Honduras' Zelaya fading into irrelevance

As deposed Honduran ex-president Manuel Zelaya, gets more desperate in his attempt to claw his way back into power, his behavior becomes more erratic, which only results in diminishing international support for his cause. The latest embarrassment for Mr. Zelaya – and to Mexico’s president Felipe Calderón – came when, while a guest of the Mexican government, he made public remarks that suggested that former Mexico City Mayor and 2006 presidential election loser Andres López Obrador was the victim of electoral fraud. “In our countries, it is better to feel like one’s the president than to be president,” Zelaya said, in a direct reference to López Obrador. Mexico wasted no time in cutting Zelaya’s visit short and unceremoniously putting him on a plane that took the ex-president back to Nicaragua. It must have felt like ‘déjà vú all over again,’ as Yogi Berra might say.
The Mexican faux pas was not the first one since his removal. His Venezuelan orchestrated attempts to re-enter Honduras have distanced him from both the United States and the Organization of American States, which are looking to save face through the Oscar Arias mediation. It appears that President Obama has realized that his initial reaction to the expulsion of Mr. Zelaya from the Honduran presidency and his reference to it as ‘a military coup’ and ‘illegal,’ and his demand for Zelaya's reinstatement were a mistake. If he thought that taking such a stance would earn him brownie points with the Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro led ALBA group, he was swiftly proved wrong, as both leaders have blamed the United States – especially the CIA – for orchestrating Zelaya’s removal. Now, the Administration has back-pedaled and even dropped explicit references to Zelaya’s reinstatement as necessary for the return of constitutional democracy to Honduras. An August 4 letter from the State Department to Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana shows the reticence of the Administration to take any further action to pressure the current Honduran government to reinstate Zelaya
For its part, after making a show of bluster by suspending Honduras from participation, the Organization of American States finds itself having to negotiate with the new Honduran president, Roberto Micheletti, and acquiesce to his conditions. After the failure of the Arias mediation to force Honduras to reinstate Zelaya, the OAS is sending a delegation composed of six Latin American foreign ministers to negotiate with Mr. Micheletti. When it was announced that the group would be headed by OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, Honduras refused to admit the delegation.
In the days after Zelaya’s removal, Mr. Insulza traveled to Honduras to deliver an ultimatum from the OAS, demanding the ex-president’s reinstatement. On that occasion, Insulza refused to meet with Micheletti, arguing that such a meeting would give him legitimacy. It was now Micheletti’s turn to return Insulza’s snub. Yesterday, the OAS was forced to demote Insulza to ‘observer’ status, in order to salvage the meeting.
The bottom line of all this maneuvering is that both the OAS and the United States are out of options to force Zelaya’s reinstatement and the best they can do is keep the negotiations going until November, when a new president will be elected by the people of Honduras. At that time, they can negotiate Honduras’ re-entry to the OAS with the president-elect and full recognition by the OAS members upon his ascent to the presidency. Of course, this scenario leaves Zelaya and his socialist mentors out of the picture. There’s no telling what they’ll try to do next.

Op-Ed Contributor
More of the Same in Latin America

By MARK WEISBROT
Published: August 11, 2009

There were great hopes in Latin America when President Obama was elected. U.S. standing in the region had reached a low point under George W. Bush, and all of the left governments expressed optimism that Obama would take Washington’s policy in a new direction.

These hopes have been dashed. President Obama has continued the Bush policies and in some cases has done worse.

The military overthrow of democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras on June 28 has become a clear example of Obama’s failure in the hemisphere. There were signs that something was amiss in Washington when the first statement from the White House failed to even criticize the coup. It was the only such statement from a government to take a neutral position. The U.N. General Assembly and the Organization of American States voted unanimously for “the immediate and unconditional return” of President Zelaya.

Conflicting statements from the White House and State Department emerged over the ensuing days, but last Friday the State Department made clear its “neutrality.” In a letter to Senator Richard Lugar, the State Department said that “our policy and strategy for engagement is not based on supporting any particular politician or individual,” and appeared to blame Mr. Zelaya for the coup: “President Zelaya’s insistence on undertaking provocative actions contributed to the polarization of Honduran society and led to a confrontation that unleashed the events that led to his removal.”

