Washington — The recent return of Honduras’s ousted and expelled president to his country is not an issue in which the Jewish stakes are clear or obvious. But Jewish groups are nonetheless taking sides over the turmoil roiling the Central American country and over the Obama administration’s stand on developments there.
On September 4, two weeks before President Manuel Zelaya snuck back into Tegucigalpa, Honduras’s capital, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs called on Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to reverse the administration’s position and support Zelaya’s overthrow. Zelaya was democratically elected in 2006. But the group, which is primarily devoted to promoting strong military ties between Israel and the United States, was concerned that Zelaya was leading the country away from democracy and into alliances with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the time of his overthrow.
“Zelaya was a man who was moving towards Chavez,” said JINSA’s executive director, Tom Neumann. “He was going anti-American.”
But other Jewish groups, and a key Jewish member of Congress, have defended the administration despite similar concerns, viewing Zelaya’s ouster last June as an affront to the rule of law, whose fostering they view as a more important American interest. Many countries in the western hemisphere have also called for Zelaya’s return to office. No country has recognized the government of Roberto Micheletti, former head of the national legislature, who assumed the presidency following Zelaya’s expulsion.
On September 21, Zelaya was able to sneak back into the country and take refuge in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa. Violent clashes have since occurred between police and demonstrators rallying to support him.
In an interview, Neumann said that Zelaya’s June 28 overthrow — in which the military removed him from office at gunpoint while he was still in his pajamas, and expatriated him to Costa Rica — was, in fact, lawful, having been ordered by the country’s Supreme Court and backed by its legislature after Zelaya sought to change the country’s constitution. Neumann questioned the State Department’s decision to back the former president, who met with Clinton in Washington on September 3.
“For us to take a position that we are supporting a government that is anti-American and opposing one that is pro-American is absurd,” he said.
JINSA’s comments come as some Jewish groups increase their focus on Chavez and his growing relationship with Iran. In a visit to the Middle East in early September, Chavez agreed to export 20,000 barrels of gasoline per day to Iran, which, despite ample oil reserves, has limited refining capacity of its own. At a news conference in Damascus during his tour, Chavez lashed out against Israel as “a country that annihilates people and is hostile to peace.”
It was Zelaya’s growing connection to Chavez that sparked JINSA’s engagement. “Honduras as itself is no threat to Israel,” Neumann said. “But Honduras as part of the bigger picture is.” He cited a growing nexus between Venezuela and countries that he said support Middle East terrorism, including Iran, Syria and Libya.
Zelaya has been accused of seeking to change the Honduran constitution so that he could remain president beyond his single four-year term, mirroring Chavez’s actions in Venezuela last February, when he won an end to presidential term limits in a national referendum. Zelaya’s term was set to expire this December. After his expulsion, he accepted a compromise offered by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias that would restore him to the presidency with limited powers until the November 29 elections, in which he would not run, and grant an amnesty to all sides. Micheletti has rejected it.
Zelaya “was found to be in violation of the law of Honduras,” diplomat Roberto Flores Bermúdez, who served as Zelaya’s ambassador to the United States, told JINSA in a September conference call. Ruling that he had breached the law, the Supreme Court ordered Zalaya’s arrest. Flores said the armed forces were authorized under the law to carry out the arrest. He insisted that Zelaya’s removal from the country was necessary to prevent violence.
The State Department disagreed. Analysts have noted, among other things, that even the Honduran army’s chief counsel acknowledged that the military violated Honduran law by deposing Zelaya and expelling him from the country instead of bringing him to court to stand trial for abuse of power. Now that he’s back, Micheletti has called on Brazil to hand over Zelaya for trial. “We are waiting for him,” he told reporters. “A court is ready to proceed against him, and a jail is also ready.”
The State Department froze more than $30 million in humanitarian aid to Honduras after Zelaya’s ouster. And the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a government corporation funded by Congress to provide targeted aid to certain countries, cut $11 million more. Other funds, including money earmarked for HIV/AIDS treatment, still go to Honduras.
“President Zelaya came to office through a democratic process,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in announcing the decision to freeze funds.
Other Jewish groups are more supportive of the State Department’s approach. They believe that the Obama administration’s backing for the rule of law can help restore American relationships in the Latin American world.
“Believe me, we’re not fans of Chavez,” said Dina Siegel Vann, director of the Latino and Latin American Institute of the American Jewish Committee. “However, looking at the future of the hemisphere, and the importance of the rule of law, we do believe it is important to send a message. And the message is, the way to do it is through the right channels, lawful channels.”
