Honduras Wins!
For months now, America and the world have been trying to force the small nation of Honduras to violate her own Constitution and accept back into office former President Manuel ("Mel") Zelaya, who tried to repeal term limits as part of a bid to make himself a Chavez-style President-For-Life. Zelaya not only sought foreign aid to help reverse the decison of the Honduran legislature, judiciary and military, and encouraged foreign nations to embargo Honduras; he also deliberately triggered violent riots which cost Honduran lives and property, with the clear threat being to start a Honduran civil war. In all this he clearly demonstrated that he valued his own political career above the well-being of his own people.
America, under the feckless Barack Obama, betrayed her Honduran ally. (So did the Organization of American States, but then nobody expected very muich of them). Not only did America suspend aid programs and partially support the embargo, but America turned a blind eye to outright acts of war by Venezuela, Nicaragua and Brazil against a country she was under formal treaty of alliance obligated to defend. These acts of war have included the provision of arms and other materials to the violent Zelayistas by air transport, and (in the case of Brazil) allowing Zelaya to whip up his thugs from within the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa (the Honduran capital).
However the Hondurans, who have repeatedly experienced dictatorship, valued their new democracy too much to give in. Despite human and economic losses large on the scale of this small nation (with a population of 7.5 million, each casualty is the equivalent to them of 41 casualties in America), the Hondurans refused to submit to the whims of a megalomaniac and foreign leaders.
Now, their courage has borne fruit.
After demanding for months that deposed Honduran President Mel Zelaya be restored to power, senior State Department officials now say they'll accept the outcome of Nov. 29 elections in the Central American country even if Zelaya doesn't reclaim his post.
"We support the elections process there," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Thursday. "We have provided technical assistance. ... These elections will be important to restoring Democratic and constitutional order in Honduras."
(James Rosen, "S.C. Senator DeMint forces U.S. change on Honduras stance on elections," McClatchy Newspapers, http://www.kansascity.com/444/story/1571163.html).
The implications of this are momentous. Once Honduras holds its November 29th elections, Obama will have very little sane diplomatic reason to maintain the sanctions or hold up the promised aid. And come the inauguration in 2010, Micheletti will step down and a new President will assume office, at which point America would be in the untenable political position of trying to set aside the results of a democratic election by force, in favor of a man explicitly forbidden by the Honduran Constitution from assuming the office.
Obama will be forced to back off from his support for Zelaya. And once America is no longer sanctioning Honduras, the rest of the world will fall into line or simply become irrelevant to the Hondurans.
This will, of course, begin the process of shattering the OAS, which was of course one of Chavez's main objectives in prolonging this crisis. Chavez wants to replace the OAS with an Organization of Latin American States (in which he of course would figure prominently). But in some ways the fall of the OAS would be a good thing -- an OAS which openly and proudly supports dictators over democracies is not worth our alliance, and the battle-lines will be clearly drawn against the Chavez-Castro Axis, when we have a real President again, in 2013.
The hero of the hour is South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint, who has also fought to control immigration and restrict the Obama-Pelosi health care power grab.
DeMint, by contrast, cited a Honduran Supreme Court ruling, later approved by the Honduran Congress, that the military had followed constitutional provisions in removing Zelaya and installing Roberto Micheletti as interim president.
While the U.S. government froze aid and took other punitive steps, DeMint held up two State Department nominations all summer and into the fall.
Christopher Sabatini, policy director at the Council of Americas, a New York-based organization of international businesses, said DeMint has had a major impact on the Obama administration's evolving response to the Honduran strife.
"DeMint's role has been disproportionate to his interest in Latin America," Sabatini said. "He chose to take a stand on this, and he plunged headlong into it. He drew a line in the sand."
If all it takes for evil for triumph is for good men to do nothing, sometimes all it takes for good tor triumph is for a few good men to do something. I salute Micheletti, Vasquez -- and DeMint, who in a dark time for Honduras and America proved that there were still men of honor willing to make the effort to save democracy.
America, under the feckless Barack Obama, betrayed her Honduran ally. (So did the Organization of American States, but then nobody expected very muich of them). Not only did America suspend aid programs and partially support the embargo, but America turned a blind eye to outright acts of war by Venezuela, Nicaragua and Brazil against a country she was under formal treaty of alliance obligated to defend. These acts of war have included the provision of arms and other materials to the violent Zelayistas by air transport, and (in the case of Brazil) allowing Zelaya to whip up his thugs from within the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa (the Honduran capital).
However the Hondurans, who have repeatedly experienced dictatorship, valued their new democracy too much to give in. Despite human and economic losses large on the scale of this small nation (with a population of 7.5 million, each casualty is the equivalent to them of 41 casualties in America), the Hondurans refused to submit to the whims of a megalomaniac and foreign leaders.
Now, their courage has borne fruit.
After demanding for months that deposed Honduran President Mel Zelaya be restored to power, senior State Department officials now say they'll accept the outcome of Nov. 29 elections in the Central American country even if Zelaya doesn't reclaim his post.
"We support the elections process there," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Thursday. "We have provided technical assistance. ... These elections will be important to restoring Democratic and constitutional order in Honduras."
(James Rosen, "S.C. Senator DeMint forces U.S. change on Honduras stance on elections," McClatchy Newspapers, http://www.kansascity.com/444/story/1571163.html).
The implications of this are momentous. Once Honduras holds its November 29th elections, Obama will have very little sane diplomatic reason to maintain the sanctions or hold up the promised aid. And come the inauguration in 2010, Micheletti will step down and a new President will assume office, at which point America would be in the untenable political position of trying to set aside the results of a democratic election by force, in favor of a man explicitly forbidden by the Honduran Constitution from assuming the office.
Obama will be forced to back off from his support for Zelaya. And once America is no longer sanctioning Honduras, the rest of the world will fall into line or simply become irrelevant to the Hondurans.
This will, of course, begin the process of shattering the OAS, which was of course one of Chavez's main objectives in prolonging this crisis. Chavez wants to replace the OAS with an Organization of Latin American States (in which he of course would figure prominently). But in some ways the fall of the OAS would be a good thing -- an OAS which openly and proudly supports dictators over democracies is not worth our alliance, and the battle-lines will be clearly drawn against the Chavez-Castro Axis, when we have a real President again, in 2013.
The hero of the hour is South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint, who has also fought to control immigration and restrict the Obama-Pelosi health care power grab.
DeMint, by contrast, cited a Honduran Supreme Court ruling, later approved by the Honduran Congress, that the military had followed constitutional provisions in removing Zelaya and installing Roberto Micheletti as interim president.
While the U.S. government froze aid and took other punitive steps, DeMint held up two State Department nominations all summer and into the fall.
Christopher Sabatini, policy director at the Council of Americas, a New York-based organization of international businesses, said DeMint has had a major impact on the Obama administration's evolving response to the Honduran strife.
"DeMint's role has been disproportionate to his interest in Latin America," Sabatini said. "He chose to take a stand on this, and he plunged headlong into it. He drew a line in the sand."
If all it takes for evil for triumph is for good men to do nothing, sometimes all it takes for good tor triumph is for a few good men to do something. I salute Micheletti, Vasquez -- and DeMint, who in a dark time for Honduras and America proved that there were still men of honor willing to make the effort to save democracy.