This letter was all over the Honduran media, which is controlled by the coup government and its supporters, and it strengthened them politically. Congressional Republicans who have supported the coup immediately claimed victory.

On Monday, President Obama repeated his statement that Mr. Zelaya should return. But by then nobody was fooled.

Mr. Obama has said that he “can’t push a button and suddenly reinstate Mr. Zelaya.” But he hasn’t pushed the buttons that he has at his disposal, such as freezing the U.S. assets of the coup leaders, or canceling their visas. (The State Department cancelled five diplomatic visas of members of the coup government, but they can still enter the United States with a normal visa — so this gesture had no effect).

With Clinton associates such as Lanny Davis and Bennett Ratcliff running strategy for the coup government, the Pentagon looking out for its military base in Honduras, and the Republicans ideologically tied to the coup leaders, it should be no surprise that Washington is more worried about protecting its friends in the dictatorship than about democracy or the rule of law.

But it doesn’t make Mr. Obama’s policy any less disgraceful. And Washington has remained silent about the dictatorship’s human rights abuses, which have been condemned by human rights organizations worldwide.

In addition to its failure in Honduras, the Obama administration raised concerns last week among such leaders as President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Michelle Bachelet of Chile with its decision to increase the U.S. military presence in Colombia. Washington apparently did not consult with South American governments — other than Colombia — beforehand. The pretext for the expansion is, as usual, the “war on drugs.” But the legislation in Congress that would finance this expansion allows for a much broader role. No wonder South America is suspicious. Mr. Obama also has not reversed the Bush administration’s decision to reactivate the U.S. Navy’s Fourth Fleet in the Caribbean, for the first time since 1950 — a decision that raised concerns in Brazil and other countries.

President Obama has also continued the Bush administration’s trade sanctions against Bolivia, which are seen throughout the region as an affront to Bolivia’s national sovereignty. And despite President Obama’s handshake with President Hugo Chávez, the State Department has maintained about the same level of hostility toward Venezuela as President Bush did in his last year or two.

President Obama’s policies have drawn mostly only mild rebuke because he is still enjoying a honeymoon. But he is doing serious damage to U.S.-Latin American relations, and to the prospects for democracy and social progress in the region.

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington.

Zelaya’s Exile an ‘Error,’ Honduras Human Rights Chief Says


By Blake Schmidt and Eric Sabo

Aug. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Honduras’s military made an “error” sending deposed President Manuel Zelaya into exile, the head of the country’s human rights commission said.

Ramon Custodio, the highest official in the acting government to say publicly that Zelaya’s exile was a mistake, said the president should have gone to trial rather than been bundled aboard a military plane to Costa Rica in the early hours of June 28. He joined the current regime because Zelaya’s violations of the constitutions warranted his removal from office, he said.

“I didn’t know they would take Zelaya out of the country,” Custodio, one of four Honduran officials whose U.S. diplomatic visas were revoked, said in an interview this week at his Tegucigalpa office.

Honduras’s Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case brought by a group of lawyers and judges that contends the military broke the law taking Zelaya out of the country, a decision that could affect efforts to resolve the country’s political impasse. Costa Rican President Oscar Arias’ 11-point plan for ending the crisis would restore Zelaya to office while guaranteeing amnesty from prosecution to him and the military officers who expelled him.

The government of acting President Roberto Micheletti maintains Zelaya’s overthrow followed a legal path through the courts, congress and military. Still, Micheletti acknowledged in a July 27 op-ed article in the Wall Street Journal that the decision to expel Zelaya “could have been handled differently.”

International Ordeal

Micheletti and others leaders of the de facto government, while not taking responsibility for ordering the exile, say keeping Zelaya in the country could have led to violence.

Central Bank President Sandra Midence said Zelaya’s exile turned an internal crisis into an international ordeal that marred the country’s image.

“Maybe they hadn’t thought it through that much,” Midence said.

Custodio, 79, who founded a human rights group that investigated death squads in the 1980s, became an outspoken critic of Zelaya’s as the congressionally-appointed rights ombudsman. Zelaya backers, including officials Custodio protected from persecution decades ago, say he betrayed them by not resigning to protest the coup.

“In the ‘80s he stood up to army and police as a human rights defender,” protest leader Juan Barahona said in a phone interview. “Today he’s different. He’s a coup monger.”

