Latin America’s stinging reaction to Honduran coup

[Note: I have not had easy internet access in the last two weeks for various technological and scheduling reasons and so have not kept this blog current. I will be back more frequently now.]

It has been remarkable and even encouraging to see the swift and unambiguous reaction to the armed forces coup in Honduras earlier this week. Key figures in the Organization of American States condemned it in no uncertain terms, and ousted president Manuel Zelaya made a triumphant appearance at the United Nations yesterday where he was applauded by both the chavista Venezuelans and the obamanian Americans as the legitimate, elected representative of his country. Diplomats from nearly 200 other countries joined the ovation.

Years ago people would have hardly noticed a military seizure of power in Latin America, but the horrors of the 1970s and 1980s have left some historical memory. Not many people on the continent want to go back to the bad old days of dictatorship and instability, least of all the business owners who are doing better than ever throughout the region. And there is a level of universal consensus that democracy is worth preserving on the long-suffering continent.

The U.S. under Obama is also playing quite a different role than what we could have expected from Bush, Rice and Cheney, who might well have thought the removal of a Chávez ally by coup d’état was just dandy. Although Obama is keeping the U.S. ambassador in place, the huge sums (relatively speaking) that flow from Washington to Tegucigalpa will be on everyone’s mind in the next few days and will give O considerable leverage.

Zelaya sounds like a blowhard and an adventurer, and he should have known better than to try to ram Hugo-naut constitutional changes past his very considerable opposition via plebiscite. Anything that could pave the way for him to stick around for another term starts to sound like president-for-life Hugo’s approach to governance, and the Honduran ruling elite obviously didn’t like the idea.

But they’re also as dumb as their Venezuelan counterparts. They may have successfully generated the nightmare they feared by rousting Zelaya out of bed in his pajamas and expelling him to Costa Rica. No one is going to believe the army’s lame backpedaling about how it wasn’t really a ‘coup’ because no one got killed (yet).

Now, Zelaya may be reimposed on them and return as the triumphant, abused hero. This is exactly what strengthened the Chávez juggernaut a few years ago with the help of incompetent Condoleeza & Co., who fell face forwards into the whole mess. It ain’t so easy to pull the rug out from under elected, civilian leaders in Latin America any more, and that’s a wonderful thing, no matter who Zelaya is.