The disagreement over Honduras’s status also pits JINSA against Rep. Howard Berman of California, the influential Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Berman, a longtime supporter of Israel, authored an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times the day of Clinton’s meeting with Zelaya, pushing the State Department to call the overthrow a coup and to cut aid. He said the Micheletti government has been stalling, hoping to hold power through the November 29 elections.
“No matter what we think of Zelaya (and I don’t think highly of him) and his actions to change the Honduran constitution, it is a fact that his mandate to govern was gained in a fully transparent election,” Berman wrote. “Democracy and the rule of law are not so fully established in this hemisphere that the coup can be treated in isolation and as an exception that is allowed to stand.”
Contact Matthew Berger at feedback@forward.com
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Uncritical support for 'democracy' and the 'rule of law' can be tricky. Hamas was elected 'democratically' in an election blessed by Jimmy Carter. Saddam Hussein and Achmajinedad also 'won' elections. Didn't Hitler also win an election too? And didn't he LEGALLY enact the Nuremberg race laws? And didn't the Nazis ACT under legally enacted laws? Evil people and anti-Semites of Jewish extraction know very well how to subvert democratic laws and institutions to seize power while all the while claiming they are acting 'democratically'.
The State Dept. perspective is based on a key error: they are conflating the act of deposing Zelaya with his exile. Zelaya's arrest and removal from power were legal. This justifies Micheletti's position as interim President. The deportation of Zelaya was illegal. He should have been held in the country for trial. Since he wasn't, it gives the situation an unfortunate and erroneous appearance of being a coup.
Who were some of the Jewish groups supporting Zelaya?
Jews should stick to Thorah and not the politics of goim.
David: Sorry, but if it walks like a coup and it talks like a coup, its a coup. An illegal seizure and deportation of a civilian president by the military is a coup.
According to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service, Zelaya was removed from office legally. His deportation was the illegal act. Why is our government pressuring the Honduran government to ignore their constitution and place Zelaya back in power? Our only issue should have been with his deportation which violated their constitution.
The Honduran Congress and Supreme Court both ruled that Zeleya had violated the law.
Is this what we can expect from Obama when he violates the law, that the other branches of government have no say.
I am ashamed to be an American when we treat our allies like this.
I keep hearing about "the Rule of Law" well we are not a "Nation of Laws" We a nation of "Justice under the Law" and when our laws fail to give JUSTICE, then it is up to the American people to change those laws, The law belongs to the people, not politicians and lawyers. The major problem in this country is the corrupt politicians and lawyers distorting and interpreting our laws for their personal gain.
YOU GOT THAT MR. OBAMA
It seems that common sense can no longer prevail and aid in putting forth a compelling case to thwart would be tyrants from taking over a nation while breaking the nation`s laws in their endevour. It is ridiculous for the U.S. Government to support reinstalling Zelaya when he has clearly shone himself to be another enemy of the U.S. and an ally of Chavez. Surelly the Honduran government and it`s judiciary were within their rights to remove him from office and use the military as the messenger in this case. Whether the military used it`s own discretion or followed the orders of the civilian government in removing him from the country may be up for discussion,but surely the decision by the civilian power and the judiciary should be the foremost action that should be considered.
The Miami Herald reported that Zelaya accused Israeli mercenaries of attacking him in the embassy with toxic gases and radioactive weaponry. Why does Israel and their terrorist agencies always meddle in every countries business? THis has been going on for 60 years. From the bombings in London in the 1940's, to the attack on the US navy ship USS Liberty, to the false flags in Iraq, to now Honduras? Israel is the true menace of the world. It really is too bad that such psycho's rule such a great people.
I am a proud naturalized American citizen. I can tell you from personal experience there is no "rule of law" in Latin America. The law is what the person in power deems his/her best personal interest. Constitutions can be changed by the same principle. Mr. Zelaya is, in my opinion, wanting to rule Honduras on behalf of his personal ambitions, if he were sincere he would declined them in favor of his country's stability and peace. My advice: Don't judge other countries by American law standards, there is no match.
Zelaya tried and his ´´followers´´ are trying to implement the Chavez/Castro way of life in Honduras. Which way of life consists basically in a State run economy where resources owned by the private sector are transfered to ´´the people´´ My country has been built in a great measure by the effort of immigrants from Poland, Palestine, Panama and their generations. Jews and Arab now mostly converts who cherish their motherland traditions and are devoted to hard work and the creation of jobs, values and opportunities. Weather their names is Chavez, Castro, Ortega, Zelaya or Obama the effort, example and wealth of such communities is not propisciatory for their regimes. Honduras is a Republic founded in 1821 under the same principles and ideology of the French and American Revolutions. We are not a perfect Republic but our people want to be free.