El Salvador condemns coup in neighboring Honduras

Military forces ousted Manuel Zelaya, the democratically elected President of Honduras early Sunday morning in a coup. Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes condemned the overthrow and announced that El Salvador would not recognize the new government installed in Tegucigalpa. Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua all announced they would close their borders to land trade with Honduras for 48 hours.

Comments

El-Visitador said…
Coup?

Dude: the Congress, the Supreme Court, the Attorney General, and the Electoral Tribunal all said that the President was in violation of the law.

The Constitution of Honduras plainly states that when the President is removed, the President of the Congress assumes power.

The Constitutional transfer of power has not been broken, ergo, there is no coup.

Only Chavez and his lefty friends are invested in making the opposite argument.
Guevara said…
El Visitador is probably drunk, and doesn't know what a golpe is...It's clear that it is a coup, and it has been refine so well that it looks constitutional....but the truth is the truth, and it's obvious that el visitador can't handle the truth.

The new Somosa of Central America thought that the coup d'etat was going to be easy;

Like Hitler he took the Army to the streets to show the force of das boot;
Like Pinoche he intimidated the opposition and made them dissapear;
Like Batista he quiet the laud voice of their people claiming to be heard;
Like Trujillo he censor the press, and like Mussulini he eat more than everyone else..that Roberto Micheletti looks like he has some extra pounds!!!

My friend, el Visitador, if all of the ones (The Congress, the Electoral...) that you mention were saying that Zelaya was wrong, there is other ways to deal with that problem; you know Zelaya had only six more months to go...they could it defeat him in the elections, or defeat his party in free elections.

But when the new Dictator Maximus Emperato Micheletti said that he is defending democracy by a coup d'etat, it's like a rapist saying that he did it becasue of love.

By the way I don't care about that Chavez...but I care about Democracy.
El-Visitador said…
« if all of the ones (The Congress, the Electoral...) that you mention were saying that Zelaya was wrong»

Inform yourself.

It is not an "if". It is a fact.
Anonymous said…
Thank god, they removed that idiot, left wing, butt kissing Chavez loyalist, but I get the feeling that this fool in going to come back and take this unlawful position once more. He broke the constitutional law and gets away by calling himself a victim. That is justice in a nutshell. Where dictators get their way.
Anonymous said…
To El Visitador:
What did you expect? This is Marx's... I mean Tim's El Salvador blog.

Just read what this guy says in most of his politically-biased posts.

And I know some idiot is going to say that this post is also biased, and yes, it is. But I am not the one trying to pass my opinions as facts in a so called "news" blog.
Carlos X. said…
Zelaya was assailed by hooded armed men in his pajamas after a standoff with his presidential guard, whisked off to an airforce base, and flown to a neighboring country, after which a falsified resignation letter was read to the country. "Constitutional transfer of power"? If you want a case of trying to pass off opinion for fact, you need not look farther than the first post.

Zelaya was a clown and a pathetic populist goon, but he was the pathetic populist goon the Hondurans elected, and under the principles of representative Democracy that the American countries have adopted, some of them at the cost of much bloodshed, that means that the way to remove him would have been through legal means, not with masked men, before the first rays of sunlight. There is much to critize here, on both sides of the political crisis, but to try to cast this third rate usurpation in the ill-fitting vestments of a forced legality just to score a political point is the worst kind of shysterism.
Griselda said…
WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP -El visitador, Lionroar, ArthurG, is being said here... AS FAR AS I HEARD, OEA, ONU, some other diplomatics as well presidents as -barack Obama, Brazil, Canada have condemmed the coup in Honduras!, What have made you think your comment is on top of what OEA AND ONU have announced. With regards to ArthurG, if you find this Blog usless, don't even bother to come here and make a comment.
As for Tim, Thank you for keeping us inform
Anonymous said…
Griselda:

I dont find the blog useless, just tinted.

And what gives us the right to disagree with the UN?
The fact that its the UN! One of the most corrupt and idiotic organizations of the planet.

And so what if Obama says its a coup? Everyone knows he is a leftie himself. I'm not saying that he is a communist, but definetely a leftist or "progressives" as they like to be called know.

There is a famous UN poster that has the UN Building and underneath it says: "The United Nations: A Rampart of Peace". Although I certainly admire the sense of humor, the only thing the UN is a rampar of these days is incomptence, bureaucracy and corruption.

