution any more than did Mr. Zelaya. The "Union Cívica Democrática" recently awarded Mr. Micheletti with a plaque naming him a "National Hero" of Honduras. The admiration for this man is unequaled in Honduras, because he was shown to resist corruption. It has been revealed that Mr. Micheletti was offered US$3 million to turn the presidency back over to Mr. Zelaya, but he refused to sell out his country. Early release of funds to the interim government from international agencies in return for granting an amnesty for Mr. Zelaya that was not in his legal purview to grant also failed to entice Mr. Micheletti to betray his oath.

The elections in Honduras on November 29, 2009, were said to be the cleanest and most transparent elections in the history of Honduras. Thousands of observers from international organizations supervised the elections and declared them to be exemplary. While many governments refused to send their usual election observers, there is a wide consensus of opinion in Honduras and around the world that the elections were valid. Supporters of Liberal Party opposition candidate Elvin Santos enthusiastically endorsed the results.

Mr. Zelaya urged Hondurans to boycott the elections and not cast their vote. The Honduran people did not listen, turning out in greater numbers than ever before. Dozens of people told me that their vote was a declaration that they were free. The objections of nine Latin American countries to the election of Porfirio Lobo lack substance. All of Honduras' presidential candidates were selected long before Mr. Zelaya's ousting. In Honduras, elections are organized and implemented by the TSE, an independent government commission. When he was president, Mr. Zelaya had actually tried to coerce the TSE by cutting off funding for it and attempted to stack the commission with his own magisterial appointments in violation of the Constitution which reserves such authority for the Congress.

No matter how many people insist on calling the actions by the Supreme Court, Congress, Attorney General, Human Rights Ombudsman, and Armed Forces a "coup", the evidence overwhelmingly shows that it was a constitutional transition of power.

Prior to his overthrow, Mr. Zelaya had been governing mostly by presidential decree, with complete disregard for the other branches of government. He had refused to submit a national budget because Congress would have refused to fund his efforts to change the Constitution to allow for presidential re-election -- something deemed as treason against the nation. He had collected and spent public funds without proper authority and allegedly had members of his administration steal cash (caught on video) from the Central Bank to help finance his so-called cuarta urna referendum.

The so-called "non-binding" public poll that Mr. Zelaya had scheduled for June 28 was a deception, a fraud intended to provide cover for his real intentions to manipulate the results in such a way as to allow for the binding cuarta urna referendum to take place later in the year. Mr. Zelaya even went so far as to eliminate the poll's non-binding language in a notice published in the govnerment's official newspaper, La Gaceta, on June 25, 2009. Mr. Zelaya's previous activities provided sufficient grounds for his removal, but it was the act of removing the poll's non-binding language that sealed his fate.

Upon taking the oath of office in January 2006, President Zelaya swore to uphold the current Constitution of Honduras. By admission, Mr. Zelaya, sought to "gauge support for a redraft of the Constitution". The problem is that the Constitution gives this authority only to the Congress. And why "guage support" if there is no plan afoot to engage in an overthrow of the Constitution, as did Mr. Zelaya's mentor in Venezuela? Gen.Vásquez rightly refused Mr. Zelaya's illegal order to oversee the poll. In doing so, he chose to obey the Constitution. For that, he was fired by Mr. Zelaya. The Supreme Court promptly ordered Gen.Vásquez's reinstatement.

I love this snippet from Mr. Gutman's piece: "most members of Congress ganged up on Mr. Zelaya". Cute turn of phrase, especially since on June 25, 2009, Mr. Zelaya led his own mob to a warehouse at Hernán Acosta Mejia Air Base in Tegucigalpa and forced his way in to retrieve ballots that were to be used for the illegal poll -- the results of which were later discovered to have been tabulated in advance.

Hondurans are not happy with the social and economic status quo in their country, but they were not so naive as to fall for Mr. Zelaya's claims of acting on behalf of the poor. A large segment of the lower- and middle-classes in Honduras is well aware that this man was stealing funds from the government department that handles social welfare payments. Mr. Zelaya is one of the wealthiest landowners in the country. Many poor people in Honduras have not been fooled by his socialist rants. Neither have the indigenous minorities and small farmers. Well-funded activist organizations that claim to speak for them only speak for their patrons.

Meanwhile, even the self-proclaimed "Resistencia" in Honduras has publicly recognized the popular support for the interim presidency of Roberto Micheletti. Suporters of Mr. Micheletti included both the wealthiest and the poorest of Honduran society. Many teachers in the countryside defied their union bosses who told them to march in favor of Mr. Zelaya. Some of my relatives received payments to participate in marches in support of Mr. Zelaya. The payments kept flowing and increasing as the weeks went by because organizers could not get enough people to participate.

All the claims about "civil liberties" do not carry verifiable details. For example, when the United Nations panel on civil rights visited Honduras, led by a representative of the Venezuelan government, there was a television station that claimed it had been take off the air by the Micheletti government. This panel repeated the lie even while the station was clearly still broadcasting. The harangues from the station's reporters would have brought immediate closure in the US, but the Micheletti government showed restraint, as have Honduras' security forces.

Arrest warrants for the six highest ranking officers of the Honduran Armed Forces were indeed issued, but they have been cleared of all charges by the president of the Supreme Court. The grounds for charging them had nothing to do with Mr. Zelaya's removal from power. The charge against the military commanders related to Article 102 of the Constitution which bans expatriation of any citizen. This was the sole legal basis for claiming improper actions on June 28 by the military.

On the other hand, the military has been credited with defending the Constitution, maintaining public order, and protecting citizens. As came out in their trial, the officers were faced with having to deal with plans by Mr. Zelaya's supporters -- infiltrated by foreign operatives from Venezuela and Nicaragua -- to stir up a mob to either break the deposed president out of whatever local prison he would be confined to or simply to incite mass violence on the streets of Tegucigalpa and other cities.

Hondurans have overwhelmingly opposed amnesty for anyone. Mr. Zelaya opposed amnesty in negotiations as part of the Tegucigalpa-San José Accord that he signed. Mr. Zelaya, along with several members of his administration, is facing a long list of alleged crimes, including treason, abuse of power, corruption, and theft. That's a fact.