[HNA] Response to Lanny Davis on Honduras

[Simon Rios]

Dear editors,

In his article concerning recent developments in Honduras, Lanny Davis skews
the situation in that country, perpetrating outright mistruths that serve
only the military/empresarial coup he is being paid to represent.
    While it is wise for those of us who oppose the coup to refuse the bait
of Davis’ sophistry, we must call out the absurdity of arguing that a
grossly unconstitutional act—the ordering of the arrest of President Manuel
Zelaya, and the subsequent violation of Costa Rican airspace that led to his
forced exile—was done in the name of that very constitution.
    If Zelaya had indeed violated the Honduran magna carta, and if all the
high offices in the land agreed on this point—including the congress, the
united business leaders, and the supreme court—then why couldn’t they depose
him by legal means? Why not put it to a referendum? Why not afford the
president his right to due process?
    The simple answer is that there never was a case against him. Not once
did Zelaya mention reshaping the constitution so to be reelected, as the
coup-plotters claim, and as Lanny Davis has repeated on these pages without
a shred of evidence.
    For four months now, the Honduran people have struggled against the
brutal, albeit tempered military rule of Roberto Micheletti. Some thirty
members of the resistance have been assassinated, thousands of Hondurans
have been illegally detained, and media have been shut down, as well as
curfews at the whim of the regime, & dozens of rapes at the hands of the
military. All of this is well documented by COFADEH, Honduras’ leading human
rights organization.
    With the signing of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose accords, Micheletti finally
appeared to have broken the impasse centered around the restitution of
Zelaya, which has been called for not only by the United States and the
United Nations, but also by the EU, the OAS, and virtually every country in
the hemisphere. But when Micheletti informed the country that he himself
would lead the “reconciliation government,” and it became clear that the
congress had no intention of putting the accord to a vote until after the
November 29 elections, Zelaya announced that the deal was dead. Elections
can not take place until the rule of law is restored in Honduras.
    Perhaps President Zelaya erred in signing the accord, and in trusting
the people who overturned him. But this formality, a product of the
manipulation of the illegal regime, should not fool us into recognizing the
results of elections carried out under dictatorial circumstances.
    In the words of Zelaya: “We trust that the United States, as it has done
until now, continues to accompany the Honduran people and the Latin American
community in this pacific process of reconstructing democracy and the rule
of law, refusing to recognize the use of the armed forces to resolve
political conflicts by means of the coup d’etat.”
    The tyrant will always have a pretext for his tyranny. But if we really
believe in democracy and the soveriegnty of nations, we will refute that
pretext and support the Honduran people in their struggle for a more just
country.

Simon Rios
National Committee In Solidarity with the Honduran People
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