Do you have some time to kill? Just punch "UN fails to" into Google, and you'll have hours of material to chose from.
Griselda said…
ArthurG:

I appreciate the way you stand for your approach, and I indeed respect that, but you HAVE TO respect to other's approach, this bolg is not tinted whatsoever, as a matter of fact this reminds me one thing about media, I found Tim's blog because I was fed up with TCS, -El Salvador TV 2.4.6channels- and El diario de Hoy, Prensa Grafica, Which I won't discourage you to watch or read. But I CANNOT just watch or read one side. I need both sides.
and when it comes to corruption, I assure you it's everywhere even in the "new" michelleti precidency. the point is THAT IT WAS NOT THE RIGHT THING TO DO, DEFINITELY, THAT IS NOT DEMOCRATIC AT ALL! AND THERE ISN'T A VALID EXCUSE FOR WHAT JUST HAPPENED!
you have the right to agree or disagree. That is up to you, and I respect that. as I expect you to respect mine.
I won't comment on this again as I have expressed what I think.

Much appreaciate!
El-Visitador said…
«What have made you think your comment is on top of what OEA AND ONU have announced»

I have moral principles.

The thoroughly corrupt and morally bankrupt sinecures you mention have none.
Joe said…
"Only Chavez and his lefty friends are invested in making the opposite argument."

Not true. Neither is anything I've ever read that was written by El-V.
Gatofilo said…
It's hardly surprising that Hugo Chavez and his ALBA puppets would condemn the removal of their leftist comrade, Manuel Zelaya.

While the world condemns Honduras, I noticed that there was absolute silence regarding Daniel Ortega's blatant fraud during the past Nicaraguan presidential election. Also, it's strange that the world would not be condemning the Castro Bros. 50 dynasty in Cuba, where Democracy exists by name alone. To the contrary, Castro is even invited to form part in the so-called democratic OAS by former Sandinista and current OAS president, Miguel D'Escoto.

But then, it's common knowledge that there will always be the resentful leftist holdouts and the useful fools who will join any bandwagon for some free cool-aide.
Unknown said…
"The fact that its the UN! One of the most corrupt and idiotic organizations of the planet."

The UN was the great table were the USSR and USA sat down and negotiate distributing the world's regions. It was a veritable Risk table made to represent and secure the interests of the ex-colonial powers, coming out of WWII. Of course, to make the poor underdeveloped countries of the world less left out, it was sanctioned as a "global community", to simply vest upon it a character of internationalism. We can only thank those members of the UN Security Council, those with veto powers, for eroding the UN into a marionette.


About Zelaya, I do believe that America's psyche has been irreparably damaged over the years, because no matter the day and the situation, they'll always see the ugly face of the "ghost of communism" rearing itself. And that is final.

I, myself, have been reading multiple English bloggers comment about the subject, and I do not believe to see a single one of them not to make mention of Chavez, ranging from either full-heartedly supporting the coup to giving it a benefit of the doubt, because clearly Chavez was attempting to rule Honduras by proxy, and expand his evil Empire. It is precisely the same type of obtuse thought that tries to equate Chavez to Hitler.

Certainly, you cannot expect those who resort to this type of fallacies to bother to reason. They'll just choose to ignore the complexities of Latin American "politics", and obviate facts of Zelaya that counter any arguments that he was surrendering Honduras to Chavez, perhaps doing it only in the same way that multitude of countries have surrendered their souls to the IMF/WB (yet without as a potent negative backlash, of course!).

Zelaya only came close to Chavez in 2007, because he had ran out of finance, Honduras, one of the region's most poor countries was particularly hurt by the ever-increasing petrol prices, therefore he sought alternative financing, and mechanisms to try find a solution to Honduras' energy crisis.

Of course, to boot, this movement also came with the added benefit that Zelaya would cement himself among sectors of Honduran society, allowing him to impulse his personal agenda.

One of those agendas was perhaps his eventual reelection, but also perhaps one of the retrograde elites of Latin America's greatest nightmare: allowing peasants to tear down the illusion of "representative democracy" those cutthroats swear by. Enough for them to mount this horrendous show of force, their only tried and tested tool of repression, rather than engaging on ANY due legal process of removing Zelaya from power, by impeachment if he indeed had broken any law (then again, who are those outlaws to ever speak of laws?). Instead what they chose to do, was demonstrate to the world, that Honduras proudly remain's United Fruit Co.'s original Banana Republic.
Unknown said…
By the way, know what is so funny of all this?

