Historical Image of the Day

Victims of the 1953 CIA-led Iranian coup which placed the Shah on the throne and gave American petroleum companies enormous oil concessions.

Somebody Call the Waaaaambulancia

Porfirio Lobo Sosa is apparently unhappy that deposed president Manuel Zelaya, who is writing a book on the coup, is critical of Honduras. Greg puts it best:

I guess [Lobo Sosa's] complaint would go something like this:

Our military overthrew a democratically elected government, then the police killed a bunch of people, a coup government then did its best to bankrupt the country, the Congress faked a resignation letter, everybody lied about being willing to negotiate, the Supreme Court allowed violations of the constitution, and we all made a mockery of both horizontal and vertical accountability to make sure everyone stays poor. So why would Zelaya say bad things about us? As Robert Micheletti said last year, we're all just happy people!

Heh. Indeed.

Lincoln Gordon Dead

Lincoln Gordon, former U.S. ambassador to Brazil, has died at 96. Gordon is one of the early "villains" in the rise of Brazil's military dictatorship. Gordon had made clear throughout the 1963-1964 period that the U.S. was strongly opposed to leftist Joao Goulart, and that it would support a return to "democracy," even if that meant an overthrow of Goulart. When the military began moving against Goulart (whose rise to the presidency was complex), Gordon immediately made clear his support of the movement, and was in communication with the generals who led the initial coup and those who established control after the coup. Fearing popular resistance to the military, Gordon had even convinced Lyndon Johnson to begin sending U.S. ships towards Brazil to support the government. Unfortunately for Brazil, the military set up power with popular support so quickly (and Goulart's administration and support collapsed so rapidly) that the ships never even made it to Brazil; before they were even halfway to Brazil, they were able to turn around, as the military had already established a control that it would not relinquish for 21 years, during which hundreds and even thousands were tortured, and hundreds more "disappeared."

While the U.S. was not directly involved in the Brazilian coup in the way it would be in Chile in 1973 and in Argentina in the late-1970s, its rapid support for the military hinted at the policies that would overlook democracy in the name of anti-Communism in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s, and Lincoln Gordon was at the epicenter of these policies in Brazil. Gordon himself openly admitted his role in quickly supporting the generals in 1964 (see here, with thanks to Greg). As a result, while you cannot blame the U.S. for its role in overthrowing a democratic government in Brazil to the same extent that you can in other places, Gordon did play the key role among U.S. actors in supporting that process, and is definitely one of the more villainous characters in the opening act of Brazil's dictatorship.

Honduras's Business Elites Propose New Solution to Presidential Crisis

Well, this is interesting:

Stung by the loss of their American visas and concerned about Honduras’s increasing international isolation, the country’s leading businessmen have put forward their own plan to resolve the political crisis here.

In the plan, which was made public earlier this week, supporters of the coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya three months ago have for the first time suggested his return as president. But at the same time the plan calls for him to face trial on charges that he stole money while in office.

In my first reaction, I can't say I'm terribly sympathetic to their concerns. "What? You overthrew a democratically-elected leader who had annoyed you, but who technically hadn't done anything illegal? And then, when you supported his overthrow and the world condemned it, you lost your business and travel privileges? Oh, that's so sad!"

If anything, I think this response is the first time the U.S. (and much of the rest of the world) has gotten things right when it comes to political turmoil in Latin America. For too many years, decades, generations, business leaders have supported the overthrow of democratically-elected governments, be it Guatemala in 1954, Brazil in 1964, Chile in 1973, Argentina in 1976, or any other number of Latin American dictators. While military governments committed human rights abuses and genocide, the countries' respective business elites got richer, often times even while the income gap between rich and poor grew (as in the case of Brazil, certainly, and elsewhere). For the first time, the U.S. has not condoned such actions; if business leaders want to help undermine democratic processes in their own countries, they will feel the effects of their actions in the way that hurts them the most - by hitting their pocketbooks and their privileges. In some ways, it's almost like the international-economic equivalent of Sherman's march through Georgia - "you want to go ahead and do this? Fine. But we're going to make you feel the effects of what you've done. You aren't exempt from the consequences of your actions any longer."

In terms of the actual plan for a restoration of Zelaya's presidency, I don't think it will actually work. Zelaya's lawyer may be blustering, but he's probably part-right that the presumption of guilt will already be there in any trial against Zelaya. At the same time, it's become increasingly clear that A) Micheletti is in no way going to try to resolve this thing, and B) his continued presidency is a disgrace for civil and human rights in Honduras. Micheletti has certainly eclipsed any "crimes" Zelaya may have committed. So in some ways, a "third path" that involves real change (beyond Micheletti stalling and Zelaya calling for negotiations without any real political platform from which to work) is at least an encouraging sign that somebody will find a solution that both Micheletti and Zelaya can agree to.

