Honduras and Ideology

So, as you may have heard, Manuel Zelaya, the president of Honduras, was deposed by the military. Now, folks on the left are arguing that this is a military coup (technically, they are correct) and we (the US) should be four-square against it. Folks on the right are arguing that the military is on the side of freedom and we should be cheering the military on.

I'm not an expert on the Honduran constitution, but it appears that both sides are letting ideology get in the way of facts on the ground. These facts are:

1) The President was trying to call an illegal but non-binding referendum.
2) The President fired the chief of the Honduran military, an act ruled illegal by the Honduran Supreme Court.
3) The Honduran Congress had not even started impeachment proceedings when the military moved. They have since impeached Zelaya.

It's not clear to me that removing a duly-elected President from power was the correct response to the referendum. It's also not clear to me that Zelaya's hands were clean. The referendum was on whether to call a constitutional convention, presumably to amend the constitution and allow Zelaya to stand for re-election.

At best, it appears that we have two wrongs (coup and referendum) trying to make a right. Since that doesn't fit into anybody's preconceived ideological buckets, we get treated to the spectacle of both sides trying to change the facts to fit.

Quote of the Day

From Foreign Policy Blog:

An illegal referendum has met an illegal military intervention, with the avowed intention of protecting the Constitution. Zelaya's civilian opponents, meanwhile, are celebrating. For the past week, the Honduran Congress has waxed lyrical about the armed forces as the guarantors of the Constitution, a disturbing notion for Latin Americans. At the very least, we are witnessing in Honduras the return of the unfortunate role of the military as the ultimate referee in political conflicts among civilian leaders, a huge step back in the region's consolidation of democracy.

That's why Zelaya, though he bears by far the greater responsibility for this crisis, must be reinstated in his position as the legitimate president of Honduras. The Organization of American States, the neighboring countries, and the U.S. government (which is still enormously influential in Honduras) should demand no less. They should also call upon all political actors in Honduras to take a deep breath and do what mature democracies do: allow the law to deal with those who try to step outside it. If Zelaya must be prosecuted for his harebrained attempt to subvert the Honduran Constitution, then let the courts proceed as rigorously as possible. And the same applies to the coup perpetrators. If Honduras is to have a decent future, its politicians and soldiers, in equal measure, must learn that the road to democracy and development runs through the rule of law.