Events In Honduras

[Magda Hassan]

Electoral Fraud Proved in Honduras: More than 50 Percent Did Not Vote

Posted by Al Giordano - December 7, 2009 at 8:18 am By Al Giordano
Video Here:
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefiel...d-not-vote


While most international news organizations took obedient dictation of the Honduras coup regime's claims of more than 62 percent voter participation in the November 29 "elections," authentic journalist Jesse Freeston did what real reporters are supposed to do: He went directly to the source, asked questions, took notes, and videotaped the evidence.
Freeston today publishes this bombshell report, above, on The Real News that documents definitively that Honduras electoral officials knowingly lied about their claims of more than 60 percent voter turnout. The hard results in possession of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE, in its Spanish initials) demonstrate only 49.2 percent turnout: That means that a majority - more than 50 percent - of Honduran citizens abstained in the "elections" that the National Front Against the Coup d'Etat had called unfair, unfree and placed under boycott.
The hard numbers show that abstention - and by inference, the Resistance - was the winner in the November 29 vote.
Usually, electoral fraud is committed to change the outcome between candidates in an election. It is not yet known whether the stuffing of official results with claims of 62 percent voter turnout (about 25 percent higher than the actual 49 percent participation) was also used to change the results of presidential, congressional or municipal contests.
The real question all along was well known to be: How many Hondurans would vote? And how many Hondurans would not? In the coup regime's zeal to legitimize this electoral farce it invented a number - 62 - and claimed that to be the percent of participation in the November 29 vote. Journalist Freeston walks the viewer, step by step, through the post-electoral claims by presidential candidate Pepe Lobo (declared winner of the mock elections), members of the Honduran Congress, diplomats from the United States, Canada, Costa Rica and other countries, and international corporate newspaper editorials, all of which cited the "more than 60 percent turnout" to label the "elections" as free, fair and transparent.
He then goes inside the vote counting rooms at the Supreme Electoral Tribunal in Tegucigalpa, camera in hand, and videotapes the real numbers from computer screens and paper print-outs: 49.2 percent turnout. He also conducts an interview with Leonardo Ramírez Pareda, the official responsible for counting the votes, who in a moment of frankness (perhaps unaware of what his bosses were claiming outside the room to the press) says, matter of factly, that the participation was at 49 percent. All of this evidence is on camera, and it is now known to the world, thanks to the journalist gumshoe work of Freeston and The Real News.
The 49.2 percent turnout count, Freeston notes, is very close to the independent count of the US-financed "Hagamos Democracía" organization, which works under the auspices of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) of the US State Department's National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Freeston notes that the NDI withheld its own count information from its press release lauding the the "elections" as a success.
The work that Freeston did to bring you, and all Hondurans and citizens of the world, these facts was something that any reporter for AP, Reuters, CNN, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal or any other media could have done, but did not do: report the real facts that were available on the ground even as the Supreme Electoral Tribunal still has not - eight days after the "elections" - released the official town by town "results" which make a lie of its chairman's election night claims of 62 percent turnout.
Logic would dictate that the same governments and media organizations that, in the days since, have cited the false turnout numbers as the reason to consider the Honduras "elections" free, fair and transparent, and therefore recognize their "results," now must withdraw that recognition. Some have been played as fools, once again, by an anti-democratic coup regime. Others are willing participants in the dishonest charade.
Freeston's report is a game changer inside Honduras and outside of it as well. It will shortly be translated to Spanish and other languages (as will this written summary of it). The real facts will be distributed far and wide by the Honduran resistance and by pro-democracy voices everywhere on earth. The conclusion is based on hard data and therefore undeniable: The Honduras coup regime cooked the "results" of the November 29 "elections" with knowing falsehood. The real results reveal that abstention and the Resistance-called boycott of the electoral theater won the majority two Sundays ago. The elections are therefore absolutely illegitimate, cannot be recognized, and neither can their "results." And authentically freedom-loving peoples of Honduras and the world will never adhere to them, abide by them, respect them or acknowledge them.
The coup d'etat unleashed last June 28 now has led to a situation where the incoming government that is slated to take power on January 27, 2010 enjoys no more legitimacy or legality than the present coup regime. The Honduras people are without a democratically elected government, and will continue to be without one for some time to come. And any other country's government, or media, that continues to claim to recognize them as legitimate reveals itself to be complicit in the theft of democracy.
Now, kind readers, do your part: break the information blockade, distribute Freeston's video report far and wide, translate it into your own languages, and wave it in the faces of any government official or media organization that attempts to repeat the big lie of majority participation in the Honduras vote last week. They are the usurpers of democracy. And you are its last, best hope.
Update: Jesse Freeston, the investigator and author of the report, adds an important point - that the 49 percent total was itself subject to opportunities for padding between the ballot box and that count. Thus, if anything, the number could well be too high, still:

"The TSE tabulation is still up-stream from numerous opportunities for fraud. So I don't think it's fair to assume that the 49 percent number is correct. There's the entire military apparatus between the vote cast and the vote count."


http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefiel...d-not-vote

[Magda Hassan]

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Zelaya En Route to Dominican Republic

Manuel Zelaya Rosales went by car from the Brazilian embassy to Toncontin International Airport about 20 minutes ago and arrived at the airforce base there. He was accompanied by his wife, a daughter, Rasel Tomé and escorted by President Porfirio Lobo Sosa, fresh from his inauguration ceremony, President Colom of Guatemala, and President Fernandez of the Dominican Republic. At the same time, the other people within the Brazilian embassy who were Zelaya supporters left the embassy without incident, La Tribuna reported. At the airport was a large crowd organized by the Frente de Resistencia to see him off. Crowd photos showed that there were many thousand people gathered peacefully there. At the air force base the Zelayas and Tomé boarded a twin engine Embraer jet, which has just taken off for the Dominican Republic.

