Features » July 29, 2009 » Web Only

The Honduran Connection

The U.S. right, including Bush appointee Otto Reich, mobilizes to support the putsch.

By Bill Weinberg

Then-Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Otto Reich talks to the press in La Paz, Bolivia, in October of 2002. (Photo by Gonzalo Espinoza/AFP/Getty Images)

Throughout the hemisphere, the political right is assembling a barrage of legalistic sophistries in defense of the Honduran coup.

No nation has recognized the regime that took power in Honduras June 28, when the military summarily deported President Manuel Zelaya to Costa Rica in his pajamas. Nonetheless, the political right in both the United States and Honduras is trying to build political support for the coup regime.

Zelaya’s opponents, who argue that the coup was not a coup, cite Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution, which states that any president who proposes an amendment to allow re-election “shall cease forthwith” in his duties.

Missing from this explanation is acknowledgment that the constitution was crafted by a military-dominated state in 1982, and that this measure was aimed at keeping elected leaders subordinate to the generals.

Zelaya was removed on the day his non-binding popular referendum on whether to open a constitutional convention was to be voted on. He had pledged to go ahead with the vote despite a Supreme Court ruling barring it.

Hours after his removal, the National Congress read a forged “resignation letter” from Zelaya. It then passed a resolution giving legal imprimatur to the removal and making Roberto Micheletti, head of the congress, president.

Actually, it was impossible for Zelaya to extend his term through a constitutional reform, given that the binding vote establishing a constitutional convention (following the referendum scheduled for June 28 to establish a popular mandate) was to take place in November, simultaneous with the presidential election.

At best, Zelaya would be able to run again in four years. In his calls for a constitutional convention, he had emphasized the need to strengthen the labor code and to ensure public control of the telecom and power industries — not to abolish term limits.

Coup in the works

In May, the Honduran Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CODEH) filed a case in the Honduran courts alleging that a military coup was in the works and calling on judicial authorities to intervene. They didn’t.

Then, just days before the coup, the Supreme Court received an accusation against Zelaya —apparently by one Robert Carmona-Borjas of the D.C.-based Arcadia Foundation. The judiciary rushed the case through the legal process, and Zelaya wasn’t given an opportunity to respond to the charges. Regardless of whatever constitutional violations Zelaya may have committed, the military abrogated the democratic process entirely by having the president deported.

Enter Otto Reich?

One of the grassroots groups mobilizing for Zelaya’s return, the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH), issued a statement on July 3 asserting the “undeniable involvement” of former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich in the coup d’etat. Similar claims were made at the emergency session of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, D.C., where Venezuelan representative Roy Chaderton said:

We have information that worries us. This is a person who has been important in the diplomacy of the U.S. who has reconnected with old colleagues and encouraged the coup: Otto Reich, ex-sub-secretary of state under Bush. We know him as an interventionist…

Chaderton also cited Reich’s purported involvement in the attempted coup d’etat against Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez in April 2002.

In 2001, President Bush used a recess appointment to make Reich, a far-right Cuban exile, assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, bypassing strong Congressional opposition. In 1987, Congress had investigated Reich for illegal activities in support of Nicaragua’s right-wing Contra guerrillas.

In April 2002, the New York Times reported that on the morning the Venezuelan putsch went into action, Reich spoke by telephone with Pedro Carmona, the conservative businessman who would be installed as de facto president for the two days before the coup collapsed. The account claimed Reich coached Carmona on how to handle the coup, urging him not to dissolve the National Assembly. (Carmona did anyway, which is credited as a key factor in the coup’s failure.)

In January 2003, the White House quietly moved Reich over to the presidential staff as special envoy to Latin America rather than face Congressional opposition to his re-appointment as assistant secretary of state. He resigned in 2004 and returned to private life, later working as a foreign policy advisor to presidential candidate John McCain.