That retrograde scum like Salgero Gross and Milena Calderon Sol warn the governments of the region, that the events in Honduras should serve as an example to them of what may happen if they revoke their constitutional boundaries. The same scum who have stepped on every single law of El Salvador, whenever they had the opportunity to do so, dare say such things.

I couldn't help but to laugh.
Gatofilo said…
It seems uncanny that the ALBA presidents of Central America would put their political radicalism ahead of logic and even ahead of the well-being of their own countrymen.

By taking direction from the chafarrote, Hugo Chavez, and closing trade with Honduras, they have effectively shot themselves in the foot and are causing multi million dollar loses to their own countries at a time when these are on the verge of bankruptcy.

Clearly the ALBA comrades have another and more important hidden agenda to attend.
El-Visitador said…
The Christian Science Monitor publishes an opinion from a legal expert with the last word on this subject.

Conclusion: there was no coup. On the contrary, it was the Honduran institutions at their best in following the Honduran Constitution.

Also in Spanish at Cato.org.
Anonymous said…
Lasmarch:

"The UN was the great table were the USSR and USA sat down and negotiate distributing the world's regions. It was a veritable Risk table made to represent and secure the interests of the ex-colonial powers, coming out of WWII. Of course, to make the poor underdeveloped countries of the world less left out, it was sanctioned as a "global community", to simply vest upon it a character of internationalism. We can only thank those members of the UN Security Council, those with veto powers, for eroding the UN into a marionette."

Well, its not the same world we live in today that the world we lived in back then. Since Kofi Annan the UN degraded.

To be honest I give the UN an A+ for optimism but an F for realism. Their goals are just undoable.
Carlos X. said…
"The last word" on the illegal coup is given to a former cabinet member of the Maduro administration (the party that Zelaya defeated to come to power)? I suppose next you'll want to give Alberto Gonzalez the "last word" on the definition of torture!
Otto said…
Gotta love those neighbourly relations.

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=9177745&postID=3288433291300180539
Gatofilo said…
The Honduran people, including Cardinal Maradiaga, reiterated to the international community that the Honduran people have the right to determine their own destiny.

Only a diehard leftist ALBA interventionist would continue to insist that above and beyond all logic, that a 'coup d'etat' actually occured in Honduras.

It has become so very obvious that these agitators have been ordered to create conditions leading to martyrs, lots and lots of civilian deaths to parade before the press and the anxious cameras of foriegn journalists.
Guevara said…
Gatofilo, you are totally right about the coup, it wasn't a coup d'etat, just like there was not a hollocaust during WWII, just like Sadam Hussain had weapons of mass destruction that justify our intervention, just like Ronald Reagan help the poor so much, justlike OJ was innocent for all charges, just like that, you are right...
Anonymous said…
I haven't seen them do anything that would make me think its not a run of the mill military coup.

Remove the Pres using the military (what's wrong with a Court trial?)

Remove Civil liberties while claiming the initial actions were to respect the Constitution.

"Install" a family member as Mayor.

Militarize the streets and news channels. Curfews, checkpoints, repression of non coup supporters. The Pres isn't in the country so why all these measures against the people?

Smells like a garbage military coup to me.
Gatofilo said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gatofilo said…
The truth stands alone, but a lie needs complicity...

According to law in Honduras, Constitutional assemblies are convened to write new constitutions. When Zelaya published that decree to initiate an "opinion poll" about the possibility of convening a national assembly, he contravened the unchangeable articles of the Constitution that deal with the prohibition of reelecting a president and of extending his term. His actions showed intent.

the Honduran Constitution takes such intent seriously. According to Article 239: "No citizen who has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President. Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform [emphasis added], as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years."

Notice that the article speaks about intent and that it also says "immediately" – as in "instant," as in "no trial required," as in "no impeachment needed."

By knowingly breaking the law, Manuel Zelaya removed himself from office.

The Honduran people have the right to self determination.
Anonymous said…
Problem is they have to "prove" his intent was to run for reelection at some point because he is not on the upcoming ballot and would not be when the poll question is answered.

I see no proof of his intention to remain Pres.
Anonymous said…
Griselda you are a fool if you for once believe that Zelaya did not broke the law. Respect the law of any sovereignty and you can keep your self of of trouble. He should be arrested for trying to sell the country to Chavez. Chavez has no business trying to force people to see things his way. Just because Honduras so far has not been as stupid as el salvador placing a chavez symphatizer does not mean this is a coup.