Update 2:35 pm PST: The spokesperson for President Alvaro Colom of Guatemala is denying that Colom attended Lobo Sosa's inauguration and accompanied Zelaya to Toncontin Airport as various Honduran newspapers have reported today.

Update 4:21 pm PST: Zelaya has arrived in the Dominican Republic. La Tribuna reports that General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez was at the Airport to see Zelaya off. "Political phenomena are one thing, another is the friends you keep," Vasquez Velasquez told the press.
http://hondurascoup2009.blogspot.com/201...ublic.html

[Magda Hassan]

Memo Reveals US State Department Knew Honduras Coup Was Illegal, Did Not Follow Own Advice


Posted by Erin Rosa - November 28, 2010 at 11:55 pm Leaked Cable, Early During Coup, Defined Removal of President Manuel Zelaya as Illegitimate
Less than month after the coup d'état that removed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya from office at gun point, the US Embassy in the country's capital sent a memo to State Department headquarters in Washington DC ripping apart arguments used by the coup plotters.

“...The military and/or whoever ordered the coup fell back on what they knew – the way Honduran presidents were removed in the past: a bogus resignation letter and a one-way ticket to a neighboring country,” reads a confidential cable from Tegucigalpa, signed by US Ambassador Hugo Llorens (pictured right) and published today by the organization Wikileaks.

The agency did not heed the warnings written by Llorens. The document, which was sent to the White House, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the military, is in contrast to the State Department's position to back a coup supporter to be the future president of the country months after the memo was sent. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was later found to be involved in giving millions to the coup regime through a US government-financed corporation she helped manage.

In the July 9, 2009 document, titled “Open and Shut: The Case of the Honduran Coup,” Llorens writes that after consulting legal specialists and analyzing the country's constitution it's clear that “the actions of June 28 can only be considered a coup d'etat by the legislative branch, with the support of the judicial branch and the military, against the executive branch.”

On that date soldiers forced their way into the democratically-elected president's home in the capital and put Zelaya on a plane to San José, Costa Rica after the country's Supreme Court had issued a secret arrest warrant. “Accounts of Zelaya's abduction by the military indicate he was never legally 'served' with a warrant; the soldiers forced their way in by shooting out the locks and essentially kidnapped the President,” Llorens says in the memo.

Zelaya's alleged “crime” according to coup backers was proposing to have a vote to create an assembly to rewrite the country's constitution. Later that day the National Congress passed a resolution to remove Zelaya from office, while presenting a fake resignation letter. Roberto Micheletti, President of the National Congress, was declared the new president of a de facto government run by coup supporters.

The cable says “it is not clear” that promoting a vote to change the constitution is unconstitutional, and that regardless of the legal arguments, the armed forces are not allowed to execute judicial orders and Congress had no authority to remove Zelaya from office.

“Zelaya's arrest and forced removal from the country violated multiple constitutional guarantees, including the prohibition on expatriation, presumption of innocence and right to due process,” Llorens writes. “Furthermore, a source in the Congressional leadership told us that a quorum was not present when there [sic] solution was adopted, rendering it invalid. There was no recorded vote, nor a request for the 'yeas' and 'nays.'”

Despite calling the Micheletti government “illegitimate” and the coup a product of a “hasty, ad-hoc, extralegal, secret, 48-hour process,” it was Llorens and the State Department who later began to support the coup. The US-financed Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which had “hands on” management by Clinton on its board of directors, gave $6.5 million to the coup regime after Zelaya was ousted. The agency then backed coup supporter Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo as the winner of a presidential election held five months after Zelaya was removed. Lobo denied a coup had taken place, and as president he later gave amnesty to everyone involved in plotting it.

In other words, while it is now clear that the State Department knew the coup was illegitimate and unconstitutional, why did the agency get so involved with funding the coup regime and backing one of its key supporters in elections that were marked by well-document abuses and fraud?

That question could be answered soon. The cable in one of hundreds from Honduras that will be made available over the next few months according to Wikileaks, and they may explain the State Department's handling of the first Latin American crisis under the Obama administration.
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/noteboo...-did-not-f

[Peter Lemkin]

Memo Reveals US State Department Knew Honduras Coup Was Illegal, Did Not Follow Own Advice


Posted by Erin Rosa - November 28, 2010 at 11:55 pm Leaked Cable, Early During Coup, Defined Removal of President Manuel Zelaya as Illegitimate
Less than month after the coup d'état that removed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya from office at gun point, the US Embassy in the country's capital sent a memo to State Department headquarters in Washington DC ripping apart arguments used by the coup plotters.

“...The military and/or whoever ordered the coup fell back on what they knew – the way Honduran presidents were removed in the past: a bogus resignation letter and a one-way ticket to a neighboring country,” reads a confidential cable from Tegucigalpa, signed by US Ambassador Hugo Llorens (pictured right) and published today by the organization Wikileaks.