In a report presented to the OAS last week, international human rights observers accused Custodio of bias in his probes of protester deaths and curbs on the press since Zelaya’s ouster. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is scheduled to evaluate Honduras’s situation in a visit August 17-21.

“In the ‘80s, they never thanked me,” Custodio said. “Now they attack me. I’m not serving anybody, that’s my problem. I won’t resign because I haven’t neglected my duties.”

Zelaya needs to make a much noise as he can to try to get a full pardon for the criminal file being created against him for numerous indictments the majority of then in the line of corruption.

Honduras: El golpe de Zelaya
1/7/2009
Alvaro Vargas Llosa


Washington, DC—Cuando un grupo de soldados irrumpen en una casa presidencial, se llevan al Presidente y lo ponen en un vuelo hacia el exilio, como sucedió en Honduras el domingo pasado, está claro que se ha dado un “golpe”. Pero, a diferencia de la mayoría de los golpes en la tortuosa historia republicana de América Latina, el depuesto presidente de Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, carga con la mayor responsabilidad por su derrocamiento.

Miembro de la rancia oligarquía a la que ahora condena, Zelaya llegó al cargo en 2006 como líder de uno de los dos partidos de centroderecha que han dominado la política hondureña durante décadas. Sus propuestas electorales, su apoyo al Tratado de libre Comercio entre Centroamérica y los Estados Unidos, y sus alianzas empresariales no hacían sospechar que a mitad de su mandato se convertiría en un travesti político. De pronto, en 2007 se declaró socialista y comenzó a entablar lazos cercanos con Venezuela. En diciembre de ese año, incorporó a Honduras a Petrocaribe, un mecanismo pergeñado por Hugo Chávez para derrochar subsidios petroleros sobre los países latinoamericanos y caribeños a cambio de su servilismo político. Luego su gobierno se unió al ALBA, la respuesta de Venezuela a la (inexistente) Área de Libre Comercio de las Américas, en teoría una alianza comercial pero en la práctica una conspiración política que procura expandir la dictadura populista al resto de América Latina.

El año pasado, siguiendo el guión originalmente escrito por Chávez en Venezuela y adoptado por Evo Morales en Bolivia y Rafael Correa en Ecuador, Zelaya anunció que celebraría un referendo para convocar a una asamblea constituyente a fin de modificar la Constitución que prohíbe su reelección. En los meses siguientes, todos los organismos jurisdiccionales del país —el Tribunal Supremo Electoral, la Corte Suprema, la Fiscalía, el ombudsman de los derechos humanos— declararon que el referendo era inconstitucional. Según los artículos 5, 373 y 374 de la Constitución, los límites al mandato presidencial no pueden ser modificados bajo ninguna circunstancia, solamente el Congreso puede hacer enmiendas a la Constitución y las instituciones políticas no están sujetas a consulta popular. El Congreso, el Partido Liberal de Zelaya y una mayoría de hondureños (en sucesivas encuestas y a veces en las calles) expresaron su horror ante la posibilidad de que el Presidente se perpetuase en el poder y pusiese a Honduras en manos de Chávez. Desafiando las disposiciones judiciales, Zelaya persistió. Rodeado de una turba, irrumpió en las instalaciones militares donde se conservaban las boletas electorales y ordenó su distribución. Los tribunales declararon que Zelaya se había puesto al margen de la ley y el Congreso inició un juicio político para destituirlo.

Este es el contexto en el que las Fuerzas Armadas, en una movida poco atinada que convirtió en golpe de Estado un mecanismo perfectamente legal para frenar a Zelaya, expulsaron al Presidente. El hecho de que el procedimiento constitucional fuera luego cumplido al designar el Congreso al jefe del Poder Legislativo, Roberto Micheletti, como Presidente interino, y que se confirmaran los comicios fijados para noviembre, no quita la mancha de ilegitimidad que afecta al nuevo gobierno. Este factor ha desarmado a los críticos de Zelaya en la comunidad internacional frente a la bien coordinada campaña de Chávez para reinstaurarlo en el cargo y denunciar el golpe como un ataque oligárquico contra la democracia.

