Honduras analysis

It's become clear to me that what's happened in Honduras is rather more complicated than the military coup I initially thought it was.

Firstly, the forces behind the coup include not just the military, but the legislature and the judiciary, including the President's own party.

This seems to indicate that this is no coup, but more of an impeachment. There are, however, mitigating factors:

1. the President was not just removed from office legally, but hustled from the country. This, the military have acknowledged, was an illegal act, though they defend its necessity.

2. the reason for the removal of the President was, legally, and I think really, that he was trying to change the constitution, whereas the Honduran constitution does not allow certain of its articles to be changed. Such a constitutional arrangement is surely completely outrageous – the basic law of the country defined core aspects of itself as immutable, thus above debate or democracy. Such a constitution is eo ipso a justification for revolution: it is an outrageous offence against liberty, justice and democracy, and must be smashed by any means necessary. I would suggest that this ought to work even as a formal legal argument.

3. though Congress voted unanimously to remove the President, the military prevented the attendance of leftist congressmen at the vote on the President's dismissal (the President himself being a member of the non-left Liberal Party, which has the parliamentary majority).

The ultimate question is, I think, as in Iran, where the will of the people lies. If the people are for this coup, then let the ousted President return, since he is no danger. The military's use of deadly force today to prevent the return of the President is an outrage that exposes any legal mask they may use to cover their actions. Alternatively, if the people are not behind the ouster, then we are seeing a cabal of influential elite Hondurans (I note the whiteness of the new President) suppressing democracy.

What's extraordinary of course is that the 'international community' are taking more or less the same line as me on this, at least regarding the return of the President, if not the importance of the popular will. I find this extraordinary, because I don't feel the mitigating factors are obvious enough to puncture the respectability this move ought to enjoy among those who would be expected to align with such a rightist coup. The only explanation I can proffer is that the new US administration wants to court the emergent left bloc in Latin America.