The agency did not heed the warnings written by Llorens. The document, which was sent to the White House, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the military, is in contrast to the State Department's position to back a coup supporter to be the future president of the country months after the memo was sent. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was later found to be involved in giving millions to the coup regime through a US government-financed corporation she helped manage.

In the July 9, 2009 document, titled “Open and Shut: The Case of the Honduran Coup,” Llorens writes that after consulting legal specialists and analyzing the country's constitution it's clear that “the actions of June 28 can only be considered a coup d'etat by the legislative branch, with the support of the judicial branch and the military, against the executive branch.”

On that date soldiers forced their way into the democratically-elected president's home in the capital and put Zelaya on a plane to San José, Costa Rica after the country's Supreme Court had issued a secret arrest warrant. “Accounts of Zelaya's abduction by the military indicate he was never legally 'served' with a warrant; the soldiers forced their way in by shooting out the locks and essentially kidnapped the President,” Llorens says in the memo.

Zelaya's alleged “crime” according to coup backers was proposing to have a vote to create an assembly to rewrite the country's constitution. Later that day the National Congress passed a resolution to remove Zelaya from office, while presenting a fake resignation letter. Roberto Micheletti, President of the National Congress, was declared the new president of a de facto government run by coup supporters.

The cable says “it is not clear” that promoting a vote to change the constitution is unconstitutional, and that regardless of the legal arguments, the armed forces are not allowed to execute judicial orders and Congress had no authority to remove Zelaya from office.

“Zelaya's arrest and forced removal from the country violated multiple constitutional guarantees, including the prohibition on expatriation, presumption of innocence and right to due process,” Llorens writes. “Furthermore, a source in the Congressional leadership told us that a quorum was not present when there [sic] solution was adopted, rendering it invalid. There was no recorded vote, nor a request for the 'yeas' and 'nays.'”

Despite calling the Micheletti government “illegitimate” and the coup a product of a “hasty, ad-hoc, extralegal, secret, 48-hour process,” it was Llorens and the State Department who later began to support the coup. The US-financed Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which had “hands on” management by Clinton on its board of directors, gave $6.5 million to the coup regime after Zelaya was ousted. The agency then backed coup supporter Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo as the winner of a presidential election held five months after Zelaya was removed. Lobo denied a coup had taken place, and as president he later gave amnesty to everyone involved in plotting it.

In other words, while it is now clear that the State Department knew the coup was illegitimate and unconstitutional, why did the agency get so involved with funding the coup regime and backing one of its key supporters in elections that were marked by well-document abuses and fraud?

That question could be answered soon. The cable in one of hundreds from Honduras that will be made available over the next few months according to Wikileaks, and they may explain the State Department's handling of the first Latin American crisis under the Obama administration.
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/noteboo...-did-not-f

Just as we all knew...they know [at least in principle, if not in the 'heart'] right from wrong; good from evil; legal from illegal - but choose the wrong and the evil and the illegal time and time again - for their own power and profit and geopolitical aims. The political/corporate/intelligence/military/financial class in the Uber-countries are the criminal class, for sure!

I'd say that was one of the better Wikileaked cables, thus far!

[Magda Hassan]

C O N F I D E N T I A L TEGUCIGALPA 000645

SIPDIS

WHA FOR A/S TOM SHANNON
L FOR HAROLD KOH AND JOAN DONOGHUE
NSC FOR DAN RESTREPO

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/23/2019
TAGS: PGOV KDEM KJUS TFH01 HO
SUBJECT: TFHO1: OPEN AND SHUT: THE CASE OF THE HONDURAN COUP

REF: TEGUCIGALPA 578

Classified By: Ambassador Hugo Llorens, reasons 1.4 (b and d)

¶1. © Summary: Post has attempted to clarify some of the
legal and constitutional issues surrounding the June 28
forced removal of President Manuel "Mel" Zelaya. The
Embassy perspective is that there is no doubt that the
military, Supreme Court and National Congress conspired
on June 28 in what constituted an illegal and
unconstitutional coup against the Executive Branch, while
accepting that there may be a prima facie case that Zelaya
may
have committed illegalities and may have even violated the
constitution. There is equally no doubt from our perspective
that Roberto Micheletti's assumption of power was
illegitimate. Nevertheless, it is also evident that the
constitution itself may be deficient in terms of providing
clear procedures for dealing with alleged illegal acts by
the President and resolving conflicts between the branches
of government. End summary.

¶2. (U) Since the June 28 removal and expulsion of President
Zelaya by the Honduran armed forces, the Embassy has
consulted Honduran legal experts (one cannot find a fully
unbiased professional legal opinion in Honduras in the
current politically charged atmosphere) and reviewed the
text of the Honduran Constitution and its laws to develop a
better understanding of the arguments being parlayed by the
coup's supporters and opponents.

-------------------------------
Arguments of the Coup Defenders
-------------------------------

¶3. (SBU) Defenders of the June 28 coup have offered some
combination of the following, often ambiguous, arguments to
assert it's legality:

-- Zelaya had broken the law (alleged but not proven);

-- Zelaya resigned (a clear fabrication);

-- Zelaya intended to extend his term in office
(supposition);

-- Had he been allowed to proceed with his June 28
constitutional reform opinion poll, Zelaya would have
dissolved Congress the following day and convened a
constituent assembly (supposition);

-- Zelaya had to be removed from the country to prevent a
bloodbath;

-- Congress "unanimously" (or in some versions by a 123-5
vote) deposed Zelaya; (after the fact and under the cloak
of secrecy); and

-- Zelaya "automatically" ceased to be president the moment
he suggested modifying the constitutional prohibition on
presidential reelection.