Dicho esto, la respuesta internacional, que intenta reponer a Zelaya sin mencionar en absoluto sus actos ilegales ni ponerle la condición de respetar la Constitución, ha sido sumamente inadecuada. La Organización de Estados Americanos, conducida por su Secretario General, José Miguel Insulza, de quien me precio de ser amigo, ha actuado como un verdadero perro faldero de Venezuela. A pedido de Chávez, Insulza viajó a Nicaragua, donde una cumbre del antidemocrático grupo del ALBA se convirtió en el “centro de gravedad” político del hemisferio después del golpe. Insulza y los esperpénticos Presidentes populistas no dijeron nada acerca de la conducta dictatorial de Zelaya que provocó los sucesos del domingo pasado, limitándose a hacerse eco de la posición interesada de Venezuela. Los esfuerzos de otros países, incluidos los Estados Unidos y varios gobiernos sudamericanos, para matizar las declaraciones públicas y buscar una solución justa a la crisis hondureña fueron neutralizados por el espectáculo que se desarrollaba en Nicaragua, del que se informó ad náuseam en el mundo de habla hispana. Fue penoso ver a Insulza acordarse de pronto de la Carta Democrática Interamericana de su organización en relación a Honduras: el conjunto de exigencias democráticas que Chávez, Morales, Correa y Daniel Ortega en Nicaragua han violado en numerosas ocasiones mientras la OEA hacia la vista gorda.

La crisis de Honduras debería atraer la atención del mundo hacia esta verdad respecto de la América Latina actual: que la amenaza más grave a la libertad proviene de populistas electos que procuran destruir las instituciones del Estado de Derecho a partir de sus caprichos megalómanos. Dado ese escenario, la respuesta del hemisferio a la crisis de Honduras ha minado la posición de quienes están tratando de impedir que el populismo retrotraiga a la región a épocas infaustas en las que estaba obligado a escoger entre las revoluciones izquierdistas y las dictaduras militares.

(c) 2009, The Washington Post Writers Group

OAS president "not welcome" in Honduras: Micheletti


MANAGUA, Aug. 13, (Xinhua) -- A plan for Organization of American States (OAS) secretary general Jose Miguel Insulza to visit Honduras met resistance from de facto Honduran president Roberto Micheletti on Thursday.

Micheletti told a press conference in Tegucigalpa that the Honduran interim government had written to the OAS and Insulza, saying Insulza would not be welcome because he "maliciously plotted" for the OAS to suspend membership of Honduras and he "had no reason" to meddle in Honduran affairs.

The Honduran interim government sent a delegate to the Washington-based OAS headquarters to consult over the OAS mediation issue. According to the original schedule, Insulza would lead a mediation mission to Honduras. However, the interim government said Insulza would be required to visit as an observer.

Ousted president Manuel Zelaya has maintained that he hasn't resigned, and he will return to Honduras as the legal president. The OAS suspended membership of Honduras on July 4, however, the Honduran issue has shown no sign of abating.

Anti-American Amigos
Why is the Obama administration trying to help Hugo Chavez?




Hugo Chávez took a break last week from lobbying Washington on behalf of deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to travel to Quito, Ecuador, for a meeting of South American heads of state.

There he launched a virulent assault on the U.S. military, reiterated his commitment to spreading revolution in the region, and threatened the continent with war. Mr. Zelaya was by his side.

The Venezuelan's tirade against the U.S. and its ally Colombia raised the question yet again of what the U.S. could possibly be thinking in pushing Honduras to reinstate Mr. Zelaya. He was removed from office by the Honduran Congress in June because he violated the country's constitution and willfully incited mob violence.

But that's not the only thing that made him unpopular at home. He also had become an important ally of Mr. Chávez and was quite obviously being coached to copy the Chávez power grab in Venezuela by undermining Honduras's institutional checks and balances.

If Honduras has been able to neutralize Mr. Chávez, it's something to celebrate. A Chávez-style takeover of institutions in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua has quashed political pluralism, free speech and minority rights in those countries. There is now a heavy presence of Cuban state intelligence throughout the Venezuelan empire. Mr. Zelaya literally has become a fellow traveler of Mr. Chávez, leaving no doubts about the course he would put Honduras on if given the chance.

