Lesson From Honduras

By Christopher Lingle

ATLANTA ― Words matter. Yet many politicians and diplomats, especially those in the United Nations and the Organization of American States (OAS), lost sight of this injunction in describing the events in Honduras in the last days as a coup d'etat.

Perhaps the most misleading description appeared in a news announcement in the U.S. by National Public Radio (NPR) casting the event as a ``military coup.''

These entities might have avoided the verbal imperialism of the French language by using the well-established Spanish language phrase, Golpe de Estado. Yet both expressions mischaracterize the process leading to the removal of former President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras.

Under an order of the Honduran Supreme Court citing abuse of the national constitution, Zelaya was arrested by the Honduran military. Rather than being jailed, the deposed chief executive was sent into exile in Costa Rica where he had free and open access to global media.

As such, what happened in Tegucigalpa cannot be considered to be a coup d'etat. It was the outcome of a legal process to resolve a constitutional struggle under the terms of a separation-of-powers clause.

And it certainly was not a ``military coup'' since it removed the former president under directions of all civilian organs of government outside of the executive branch. Besides the Supreme Court, Zelaya was also opposed by the Congress, the electoral tribunal and the attorney general.

The issue in question was a Honduran law allowing for a constitutional rewrite through a constituent assembly summoned only by a national referendum approved by its Congress. While elected to a non-renewable four-year term in 2005, Zelaya asked for a ballot to sanction a referendum to allow him to stand for re-election.

When Zelaya tried to carry out his plan, the Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional and instructed the military not to support the logistics as it normally would do. At the same time, the attorney general declared the referendum illegal and announced he would prosecute anyone trying to carry it out.

Even so, Zelaya instructed Honduras' head of military command, General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, to obey his order to support the referendum. When the general refused, Zelaya fired him and then ignored another order from the Supreme Court to reinstate the commander.

In further defiance of the Supreme Court order, Zelaya directed an unruly mob to a military post to seize the referendum ballots so his supporters could distribute them.

In the end, the military acted on orders of the highest court of the land to defend the rule of law and the constitution against flagrant abuse.

In turn, the Congress voted unanimously to remove the president for ``misconduct'' and ``violations of the Constitution and the law and disregard of orders and judgments of the institutions.''

And the Congress followed Honduran law in appointing its president, Roberto Micheletti, as interim executive. It issued assurances that presidential elections set for late November would proceed. Even his own political party, the Liberals, sponsored a resolution to investigate his mental capacity to remain in office.

As such, denouncing the actions by the various Honduran civilian authorities as a military coup or a coup d'etat is worse than a misnomer. Using such terms leads to the delegitimization of a constitutional anchor that provides legal fetters against the whims and abuses of power by democratically-elected officials.

A higher law of a constitution acts as a brake on popular and democratic government, especially to rein in executives that can use majority support to become a dictator. As it is, unrestrained powers can allow an elected executive branch to be as oppressive, arbitrary and be as unaccountable as a hereditary, absolute monarch.

As such, constitutional limits on the power of governments and elected officials protect the liberty and security of individual citizens. In the case of Honduras, an important element at play is the constitutional elements of the separation of powers that imposes checks-and-balances on the exercise of political power.

For its part, the Obama administration explained its reticence to offer support to anguished Iranian voters so as not to be seen as ``meddling'' in Iran's domestic affairs. Yet it wholeheartedly denounced Honduran's exercise of constitutional authority to use the rule of law to depose a rogue politician.

Supporters of President Obama herald his credentials as a lecturer in constitutional law. But he seems to ignore the stated concerns of the framers of the U.S. Constitution in warning that liberty can be undermined through a tyrannical majority. In turn, they felt that constitutions should guard against ``unlimited'' democracy.

Unfortunately, international organizations like the U.N. and the OAS concur with President Obama in denouncing the removal of former President Zelaya of Honduras. In their view, democracy is an inviolable end while constitutions are merely a nuisance to be swept aside on the basis of a single and momentary popular vote.

Christopher Lingle is visiting professor of economics at Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala. He can be reached at CLingle@ufm.edu. The views expressed in the above article are those of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of The Korea Times.