¶4. © In our view, none of the above arguments has any
substantive validity under the Honduran constitution. Some
are outright false. Others are mere supposition or ex-post
rationalizations of a patently illegal act. Essentially:

-- the military had no authority to remove Zelaya from the
country;

-- Congress has no constitutional authority to remove a
Honduran president;

-- Congress and the judiciary removed Zelaya on the basis
of a hasty, ad-hoc, extralegal, secret, 48-hour process;

-- the purported "resignation" letter was a fabrication and
was not even the basis for Congress's action of June 28;
and

-- Zelaya's arrest and forced removal from the country
violated multiple constitutional guarantees, including the
prohibition on expatriation, presumption of innocence and
right to due process.

-------------------------------------------
Impeachment under the Honduran Constitution
-------------------------------------------

¶5. (U) Under the Honduran Constitution as currently
written, the President may be removed only on the basis of
death, resignation or incapacitation. Only the Supreme
Court may determine that a President has been
"incapacitated" on the basis of committing a crime.

¶6. (U) There is no explicit impeachment procedure in the
1982 Honduran Constitution. Originally, Article 205-15
stated that Congress had the competence to determine
whether "cause" existed against the President, but it did
not stipulate on what grounds or under what procedure.
Article 319-2 stated that the Supreme Court would "hear"
cases of official or common crimes committed by high-level
officials, upon a finding of cause by the Congress. This
implied a vague two-step executive impeachment process
involving the other two branches of government, although
without specific criteria or procedures. However, Article
205 was abrogated in 2003, and the corresponding provision
of Article 319 (renumbered 313) was revised to state only
that the Supreme Court would hear "processes initiated"
against high officials. Thus, it appears that under the
Constitution as currently written, removal of a president
or a government official is an entirely judicial matter.

¶7. (U) Respected legal opinion confirms that the removal of
a president is a judicial matter. According to a 2006 book
by respected legal scholar Enrique Flores Valeriano -- late
father of Zelaya's Minister of the Presidency, Enrique
Flores Lanza -- Article 112 of the Law of Constitutional
Justice indicates that if any government official is found
to be in violation of the Constitution, that person should
be removed from office immediately with the ultimate
authority on matters of Constitutionality being the Supreme
Court.

¶8. (U) Many legal experts have also confirmed to us that
the Honduran process for impeaching a President or other
senior-level officials is a judicial procedure. They
assert that under Honduran law the process consists of formal
criminal charges being filed by the Attorney General
against the accused with the Supreme Court. The Supreme
Court could accept or reject the charges. If the Court
moved to indict, it would assign a Supreme Court
magistrate, or a panel of magistrates to investigate the
matter,
and oversee the trial. The trial process is open and
transparent and the defendant would be given a full right
of self-defense. If convicted in the impeachment trial,
the magistrates have authority to remove the President or
senior official. Once the President is removed, then the
constitutional succession would follow. In this case, if a
President is legally charged, convicted, and removed, his
successor is the Vice President or what is termed the
Presidential Designate. In the current situation in
Honduras, since the Vice President, Elvin Santos, resigned
last December in order to be able to run as the Liberal
Party Presidential candidate, President Zelaya's successor
would be Congress President Roberto Micheletti.
Unfortunately, the President was never tried, or
convicted, or was legally removed from office to allow a
legal succession.

-----------------------------
The Legal Case Against Zelaya
-----------------------------

¶9. © Zelaya's opponents allege that he violated the
Constitution on numerous grounds, some of which appear on
their face to be valid, others not:

-- Refusing to submit a budget to the Congress: The
Constitution is unambiguous that the Executive shall submit
a proposed budget to Congress by September 15 each year
(Art. 367), that Congress shall approve the budget (Art.
366) and that no obligations or payments may be effectuated
except on the basis of an approved budget (Art. 364);

-- Refusing to fund the Congress: Article 212 states that
the Treasury shall apportion quarterly the funds needed for
the operation of the Congress;

-- Proposing an illegal constitutional referendum: The
Constitution may be amended only through two-thirds vote of
the Congress in two consecutive sessions (Art. 373 and
375); a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution,
as Zelaya promoted, is therefore unconstitutional; however,
it is not clear that proposing a constituent assembly in
itself violates the constitution, only that any changes
ensuing from that assembly would be invalid;

-- Defying the judgment of a competent court: Zelaya
insisted on pushing ahead with his constitutional reform
opinion poll after both a first-instance court and an
appeals court ordered him to suspend those efforts;
however, while he clearly intended to follow through with
the poll, he never actually did it;

-- Proposing to reform unreformable articles: Since
Zelaya's proposed constituent assembly would have unlimited
powers to rewrite the constitution, it violated Article
374, which makes certain articles unamendable; once again,
though, Zelaya never actually attempted to change the
so-called "carved in stone" articles; it was only assumed
he intended to;

-- Dismissing the armed forces chief: The Supreme Court's
Constitutional Hall ruled June 25 that Zelaya was in
violation of the Constitution for dismissing Defense Chief
Vasquez Velasquez; the Constitution (Art. 280) states that
the President may freely name or remove the chief of the
armed forces; but the court ruled that since Zelaya fired
him for refusing to carry out a poll the court had ruled
illegal, the firing was illegal.