Among the theories making the rounds about Mr. Obama's motivations in trying to force Honduras to take Mr. Zelaya back, there is the hypothesis that this administration is tacking hard to the left. Mr. Obama has expressed the same views on Honduras as Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.), who holds that the interim government must be forced to reinstate Mr. Zelaya and who has, over more than two decades in office, consistently allied himself with socialist causes in Latin America.
The Americas in the News

Get the latest information in Spanish from The Wall Street Journal's Americas page.

As a U.S. senator, Mr. Kerry has the luxury of treating Latin America like his playground, as Democrats have done for decades, foisting on it ideas that Americans reject. Venezuelans still recall how Connecticut's Chris Dodd played the role of chief Chávez cheerleader in the Senate while the strongman was consolidating power.

But Mr. Obama is the president and commander in chief, and millions of people in this hemisphere are counting on the U.S. to stand up to Venezuelan aggression. Playing footsie under the table with Mr. Chávez on Honduras while the Venezuelan is threatening the peace isn't going to fly in a hemisphere that prefers liberty over tyranny.

Both Colombian and U.S. officials allege that the Venezuelan National Guard and high-ranking members of Mr. Chávez's government are in cahoots with criminal enterprises that run drugs in South America. The evidence suggests an alliance between the terrorist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)—the largest exporter of cocaine from that country—and members of Mr. Chávez's cabinet. There is also evidence in documents and video captured from the FARC that the rebels have influence at high levels of the Ecuadoran government.

The cocaine business is a big revenue raiser for the terrorist organization and for its business partners on the continent. This is why Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has agreed to allow U.S. drug-surveillance planes to use Colombian military bases.

In Quito, Mr. Chávez flew into a rage about that agreement. "The U.S. is the most warlike government in the world," he told his South American peers and Mr. Zelaya. "The Yankee military pays no mind to its president," he said, artfully exempting Barack Obama from blame. "In Colombia [the U.S. military] has immunity. They can rape women, they can kill and they can destroy in every direction. You can't do anything to them. It's horrible."

The military-bases agreement is far more limited than what Mr. Chávez claimed, but he wasn't about to miss an opportunity to ratchet up the tension. "The winds of war are starting to blow," he warned.

His counterparts didn't buy it. Colombia was not condemned in Quito, largely because key members of the group didn't want their own sovereign decisions subject to continental review. But Mr. Chávez is not going away. He has pledged to continue with efforts to destabilize surviving democracies.

Honduras remains a target. Argentina is also in his sights. In an interview with the Argentine daily La Nación, he spoke of his alliance with Argentina's President Cristina Kirchner. "We are going to work to reinforce the Caracas-Buenos Aires axis, which is a central axis," Mr. Chávez said. "Like the Caracas-Quito axis, the Caracas-Buenos Aires axis is fundamental for the integration."

The U.S. war on drugs has been a colossal failure because of the large cocaine market in the U.S. The tragedy—beyond the violence it creates—is that criminal enterprises, flourishing because of U.S. customers, wreak havoc on frail institutions. That's bad enough. But the Obama administration pours salt in that gaping wound by refusing to support the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement our ally has asked for, and now by backing Mr. Chávez's Honduran pawn.

Honduras' interim leader: Manuel Zelaya must face charges
In an exclusive interview, Honduras' interim president said he would not allow deposed leader Manuel Zelaya back home unless he `submits himself to the justice system.'
BY TYLER BRIDGES
McClatchy News Service

TEGUCIGALPA -- Honduras' interim president told McClatchy on Monday that he won't agree to any proposal to resolve his country's political crisis that would allow ousted President Manuel Zelaya to return to power.

Roberto Micheletti, who was named interim president after the military bundled Zelaya onto an airplane June 28 and sent him to Costa Rica, said Zelaya would be jailed and tried on 18 charges of violating the constitution if he returned.

``The only way President Zelaya can return is if he submits himself to the justice system,'' Micheletti said.

In an exclusive 40-minute interview, Micheletti also accused the U.S. ambassador here, Hugo Llorens, of tilting unfairly in favor of Zelaya during the crisis, rejected accusations that his government has abused human rights in putting down protests, and said he doesn't expect the Obama administration to slap tough economic sanctions on Honduras.

CALCULATED RISK

Micheletti's comments confirmed analysts' assertions that he plans to withstand international pressure to allow Zelaya's return under a plan being negotiated by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias. In doing so, his government and its supporters in the business community think they can ride out possible economic sanctions and a refusal by foreign governments to recognize the winners of the presidential and congressional elections Nov. 29.