In its July 3 statement, OFRANEH charged that Reich was working with the Arcadia Foundation to destabilize Zelaya, though it offered only circumstantial evidence to back up its assertion. The Arcadia Foundation website identifies the nonprofit as an anti-corruption watchdog that promotes “good governance and democratic institutions.” Reich’s name does not appear on the website.

However, one of the two names on the site’s “Founders” page is Robert Carmona-Borjas, who is identified as “a Venezuelan lawyer and an expert in military affairs, national security, corruption and governance.” It notes that he fled Venezuela and sought political asylum in the United States following the 2002 coup attempt: “In Venezuela, concerned with the issues of governability, the defense of human rights, democracy and the fight against corruption, he became an activist, disregarding the risks that such a stance implied.”

On April 27, 2002, the Mexican daily La Jornada reported that Carmona-Borjas had drafted “anti-constitutional” decrees for the coup regime. And this June, Honduran newspapers noted that Carmona-Borjas had brought legal charges against Zelaya and other members of his administration for defying a court ruling that barred preparations for the constitutional referendum that was scheduled for the day Zelaya would be ousted. A YouTube video dated July 3 shows footage from Honduras’ Channel 8 TV of Carmona-Borjas being extolled to enthusiastic applause from the stage at an anti-Zelaya rally in Tegucigalpa’s Plaza la Democracia.

Reich’s name popped up in the media in relation to Honduras earlier this year, when he accused the Zelaya administration of corruption after the Latin Node digital telephone company (since acquired by eLandia) was fined $2 million by U.S. authorities for allegedly bribing officials in Honduras and Yemen.

“President Zelaya has allowed or encouraged this kind of practices [sic] and we will see that he is also behind this,” Reich told the Miami Herald in April. He said he was prepared to make a sworn statement on the affair before Honduran law enforcement—but said he would not travel to Honduras to do so, because his personal security would be at risk there.

And in a September 2008 interview with the Honduran daily El Heraldo, Reich warned of Tegucigalpa’s growing closeness with Venezuela, remarking cryptically, “If President Zelaya wants to be an ally of our enemies, let him think about what might be the consequences of his actions and words.”

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• Reader Comments

  “Missing from this explanation is acknowledgment that the constitution was crafted by a military-dominated state in 1982, and that this measure was aimed at keeping elected leaders subordinate to the generals.”

  The key here being that this is currently the Constitution of the land and the only legal basis to cite.  It could also be said, to keep in mind that the US Constitution was drafted by a bunch of rich, landowning rebels to the British crown.  Like it or not, Zelaya was removed following the legal procedures set out in Honduran law.

  I find it telling that the author cites charges from Hugo Chavez’s ambassador as de facto proof of a conspiracy.  I think Hugo Chavez announces a new conspiracy backed by the US government almost daily.  At the same time, this model of South American democracy arrests dissenters, shuts down critical media, and nationalizes private property on a whim.  What a great example of what we should aspire to…

  It seems to me that the vast majority of the player’s in Mr. Weinberg’s diatribe were “accused” or “alleged”.  There don’t seem to be a lot of convictions in there.  I seem to remember a central premise of our democracy is that you are innocent until proven guilty and the rule of law reigns supreme.  It would appear Mr. Weinberg would prefer a Chavez/Zelaya style system where the law is what the strongman says.

  Posted by Rick Maifeld on Jul 29, 2009 at 1:07 PM

  Rick, you are so right.  I would dismiss the article as the babble of someone entirely uninformed except that I do not believe Mr. Weinburg to be uninformed.  Weinburg seems to have an agenda here.  Facts seem to have taken the sidelines in favor of a “greater good.”  Dissapointing really. 

  Weinburg, you are either wrong or lying. 

  And for the first time I am truly angered and dissapointed by President Obama.

  Posted by justanobody on Jul 29, 2009 at 2:01 PM

  Weinberg completely loses me in paragraph three, when he dismisses Article 239 because it was, he asserts, crafted by a military-dominated state.  Of course, this assertion admits, by implication, that Article 239 is still the law in Honduras.  Does Weinberg believe, then, that it is appropriate for Hondurans to ignore the law?  That’s silly and completely undermines any credibility that the article might otherwise have.  It belies the existence of an agenda driven argument that will not allow itself be confused by facts.