And if you want any more evidence that Micheletti's a power-hungry degenerate of the first order, you really don't have to look much further than this:

Mr. Facussé said that Mr. Micheletti agreed to consider his plan after he suggested that Mr. Micheletti step down as leader of the de facto government and be named congressman for life.

Ah, yes - the "congressman/senator-for-life" position, held by such dignitaries as Augusto Pinochet himself. Yet, if Facussé's account is correct, then a lifelong position of power is enough to convince Micheletti to give up the presidency? It's really not too hard to see what's going on here.

Finally, for those who read Portuguese, a Brazilian journalist in the embassy in Tegucigalpa has put up a few blog posts about his experiences from inside the embassy. And even if you can't read Portuguese, the first image he took says plenty about what's going on in Honduras.

Zelaya Back in Honduras

So, after the coup in June, events in Honduras had pretty much entered into a holding pattern - Micheletti refused to make any major concesssion, Mel Zelaya did a major PR push around the world and continued to get support, but Honduras continued to creep towards their election this year (more than 80 days have passed since the coup, and fewer than 70 remain until the election). It seemed as though things were going to just stall into the elections, with no real resolution to the coup.

Until Mel Zelaya apparently sneaked into Honduras overland and made it to the capital, Tegucigalpa, where he is now at the Brazilian embassy (which, last I checked, was Brazil's sovereign territory, and the Honduran military cannot invade it, though it's not like they haven't knowingly broken the law before).

Think that's interesting? It's even more interesting that apparently, Brazil's embassy is allegedly right next to Micheletti's house.

As both the CSM article and Plan Colombia point out, the question now is, "so....what's next?"

The one thing I'd say is, this makes Micheletti look even more ridiculous. His insistence that his government is legal has always been nothing less than laughable, and the only "authority" he really had was successfully keeping Zelaya out and blustering about "democracy" while stonewalling until the elections. Yet in spite of his continued suggestion that Zelaya could not return and if he did, he'd be arrested, Zelaya managed not only to return, but to get to the capital itself. Next to Micheletti's home. This is just egg all over the face of Micheletti, and now leaves him with virtually nothing. And his bluster now that he's going to have Zelaya arrested (in spite of Zelaya again technically being on Brazilian soil, where Honduras has no jurisdiction, and surrounded by supporters in the compound) makes him look like a five-year-old throwing a temper tantrum. Maybe Micheletti will rebound, but right now, he looks about as foolish as any politician and national leader can look.

Beyond that, it's tough to say what will happen. As Plan Colombia points out, it could very likely lead to a standoff, given Micheletti's intransigence, and that would be bad, as there would most likely be showdowns and violence in the heart of Honduras. Micheletti could relent and just step out of power, but that would be highly uncharacteristic in light of his actions up to this point. He could agree to negotiations, which is what Zelaya is asking; what those negotiations would look like is hard to say, though the failed San Jose accords would probably be a starting point.

Two things are certain: Zelaya is in a better negotiating position (and a better position overall) than he's been since the coup (and even before it); and whatever the outcome, what had previously been a static and frustrating situation in Honduras has suddenly had new life breathed into it, with an end to an illegal government and a return to the democratically elected government a not-unreasonable possibility.

Progress in Honduras?

After a month in which the Micheletti government showed that it was pretty inept, the titular president of Honduras appears to finally be backing down significantly:

The head of Honduras’s de facto government, Roberto Micheletti, has expressed support for a compromise that would allow the ousted president of his country to return to power, according to officials in the de facto government and diplomats from the region.

That doesn't mean this is a done deal. As both the article and Greg note, there could be other problems in getting other institutions (namely, the Supreme Court and the military) on board with this, and the Supreme Court's need to issue a ruling next week is a bit....odd. Still, the fact that the previously-intractible Micheletti is suddenly backing down indicates his realization (albeit delayed) that he has no standing in the international community and little chance of accomplishing anything in Honduras, that his previous position was fairly indefensible, and that a resolution needs to happen soon.

Honduras Crisis Talks Dead - Now What?

Talks on Honduras have broken down, and Zelaya and Micheletti seem about as far apart as they ever have been. While the term "postponed" provides a sense of optimism, I suspect it's false optimism. Oscar Arias has failed to negotiate an end to the presidential crisis, and the OAS failed before Arias stepped in. The fact that some within Micheletti's negotiating team were willing to make concessions that Micheletti was not indicated earlier that there may be some cracks forming in the pro-coup faction, but those cracks did not result in any concrete agreements, and Micheletti remains as intransigent as ever.

