Robert P. Baird

Conscience compels me to add that in focusing so directly on the coup I don’t mean to imply that Mel Zelaya, the ousted president, is some kind of exiled saint. As Kevin Casas-Zamora of the Brookings Institution notes, he had his own difficulties respecting the spirit and the letter of the Honduran constitution:
As other Latin American leaders, President Zelaya fell victim to the virus of presidential reelection….The real problem, however, was that by organizing a de facto referendum to test the popularity of his idea, Zelaya pursued his ambition with total disregard of his country’s constitution. The latter explicitly forbids holding referenda—let alone an unsanctioned “popular consultation”—to amend the constitution and, more specifically, to modify the presidential term. Unsurprisingly, the president’s idea met with the resistance of Congress, nearly all parties (including his own), the press, business, electoral authorities, and, crucially, the Supreme Court, that deemed the whole endeavor illegal.
But the idea that one illegal act doesn’t excuse another is one of the pillars of the rule of law. Though the unprosecuted skeletons in our own closet suggest that the US doesn’t have the same moral standing on this question as before, it’s nice to see Obama dealing with the Honduras situation in unambiguous terms.
(AP Photo)
Robert P. Baird

Yesterday the Honduran Congress, working almost certainly at the behest of Roberto Micheletti (who was Speaker of the Congress until the coup), suspended the following constitutional rights for its citizens between the hours of 9pm and 5am: habeas corpus, freedom of assembly, free passage, freedom from police coercion and violence, and freedom from compulsory self-incrimination (the right to remain silent).
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Robert P. Baird
From Ray Walser at, naturally, The Corner:
Congress, the courts, and the military joined forces to send [Honduran President] “Mad” Mel [Zelaya] packing. In a deliberate, bipartisan manner, they selected a new president to serve until regular elections in November.
And for the reality-based among us, here are the first 3 parts of the OAS resolution condemning the coup—
1. To condemn vehemently the coup d’état staged this morning against the constitutionally-established Government of Honduras, and the arbitrary detention and expulsion from the country of the constitutional president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, which has produced an unconstitutional alteration of the democratic order.
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Robert P. Baird

1/ From “Near-Extinct Birds of the Central Cordillera,” a short story in Ben Fountain’s Brief Encounters with Che Guevara:
Some evenings Alberto joined them, usually when one of his interviews was being broadcast; he’d settle onto the steps with a mug of tea and listen to himself lecturing the country on historical inevitability or the Bolivarian struggle or the venemous strategies of the World Bank. After one such broadcast he turned to Blair.
“So, Joan Blair, what do you think of our position?”
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