Don’t Yield to Former President Zelaya’s Call for More U.S. Intervention in Honduras

Ray Walser / September 03, 2009

In Washington this week, Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president of Honduras, is telling his side of the story of what led to his removal from the presidency on June 28. He blames the oligarchy and their clients for conspiring to topple him. He is pressing hard for more punitive sanctions and deeper U.S. intervention to force his return to presidential power. Zelaya and his backers want to make restoring him to office a test case for support for democracy by the Obama Administration in the Americas and around the world.

“If they [the Obama Administration] can’t get the cast of characters in Honduras to behave the way they want them to, how are they going to deal with Afghanistan or Iran?” Latin American expert Julia E. Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations told the New York Times.

Members of the current government in Honduras tell a quite different story. On June 28, they acted to protect the fundamentals of the Honduran constitution against runaway and illegal executive excess. They also felt they were standing up to Zelaya’s accomplice and paymaster Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. (more…)