To say that people in Latin America are sensitive about military coups would be an understatement. Due to the often tumultuous and bloody histories of their respective countries, they have a strong aversion to anything that looks like military interference in civilian politics. Recent events in Honduras have struck many Latin Americans as a return to the bad old days when power-hungry generals routinely dislodged elected officials and stomped on democracy.
Yet upon closer examination, the removal of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya bears very little resemblance to traditional Latin American military coups. Indeed, it was not really a “coup.” Rather, it was a response to a leader who had trampled the law and attempted to hold an illegal referendum on constitutional reform. Zelaya’s ouster was approved by Honduras’s Congress, Supreme Court, Electoral Tribunal, attorney general, and national prosecutor. Zelaya started this whole imbroglio when he ignored a Supreme Court ruling and tried to use thuggish mob tactics to impose his will on the Honduran political system. When the court told him that his proposed referendum was unconstitutional, Zelaya acted as if he were above the law. General Romeo Vásquez, boss of the Honduran armed forces, declined to participate in Zelaya’s anti-democratic charade, and for that “offense” he was fired. The court objected to Vásquez’s dismissal, at which point Zelaya and a gang of his supporters raided a military base to seize the referendum ballots. Press reports of armed Venezuelan and Nicaraguan agitators suggested the involvement of Hugo Chávez and Daniel Ortega in what was a gross power grab. Zelaya and his street gangs were poised to stage the vote when the president was detained by Honduran soldiers and flown to Costa Rica.