¶10. © Although a case could well have been made against
Zelaya for a number of the above alleged constitutional
violations, there was never any formal, public weighing of
the evidence nor any semblance of due process.

-----------------------
The Article 239 Cannard
-----------------------

¶11. (U) Article 239, which coup supporters began citing
after the fact to justify Zelaya's removal (it is nowhere
mentioned in the voluminous judicial dossier against
Zelaya), states that any official proposing to reform the
constitutional prohibition against reelection of the
president shall immediately cease to carry out their
functions and be ineligible to hold public office for 10
years. Coup defenders have asserted that Zelaya therefore
automatically ceased to be President when he proposed a
constituent assembly to rewrite the Constitution.

¶12. © Post's analysis indicates the Article 239 argument
is flawed on multiple grounds:

-- Although it was widely assumed that Zelaya's reason for
seeking to convoke a constituent assembly was to amend the
constitution to allow for reelection, we are not aware
that he ever actually stated so publicly;

-- Article 239 does not stipulate who determines whether it
has been violated or how, but it is reasonable to assume
that it does not abrogate other guarantees of due process
and the presumption of innocence;

-- Article 94 states that no penalty shall be imposed
without the accused having been heard and found guilty in a
competent court;

-- Many other Honduran officials, including presidents,
going back to the first elected government under the 1982
Constitution, have proposed allowing presidential
reelection, and they were never deemed to have been
automatically removed from their positions as a result.

¶13. © It further warrants mention that Micheletti himself
should be forced to resign following the logic of the 239
argument, since as President of Congress he considered
legislation to have a fourth ballot box ("cuarta urna") at
the November elections to seek voter approval for a
constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution. Any
member of Congress who discussed the proposal should also
be required to resign, and National Party presidential
candidate Pepe Lobo, who endorsed the idea, should be
ineligible to hold public office for 10 years.

--------------------------------------------- -
Forced Removal by Military was Clearly Illegal
--------------------------------------------- -

¶14. © Regardless of the merits of Zelaya's alleged
constitutional violations, it is clear from even a cursory
reading that his removal by military means was illegal, and
even the most zealous of coup defenders have been unable to
make convincing arguments to bridge the intellectual gulf
between "Zelaya broke the law" to "therefore, he was packed
off to Costa Rica by the military without a trial."

-- Although coup supporters allege the court issued an
arrest warrant for Zelaya for disobeying its order to
desist from the opinion poll, the warrant, made public days
later, was for him to be arrested and brought before the
competent authority, not removed from the county;

-- Even if the court had ordered Zelaya to be removed from
the country, that order would have been unconstitutional;
Article 81 states that all Hondurans have the right to
remain in the national territory, subject to certain narrow
exceptions spelled out in Article 187, which may be invoked
only by the President of the Republic with the agreement of
the Council of Ministers; Article 102 states that no
Honduran may be expatriated;

-- The armed forces have no/no competency to execute
judicial orders; originally, Article 272 said the armed
forces had the responsibility to "maintain peace, public
order and the 'dominion' of the constitution," but that
language was excised in 1998; under the current text, only
the police are authorized to uphold the law and execute
court orders (Art. 293);

-- Accounts of Zelaya's abduction by the military indicate
he was never legally "served" with a warrant; the soldiers
forced their way in by shooting out the locks and
essentially kidnapped the President.

¶15. (U) The Armed Forces' ranking legal advisor, Col.
Herberth Bayardo Inestroza, acknowledged in an interview
published in the Honduran press July 5 that the Honduran
Armed Forces had broken the law in removing Zelaya from the
country. That same day it was reported that the Public
Ministry was investigating the actions of the Armed Forces
in arresting and deporting Zelaya June 28 and that the
Supreme Court had asked the Armed Forces to explain the
circumstances that motivated his forcible exile.

¶16. © As reported reftel, the legal adviser to the
Supreme Court told Poloff that at least some justices on
the Court consider Zelaya's arrest and deportation by the
military to have been illegal.

------------------------------------------
Congress Had no Authority to Remove Zelaya
------------------------------------------

¶17. © As explained above, the Constitution as amended in
2003 apparently gives sole authority for removing a
president to the judiciary. The Congressional action of
June 28 has been reported in some media as acceptance of
Zelaya's resignation, based on a bogus resignation letter
dated June 25 that surfaced after the coup. However, the
June 28 Congressional resolution makes no mention of the
letter, nor does it state that Congress was accepting
Zelaya's resignation. It says Congress "disapproves" of
Zelaya's conduct and therefore "separates" him from the
office of President -- a constitutional authority Congress
does not have. Furthermore, a source in the Congressional
leadership told us that a quorum was not present when the
resolution was adopted, rendering it invalid. There was no
recorded vote, nor a request for the "yeas" and "nays."

¶18. © In sum, for a constitutional succession from Zelaya
to Micheletti to occur would require one of several
conditions:

Zelaya's resignation, his death, or permanent medical
incapacitation (as determined by judicial and medical
authorities), or as discussed previously, his formal criminal
conviction and removal from office. In the absence of any of
these conditions and since Congress lacked the legal
authority to remove Zelaya, the actions of June 28 can only
be considered a coup d'etat by the legislative branch, with
the support of the judicial branch and the military, against
the executive branch. It bears mentioning that, whereas the
resolution adopted June 28 refers only to Zelaya, its effect
was to remove the entire executive branch. Both of these
actions clearly exceeded Congress's authority.