  Zelaya has been unable to gain any meaningful traction from any political bloc inside Honduras, in spite of the support that his tinpot dictator buddies have thrown his way.  That, it would seem, is an indication that the people of Honduras do not support him, Mr. Weinberg’s sophistic efforts on his behalf notwithstanding.

  Posted by Stel Parthemos on Jul 29, 2009 at 2:09 PM

  “Missing from this explanation is acknowledgment that the constitution was crafted by a military-dominated state in 1982, and that this measure was aimed at keeping elected leaders subordinate to the generals.”

  Whaaa???  So it was “illegal” because YOU don’t like the law?

  To be illegal, it has to be AGAINST the law, see.  The Left are masters of rationalization.  The right just deals with facts.

  Posted by Phil Leith on Jul 29, 2009 at 3:33 PM

  My Opinion has to be put in 3 different posts. The sytem does not allow me to post more than 4,000 characters at a time.

  It is truly sad that here in Honduras we are in the year 2009, and the rest of the world led by the Obama Administration is STUCK in �That 70�s Show.�  These are the facts about the Honduran Case.
  -Ex-President Zelaya was a rogue President, who thought that he was above the law, and stated several times that the National Congress, the recently elected Supreme Court and all the Democratic Independent Institutions of Honduras were not going to stop him in his quest to change the Honduran Constitution. He also said repeatedly that nobody was going to detain him and put him in jail that the Honduran Police Force and the Honduran Armed Forces were a joke and they obeyed HIM and not the Constitution of the Country.
  -The Honduran Constitution was written in 1981 by a democratically elected National Constituent Assembly.  This assembly consisted of representatives of the three main political parties at that time, The Liberal Party, The National Party and the PINU.  During the elections of 1980, the Liberal Party won 35 seats to the National Constituent Assembly, the Nationalist Party won 32 seats and the PINU won 3. The National Constituent Assembly was installed in July of 1980 and began to write a New Constitution for Honduras. The new Honduran Constitution went into effect on January 27, 1982 with the swearing in of Roberto Suazo Cordoba of the Liberal Party as the country�s first elected President of the modern era.
  - The Honduran Constitution which was written consisted of 378 Articles, 371 of those can be reformed, while 7 of those articles CAN NOT. These 7 articles are those that deal with: The Form of Government, the Honduran Territory, the four year Presidential Term, the Re-election of the President of the Country, the process which the Constitution can be reformed, and the Articles stating that the current Constitution CAN NOT BE REPLACED WITH A NEW CONSTITUTION by any means.
  -Ex-President Zelaya, due to his desire to be in power for more than the four years that the Honduran Constitution allows, set out to REPLACE the Constitution of Honduras.  He wanted for himself to NAME a new National Constituent Assembly, in order for this Assembly to write a new Political Constitution for Honduras.  His project was the following:  On June 28th of 2009, he wished to conduct a National Opinion Survey, asking the people of Honduras if they wanted for there to be a 4th ballot box in November�s General Election, which would contain the question if the Honduran people wanted HIM to NAME a new National Constituent Assembly in order to write a new Political Constitution. In Honduran elections there are THREE ballot boxes, one to elect the President of the Country, two to elect the representatives to Congress and the third to elect the country�s Mayors.
  -There are two different processes which were carried out in the following days and weeks, the first process is the POLITCAL PROCESS to remove Manuel Zelaya as President of Honduras, and the second is the CRIMINAL PROCESS in order to detain Manuel Zelaya, present him to the proper Judicial Authorities for the crimes that he committed against Honduras, and for him to defend himself in a free and fair trial from these charges.

  Posted by Gabriel Prats on Jul 29, 2009 at 5:43 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 136 posts.

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