I don’t know if there is any precedent for it. The United States typically favors right-wing pro-business juntas in Latin America to populist democratically-elected leaders. So, when the Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, a friend and ally of Hugo Chavez, was ousted in a June 28 coup it didn’t seem likely that the American government would do much about it. Based on the historical record, we might have expected the administration to make arguments like the one Senator Jim DeMint offered in the Wall Street Journal.
While in Honduras, I spoke to dozens of Hondurans, from nonpartisan members of civil society to former Zelaya political allies, from Supreme Court judges to presidential candidates and even personal friends of Mr. Zelaya. Each relayed stories of a man changed and corrupted by power. The evidence of Mr. Zelaya’s abuses of presidential power—and his illegal attempts to rewrite the Honduran Constitution, a la Hugo Chávez—is not only overwhelming but uncontroverted.
As all strong democracies do after cleansing themselves of usurpers, Honduras has moved on.
In other words, we might have expected the U.S. government to deny that there had been a coup, to demonize the ousted president, and to argue that the coup-makers were the true democrats who were only protecting the Constitution. Then the CIA would have worked out some kind of deal with the military to make Honduran policy more friendly to U.S. business and trade interests. But, that is not what happened:
Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and de facto Honduran leader Roberto Micheletti reached an agreement late Thursday to resolve a months-long standoff over who should lead the country and appears to open the door for Zelaya to return to power.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, traveling in Pakistan early Friday, hailed the accord as a big step forward for Latin America after months of political paralysis. The deal was brokered by the Organization of American States, with high-level diplomatic involvement from the United States.
The key to the deal, Clinton said, was Micheletti’s agreement that Zelaya, who was forced from office in June, would be reinstated before the elections that are scheduled for Nov 29. It remained unclear whether Zelaya would exercise full presidential powers under the agreement. Clinton said the scope of his authority would be determined by the Honduran Congress.
“I cannot think of another example of a country in Latin America that, having suffered a rupture of its democratic and constitutional order, overcame such a crisis through negotiation and dialogue,” Clinton said.
I can’t think of another example, either, but that is mainly because this is the first time America has sided with democrats against its own ostensible business-interests. The instinct to put the interests of U.S. corporations ahead of the interests of the people of Latin America is still strong, as indicated by Sen. Jim DeMint and others in our Congress. But, for once, that instinct did not win out. I think this is definitely change I can believe in.