-------
Comment
-------

¶19. © The analysis of the Constitution sheds some
interesting light on the events of June 28. The Honduran
establishment confronted a dilemma: near unanimity among
the institutions of the state and the political class that
Zelaya had abused his powers in violation of the
Constitution, but with some ambiguity what to do about it.
Faced with that lack of clarity, the military and/or
whoever ordered the coup fell back on what they knew -- the
way Honduran presidents were removed in the past: a bogus
resignation letter and a one-way ticket to a neighboring
country. No matter what the merits of the case against
Zelaya, his forced removal by the military was clearly
illegal, and Micheletti's ascendance as "interim president"
was totally illegitimate.

¶20. © Nonetheless, the very Constitutional uncertainty
that presented the political class with this dilemma may
provide the seeds for a solution. The coup's most ardent
legal defenders have been unable to make the intellectual
leap from their arguments regarding Zelaya's alleged crimes
to how those allegations justified dragging him out of his
bed in the night and flying him to Costa Rica. That the
Attorney General's office and the Supreme Court now
reportedly question the legality of that final step is
encouraging and may provide a face-saving "out" for the two
opposing sides in the current standoff. End Comment.
LLORENS

[Peter Lemkin]

JUAN GONZALEZ: Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has decided to return to Haiti this week ahead of Sunday's presidential runoff election. Aristide has lived in exile in South Africa since 2004, when he was ousted in a U.S.-backed coup. Amy Goodman is in South Africa to cover Aristide's return to Haiti. She joins us now from Johannesburg.

Welcome, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Hi, Juan. Hi, Juan. It's great to be with you, and quite amazing what is going to be taking place here in this historic country, South Africa, to do with the history of another historic country, Haiti. We flew in from New York earlier today to Oliver Tambo Airport. And just, that is amazing in itself, right? He was the former president of the ANC, the late president of the African National Congress, one of the great anti-apartheid leaders. When we came in from the plane, the first image was that of Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa. And on all the wings of the planes are the flag of the new country of South Africayou know, in 1994, not so newbut the symbol of a peaceful revolution that took place in this country.

Now, the reason we are here, though, is because President Aristide, as you said, is returning to South Africa beforeis returning to Haiti before the Sunday elections that will be taking place for a new president in Haiti. This is truly historic.

Regular listeners and viewers to Democracy Now! may remember back to 2004, to the second coup against Aristide. The first was in 1991, unfortunately a U.S-backed coup that threw the democratically elected president out of office. The second was in 1994, when he was reelected, again a U.S.-backed coup. Democracy Now! was on the plane to the Central African Republic to Bangi, where he was flown into exile by U.S. military and U.S. security. We went in a small delegation that was led by Maxine Waters, the Los Angeles Congress member; Randall Robinson, the founder of TransAfrica; and others, to return the Aristides to the Western hemisphere, amidst, at the time, Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell, Secretary of State at the time, warning the Aristides they were not to return to the Western hemisphere, to which Randall Robinson responded, when we are on the flight, "Whose hemisphere are they talking about?" And nowthey returned to Jamaica, ultimately in exile in South Africa, where they have been for the last seven years. Now the Aristides are attempting to return to their country, to Haiti.

I'm joined right now by K.K. Kean. We will both be on the plane, though last-minute negotiations are taking place between, well, the government of South Africa, the U.S., which is putting tremendous pressure on the government of South Africa not to return the Aristides to Haiti and putting pressure on the Haitian government. As I was on that planeand K.K. Kean was, as well, the renowned filmmaker who's made many films on Haiti, most recently called Rezistans, covered the coup in 1991 and has done many films since. We are going to hopefully return on this plane again, with the Aristides, to chronicle this historic journey of the Aristides and their two daughters to their country, to Haiti.

K.K. Kean, as you join us now, talk about the significance of this return of the Aristides, though last-minute negotiations are taking place, even as we speak, with the tremendous pressure that's being brought to bear on the Aristides and the South African and Haitian governments by the U.S.

K.K. Kean: OK, thank you, Amy, and it's a pleasure to be here. It's certainly a pleasure to be part of this long-awaited return, which we hope will actually take place this time.

The Aristides have been in exile here in South Africa for seven years, always wanting to go home, always looking for an opportunity. At this point, they've been given passports by the Haitian government. So, according to the Haitian government, it's fine for them to return. However, there's an election next Sunday, and, no matter what happens, the Haitian government will change. And we're far less secure of the new Haitian government, whether they will allow Aristide to return or not. So, this is the reason that it's a small window of opportunity, which Aristide and his friends are trying to take opportunity of.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Amy and K.K., on Monday, the U.S. State Department urged former President Aristide to postpone his trip.

MARK TONER: However, former President Aristide has chosen to remain outside of Haiti for seven years. To return this week could only be seen as a conscious choice to impact Haiti's elections. We would urge former President Aristide to delay his return until after the electoral process has concluded, to permit the Haitian people to cast their ballots in a peaceful atmosphere. Return prior to the election may potentially be destabilizing to the political process.

JUAN GONZALEZ: That was State Department spokesperson Mark Toner. On Monday, we asked Aristide's attorney, Ira Kurzban, to respond.