Micheletti said Zelaya cannot be trusted because, Micheletti said, he violated the constitution by attempting to hold a referendum with the aim of rewriting the constitution so that he could run for reelection. Under Arias' proposal, Zelaya would agree not to push for a change in reelection law in return for Micheletti's allowing him to return to office.

``He'd never keep his word,'' Micheletti said. ``I know him. I helped him become president. He was a democrat. But he became a leftist with a plan to follow Ecuador and Venezuela. He wanted to become a dictator and emulate [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chávez.''

What Zelaya hoped to gain from the referendum is a point of contention in Honduras. The proposed referendum question didn't mention reelection and asked only whether voters should decide Nov. 29 whether to call for a constituent assembly. Zelaya and his supporters claim that the referendum was nonbinding and that any change would have taken place after Zelaya left office.

However, Micheletti said he believed that Zelaya intended to try to force a rewrite of the constitution before the election in an effort to remain in power. Chávez successfully pressed Venezuelan voters to allow him to run for reelection after they initially defeated such a measure.

AT HOME

Interviewed at his home on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, Micheletti, a 66-year-old father of nine, was relaxed, a marked difference from when he met with foreign reporters shortly after the coup and refused to answer some questions and bristled at others.

Micheletti wore a guayabera and sat in his living room. His dog was given free rein to run about until the interview started.

As Micheletti spoke, pro-Zelaya protesters once again blocked key streets in Tegucigalpa, the capital, and teachers continued a strike that has kept the capital's public schools closed. There were no reports of violence.

One question Micheletti wouldn't answer: Was it illegal for the military to spirit Zelaya out of the country instead of simply arresting him, as the country's Supreme Court had ordered?

``I might have committed the same mistake to avoid a bigger confrontation, a lot of bloodshed,'' he said.

DEFENDED POLICE

He defended police from allegations that they have beaten pro-Zelaya demonstrators. One demonstrator on Sunday showed a McClatchy reporter a bruise on his leg, where he said police had struck him with clubs.

Micheletti said soldiers and police officers simply had been trying to defend themselves.

Micheletti also said he hoped that Llorens, who left for the United States for vacation on Friday, wouldn't return. ``He hasn't been fair,'' he said.

The State Department issued a statement of support for Llorens on Monday.

Micheletti said he doesn't expect the Obama administration to go beyond the light restrictions it has imposed on Honduras.

``Doing so would most hurt social programs for the poor,'' Micheletti said, adding that the United States has been ``a longtime ally.''

He said he would happily retire from politics when he turns over power to his elected successor Jan. 27. He said he would return to his hometown of El Progreso, where he owns a 185-acre cattle farm and is one of 60 partners in a bus company.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Manuel Zelaya's chances of getting restored to the Honduran presidency become more distant with each passing week. Across Latin America, his allies and foes alike see a precedent being set.

It's a glimmer of hope for the region's conservative elite, which has watched with dismay over the past decade as a wave of leftist presidents has risen to power, promising to topple the establishment and give greater power to the poor.

When the once-moderate Zelaya started down that path, Honduras' military, Congress and Supreme Court teamed up to oust him, and despite protests from across the hemisphere the coup-installed government remains in place. Could this be the model Latin America's conservatives were desperately seeking?

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who was briefly ousted in a 2002 coup himself, said Cuba's Fidel Castro told him the situation in Honduras will "open the door to the wave of coups coming in Latin America."

"Fidel says something that is very true," he said.

Added Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, a close ally of Chavez and Zelaya: "We have intelligence reports that say that after Zelaya, I'm next."

Across the region, conservatives who long ruled Latin America — and still own much of it — are showing signs of unrest, with armed uprisings in Bolivia and marches in Guatemala where tens of thousands of protesters have demanded the president resign.

But the most extreme case came in Honduras, a country with three decades of political stability and seven consecutive democratically elected presidents.

"This coup really surprised us," said Jorge Acevedo, deputy director of a Honduran human rights group. "We thought the issue of civilian rule was something we had resolved a long time ago."

Soldiers arrested Zelaya on June 28 and flew him into exile, and within hours Congress swore in the next-in-line to the presidency, Roberto Micheletti. In the six weeks since, demonstrations by Zelaya supporters and diplomatic efforts by countries ranging from the United States to Venezuela have been unsuccessful in orchestrating Zelaya's return.