IRA KURZBAN: President Aristide's desire to return home is unrelated to the election, but to a desire to be in Haiti to carry on his educational work. However, he is genuinely concerned that a change in the Haitian government may result in his remaining in South Africa. The Department of State has previously said that this is a decision for the Haitian government. They should leave the decision to the democratically elected government, instead of seeking to dictate the terms under which a Haitian citizen may return to his country.

The State Department statement today is full of misinformation. The claim that President Aristide voluntarily left Haiti and could have returned the past seven years is belied by the U.S. government's active involvement in his removal as the democratically elected president of Haiti and their active role in ensuring that he remained, and apparently remains, in South Africa.

JUAN GONZALEZ: That was Ira Kurzban, President Aristide's longtime lawyer. Amy, your sense of why it's so important at this critical time, just before the election, for President Aristide to return?

AMY GOODMAN: Well, you know, it's very interesting to hear the wording of Mark Toner's statement. Before that, well, now the resigned P.J. Crowley, the State Department spokesperson, who had actually tweeted out at an earlier time that the Aristides should not be returning.

Aristide is a Haitian citizen. He was the president of Haiti, but he will return as a resident of Haiti. And, you know, right now, I have just seen a letter that's being circulated to lawyers and law professors around the United States, where they are calling on Cheryl Mills, the chief of staff of the Department of State, tocriticizing the State Department's statement, saying that he has every right to return. Also, the significance of who is in the State Department, people who understand that well, like Harold Koh, used to head the human rights clinic at Yale University, like Michael Posner, the Assistant Secretary Michael Posner, who used to be head of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, which is now called Human Rights Firstthe issue of the human rights and the right of freedom of expression and of a Haitian citizen to return home, of a Haitian family to return home. This is a critical moment right now. The negotiations are taking place behind the scenes. The safety of this trip is extremely important. And the pressure that the U.S. has continually brought to bear on President Aristide is one that is very important to highlight.

The U.S. can change its role in the troubled relationship it has had in Haiti, since the very beginning. I mean, in 1804, Haiti was the first black republic, born of a slave uprising, the only country in the world, and the U.S. government would not recognize the republic of Haiti for decades, because congressmen at that time were afraid that the slave uprising would inspire slaves in the United States. So you go back to that time, and you see the history. Again, in 1991 and 2004, the U.S. role in the coups against the democratically elected leader, President Aristide. So, to change that troubled history, especially in a country that is undergoing so much right nowwe're looking at the earthquake in Japan, so horrific. Let's remember also the earthquake in Haiti that killed so many hundreds of thousands of people, then the cholera outbreak. Haiti needs a break. Haiti needs to be able to assert itself, not with the intervention of other countries, but aiding the rebuilding of Haiti. And President Aristide has always been a part of that.

One last thing, Juan, I just wanted to bring K.K. in. You know, she has been here seven years in South Africa documenting the Aristides' stay here, in fact documenting when President Aristide got his doctorate, another doctorate, here in South Africa.

K.K. Kean: That is, I've made seven trips to South Africa. I haven't been here for seven years. But yes, President Aristide was honored by UNISA, one of the largest universities in the world. He was given a doctorate in philosophy and African languages. And I documented that and also filmed him talking about his thesis, which was called "Umoya Wamagama," which means "The Spirit of the Words" and talks about similarities in Creole and African languages.

AMY GOODMAN: And his meeting with Nelson Mandela? He had a meeting with Nelson Mandela.

K.K. Kean: Yeah. Oh, yeah. But Mbeki was the president at that time and was present at the ceremony, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: And it was

K.K. Kean: This film was shown on Haitian television, which was very important at the time.

[Magda Hassan]

Who the hell is Obama to tell either South Africa or Aristides what to do? He has no business in either country to do a damn thing.

Glad Zuma and Aristides gave him the bird :finger:

the U.S. government has put so much pressure on the South African government not to return the Aristides to Haiti. Actually, news came out earlier this week that President Obama personally called President Zuma of South Africa to implore him not to provide this jet for the Aristides to return home. But, the South African government responded in a public way and said that they would not be pressured by anyone.

Democracy Now! Exclusive: Aboard Aristide's Airplane: Ex-Haitian Leader Returns From 7 Years In Exile


by Amy Goodman
In defiance of the Obama administration, former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is headed back to Haiti today for the first time since being ousted in a 2004 U.S.-backed coup. Hours ago, Aristide boarded a plane in South Africa bound for Port-Au-Prince. Joining him on the flight is his wife, Mildred Aristide, attorney Ira Kurzban and actor Danny Glover. Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman is also on aboard. Minutes before takeoff she filed this report (listen to MP3) and sent exclusive photos.Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide aboard the plane that will return him home to Haiti. PHOTO: AMY GOODMAN/DEMOCRACY NOW!
AMY GOODMAN: I'm Amy Goodman, the host of Democracy Now! at the Lanseria International Airport, a private airport in Johannesburg, where the South African government flight is about to take the Aristides home from South Africawhere they've been in exile for the last seven yearsto Haiti. It is a momentous time.
We just went upstairs to the news conference, which was held by South African government officials and President Aristide. He spoke in Zulu, Xhosa, and he handed out an English translation for the rest of the press to the consternation of some of them. President Aristide said in Zulu:

"Dear brothers and sisters, a great day has arrived, a day to say goodbye before returning home, the day to whole-heartedly thank President Zuma and the government, former President Mbeki and his wife, our beloved Madiba and his family"referring of course to Nelson Mandela. "Dear friends at the University of South Africa and Wits Universityall of you brothers and sisters of South Africa. My family and I will never forget this long and beautiful time spent with you in the heart of Mama Africa. We saw the spirit of Ubuntu the first day we met with Minister Dlamini-Zuma in 2003 until today. Indeed, the cleverness of our ancestors is outstanding. Ubuntu is an honor to Africa and to this country. The world truly needs this philosophy. May the starts of Ubuntu shine in the sky over the entire world."