Argentina's Cristina Fernandez, whose popularity has plummeted, said allowing Honduras' interim government to remain in power until Nov. 29 presidential elections would undermine democracy across the region.

"It would be enough for someone to stage a civilian coup, backed by the armed forces, or simply a civilian one and later justify it by convoking elections," Fernandez told South American leaders. "And then democratic guarantees would truly be fiction."

Honduras responded Tuesday by giving Argentina's diplomatic mission 72 hours to leave the country.

Those who have stirred turmoil in left-led countries insist they are the ones defending democracy.

Many of the so-called "revolutionary" governments that have been voted into power from Nicaragua to Bolivia have not only tried to redistribute wealth but also remove limits on their time in power. Many have reduced the powers of opponents in ways that have made traditional elites feel their private holdings, investments and democratic freedoms are under attack.

"I think Zelaya gave enough reasons to be removed from government — reasons that exist in abundance in Venezuela," said Venezuelan opposition leader Jose Luis Farias. "Chavez has violated the constitution a lot more than Zelaya did."

In Bolivia, opposition Gov. Ruben Costas called Zelaya's ouster a logical reaction to "a process that follows the same book as Chavez, which only seeks constitutional changes to perpetuate strongmen."

"There is a limit in countries where we are suffering abuses," he told radio Erbol.

Of course, the Honduras precedent goes only so far.

No other leader in the region faces the utter political isolation that drove Zelaya from power so swiftly and efficiently: The military, the Supreme Court and even Zelaya's own political party turned against him when he deepened his allegiance with Chavez and pursued constitutional changes in defiance of court rulings.

Elsewhere in the region, many of the leaders have already solidified their hold on power, in part through referendums and new constitutions overwhelmingly approved by voters. In Venezuela, other branches of government including congress and the judiciary are stacked with Chavez allies, leaving his opponents with few options for getting back into power.

"Removing Chavez through legal means — that is, through institutions — is very difficult because he has absolute control over all the institutions of the country," Farias said.

Leftist leaders are taking no chances.

Ecuador has announced plans to create citizens committees to defend against Honduras-style coups. Correa has not provided details of how the groups will work, but critics fear they could become something akin to Cuba's Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, used to monitor "counterrevolutionary" activities.

Bolivian President Evo Morales, who calls two weeks of deadly protests in the eastern lowlands last year a "civilian coup," recently announced that three men killed by police had been planning to assassinate him in a plot backed by opposition leaders.

Guatemala's Alvaro Colom said he was being targeted by elites angry about his attempts to eliminate corporate tax loopholes when thousands took to the streets in May. They were demanding his resignation after a videotape by a prominent lawyer foretold his own murder, claiming Colom was to blame.

And for any Latin American leader who feels confident of their hold on power, Honduras offers a sobering lesson in how quickly a president can lose control.

Luis Vicente Leon, an analyst with Venezuela's Datanalisis polling firm, said all of Latin America's leftist leaders "have a lot of enemies."

"No one," he said, "is immune."

___

Associated Press writers contributing to this report included Christopher Toothaker in Caracas, Venezuela; Jeanneth Valdivieso in Quito, Ecuador; Carlos Valdez in La Paz, Bolivia; Michael Warren in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Juan Carlos Llorca in Guatemala City.

Since his ouster on June 28, Zelaya has vowed to reclaim the presidency. His rival, interim President Roberto Micheletti, has said Zelaya will be arrested on sight and must face charges of treason and abuse of power, among others.
BY TIM ROGERS
Special to The Miami Herald

MANAGUA -- The aftershocks from the military coup that ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on June 28 continue to rattle Nicaragua, where politicians are using the neighboring conflict as a proxy war to slug out their own internal disputes.

Though President Daniel Ortega insists a coup d'état in Nicaragua is unthinkable because of the military's Sandinista roots, the upheaval in Honduras has intensified Nicaragua's political polarization and led to a recent bout of violence in this already divided nation.

Mónica Zalaquett, director of the Center for Prevention of Violence, says the problem in Honduras has become a ``political instrument'' in Nicaragua, used by both the Sandinistas and the opposition to promote their own agendas.