He ended again by saying, "Warm greetings dear brothers and sisters. We wish you a prosperous life and all the best. Thank you. Bye, bye."
He spoke in Swahili, in Zulu, in Afrikaans and in Tswana. He is extremely excited about returning home.Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his wife, Mildred Aristide, get settled in the plane before departing South Africa, the country that has been their home while in exile from Haiti. PHOTO: AMY GOODMAN/DEMOCRACY NOW!
We had a private meeting with the president and his family this afternoon and the delegation that's accompanying him: Danny Glover, the actor and activist; James Early, of the Smithsonian Institution, formerly chair of the Institute for Policy Studies; and K.K. Kean, the filmmaker who has made a number of films about Haiti. It isand the family, of course, of the Aristides. He did not want to make any political statements there. He wanted the South African government to speak before he would speak. And, he simply said that he is thrilled to be going home. He looks forward to being - these are his words, not mine "a resident of Haiti, not the president" at this point, to really pursuing issues of health and education in Haiti.
Now we're in a holding area, about to get on to the plane that will take us we don't know exactly the itinerary at this momentbut will take us to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where we expect to arrive sometime around noon on Friday. This is the culmination of years of effort. I mean, ever since that fateful day on February 29, 2004 the second of two U.S.-backed coups against President Aristide. The first was in 1991, when he was ousted for three years. The second when the number two man in the U.S. embassy came to the home of the Aristides in Tabar in Haiti and they were bundled onto a jet with security and military and they were sent off to the Central American Republic. The U.S. government insisted that the Aristides went of their own free will. And, it's something they've insisted to this day because, in the last days, the U.S. government has issued warnings to the State Department that the Aristides should not come back to Haiti. That, he left of his own free will in 2004.
We don't know the itinerary at this point, we just know that we expect to land in Port-au-Prince, Haiti about noon on Friday. It's about 11 o'clock on Thursday here in South Africa. It promises to be a long nights journey into a new day. It's very interesting to watch President Aristide right now; I'm watching him speak to a South African government official right now who is wishing him well, saying that he is a part of the South African family, not just a friend. And, it's interesting because the U.S. government has put so much pressure on the South African government not to return the Aristides to Haiti. Actually, news came out earlier this week that President Obama personally called President Zuma of South Africa to implore him not to provide this jet for the Aristides to return home. But, the South African government responded in a public way and said that they would not be pressured by anyone. So, tonight, the Aristides return home to Haiti. I'm Amy Goodman for Democracy Now! in Johannesburg, South Africa. We're about to board the plane and hope to arrive in Haiti in Friday about noon.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/03/17-7

[Peter Lemkin]

I welcome his return. He never should have been overthrown [twice!!!] by the USA [and France]....and, sadly, I fear for his safety due to the USA....they have many 'assets' in Haiti and Aristide will need very good bodyguards and the people behind him to not be kidnapped again! Yea, the 'ol USA thinks it is the Empire and all [internal and external] must bow to our power and will - cross us and there is an iron fist waiting! Each time he was overthrown by secret US coup and/or kidnapping, he was the duly elected President! We really stand for democracy - NOT! We just love puppet dictators on the right....and hate nationalists who only want to help their own People [rather than our Oligarchy's 'bottom line']. Sick and not changing - even under Obama.

[Peter Lemkin]

He's back and the chants of the spontaneous protests are to the effect that Sunday's elections are a fraud - and they are - as his party is outlawed and was and is the one most Haitians back...but also the one the USA dislikes the most....... I predict some very chaotic scenes and riots, perhaps. They will be blamed on Aristide, when the opposite is true..... S.N.A.F.U.

[Magda Hassan]

Almost 2 years since the coup President Zelaya is returning to Honduras. Father Bourgeois and others from the School of the Americas Watch will also accompany him on his return tomorrow.

Brazilian envoy to witness ex-Honduran president's return



10:40, May 27, 2011


Brazil said Thursday it would send an envoy to witness former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya's scheduled return to his country on Saturday, a pre-condition set by the Organization of the Americas (OAS) to readmit the Central American nation.

Special Advisor on International Affairs of Brazilian Presidency Marco Aurelio Garcia will travel to the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa on that occasion, Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota told a joint news conference.

"That should seal the return of Honduras to the American and international coexistence," Patriota said.

Under a deal reached among OAS members on Sunday, Hondruas, whose membership was suspended after Zelaya was ousted in a coup in June 2009, would be readmitted into the organization under the conditions that the former president would be allowed to safely return to his country with full political rights guaranteed.

The readmission would be formalized at an extraordinary general meeting to be held on June 1 in Washington.

The current Honduran government led by Porfirio Lobo which emerged from elections after the coup, would also gain recognition of OAS members after Zelaya's return.

Source: Xinhua