``The problem of Honduras,'' she said, ``can be an opportunity to change the model of conflict resolution through dialogue, or it can be the path to total chaos and violence.''

So far, dialogue doesn't appear to be winning out.

On Aug. 4, a group of four Nicaraguan opposition lawmakers who tried to travel to the Honduran border to express their discomfort with what they called Zelaya's two-week ``occupation'' of northern Nicaragua were turned back 12 miles before the town of Ocotal. Sandinista and Zelaya supporters blocked their caravan on the highway and attacked their vehicles with sticks and rocks.

Four days later, a group of Sandinistas attacked a peaceful march in Managua and beat a journalist they accused of supporting the Honduran coup. Though the violence was strongly condemned by the Nicaraguan political opposition, business groups and the Catholic Church, Ortega justified the attack by saying the demonstrators had been ``yelling in favor of the coup.''

ADOPTING THE CAUSE

Ortega has likened the coup in Honduras to a coup against all members of the Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our Americas (ALBA), a leftist group of countries led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. In the past, Ortega has said that an attack against one ALBA country is an attack against all.

Nicaraguan opposition leaders, too, have milked the situation in Honduras. They are using it to undermine Ortega's attempts to follow the ALBA model of reforming the constitution to remain in power.

``The situation that Honduras is living today is a product of the constitutional violations by Manuel Zelaya and the intervention and meddling of Hugo Chávez,'' said Nicaraguan opposition leader Eduardo Montealegre, upon returning from a trip to Honduras in late July to meet and greet the de facto government of Roberto Micheletti.

``We aren't the government and so it's not our role to recognize other governments, but as lawmakers, political leaders and Nicaraguan citizens, we recognize what happened in Honduras as a constitutional succession,'' Montealegre said.

Lawmaker María Eugenia Sequeira said the situation in Honduras is ``the first visible symptom of the abuses that Chávez is promoting in other countries.''

She said it should serve as a ``warning bell'' for what is happening in Nicaragua, too.

Opposition lawmakers have attempted to introduce a bill calling for Zelaya's expulsion from Nicaragua, which has become his de facto home base during his six weeks of exiled suitcase diplomacy. They argue Zelaya's use of Nicaraguan territory to call for insurrection in Honduras violates the constitution and is a flagrant abuse of his privileges as a guest here.

Wilfredo Navarro, first secretary of the National Assembly, said the legislative body is also launching a special congressional investigation of Zelaya's activities during his recent stay in the border outpost of Ocotal.

Navarro said the commission will be investigating claims that Honduran gang members were among some 1,000 Hondurans who reportedly crossed into Nicaragua illegally to support Zelaya in late July and early August.

``We have reports that Hondurans have been stealing from farms in the Northern Zone because they don't have any food to eat,'' Navarro told The Miami Herald. ``This is an offense to Nicaraguans.''

TRADING RHETORIC

Following the Aug. 8 Sandinista attack on the march that Ortega claims was in support of the coup, the criticism of the Nicaraguan government has become increasingly heated.

The Catholic Church released its strongest-worded condemnation to date, expressing its ``profound worry and sadness'' and criticizing the Sandinista government's ``policy of intolerance and total disrespect for the liberties of free expression and movement.''

Both the church and human rights organizations are denouncing what they call ``paramilitary groups'' formed by the Sandinista Front to squelch any expression of dissidence.

``[The Sandinistas] talk about changing the model of the country, but the model they are imposing is one of terror and intimidation,'' said Gónzalo Carrión, of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights.

Carrión said Nicaragua needs to avoid at all costs entering into armed conflict with Honduras, which he says ``would benefit the authoritarian project of Daniel Ortega'' by allowing the government to further suppress rights as a wartime measure.

Ortega, who has already been accused by Micheletti of mobilizing troops in Nicaragua -- a claim both Ortega and the Nicaraguan military have denied -- insists Nicaragua doesn't want war with Honduras. But Ortega has also sent mixed messages by quoting the adage, ``If you want peace, prepare for war.''

Ortega critics say that strategy hasn't worked out too well in Nicaragua's past.

``The 1980s taught us painfully that those who prepare for war end in war,'' said opposition politician Edmundo Jarquín, in a weekly radio address. ``Ortega should have said, `If you want peace, prepare for peace.' ''