Arias's claim that the OAS now hasto negotiate a deal is odd, since, as Greg also commented, the OAS already tried and failed, and it's pretty unclear why the OAS will suddenly be able to resolve things quickly. Boz maps out how the reports of what the sticking points in the talks remain unclear (whether Zelaya also rejected the 12-point plan on limiting his powers upon his return, or whether it was just Micheletti who refused the plan due to the return of Zelaya). RAJ believes it was Micheletti, and offers some fair criticisms of Arias's approach:

Arias also made the mistake of getting involved in "negotiating" issues that are
strictly internal-- such as including a requirement that the budget passed by
the de facto regime would be left stand for the remainder of Zelaya's
presidency. This was a red herring thrown in by the Micheletti crowd, and adding
it to the plan simply showed them that Arias would include anything they wanted.
And then they held a press conference and used him rhetorically as a prop.

From the non-Honduras standpoint, Arias's reputation for diplomacy seems to have taken a hit a bit in this whole ordeal. Between the strange comment that the OAS can now take up the issue and his insistence on getting involved purely domestic Honduran affairs as part of the negotiation, he seems to be a bit out of touch with how to have tried to solve this crisis and other alternatives. This isn't to suggest he's inept or that the failure is all his (Micheletti and Zelaya no doubt played major roles as well, to put it lightly), but certainly hopes were riding high that he could bring the situation to a resolution, and not just his failure, but some of his approaches as well, certainly have put a dint his reputation.

More important than Arias's reputation, though, is Honduras itself. It seems fairly likely now that Zelaya will at least try a return to Honduras, saying "only God can stop me," though, as Greg pointed out, there is the small question about the Honduran military, too. The EU has already slashed $90 million in aid, and Hillary Clinton has told Micheletti that, if Zelaya is not returned, the U.S. will also impose severe sanctions. That could theoretically change the playing field a bit, but given Micheletti's intransigence, I find this unlikely. This could end up quietly, or it could end up violently; one can hope it's not the latter, but that possibility is looking increasingly likely, as anti- and pro-Zelaya supporters are already planning public demonstrations that could lead to further conflict.

There Are No "Cracks" in Global Opposition to the Honduran Coup; There Are Only Anti-Democracy Republicans in Congress

The New York Times has a story up about the lack of progress in the Honduran talks between Micheletti and Zelaya, which Arias is mediating. It's clear that neither side wants to give an inch, and while things may improve, time is probably on Micheletti's side. The report also suggests that there are "cracks emerging in the group of countries demanding the return of the ousted president." It's evidence of these "cracks?" Congressional Republicans are in favor of the coup, and Hugo Chavez thinks Arias is erring in treating Micheletti as an equal to Zelaya.


So basically, it takes a random quotation from Chavez on diplomacy (an area that isn't exactly Chavez's strength), and Republican support for the coup, to suggest there are "cracks" in the coalition of countries against the coup?


Hardly.


The Times is clearly trying (and failing) to make something out of nothing here. I really don't know why they reported this - the story about the progress (and lack thereof) and obstacles facing Arias's talks was fine, and stood on its own. It didn't need these ridiculous insinuations that Republicans using the Honduran incident for partisan purposes plus a quotation from Chavez (who has nothing to do with the negotiations, and whose quotation is fairly mild by his own standards) to imply that support globally is falling appart. And it's not like this "breaking news" that Republicans are coming out in favor of the coup is sudden. Even before last week's congressional caucus supporting the coup formed, Republicans had been commenting since the coup in June that they supported the coup and were anti-Zelaya due to his leftist allegiances and so-called "authoritarian" tendencies (which is a rather off from the reality of things).


As is often the case, though, the Times authors (liberal media indeed) do not seem to care about such minor points. Instead, the report takes a congressional caucus designed to play the worst kind of partisan politics and to turn back to an obviously-outdated Cold War mentality in order to gain points, and conflates it to a sign of "cracks" emerging in the global opposition to the coup, when nothing of the sort has happened.


And then the Times wonders why subscriptions are down.

Negotiating an End to the Presidential Crisis in Honduras (with Bonus Humor, Unintentional and Intentional)

Ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya and his replacement, Roberto Micheletti, have both agreed to negotiate an end to the presidential crisis since Zelaya's ouster via a military-led coup a few weeks ago. This is really important, simply because things are as ugly as they can be now, between the OAS's decision on Honduras, the growing violence, and the generally-overlooked divisions within the basic functioning organs of the Honduran state that the coup has caused. My skepticism over the outcome (due in no small part to Micheletti's intransigence) is tempered by the fact that Costa Rican president (and Nobel Peace Prize winner) Oscar Arias will do the mediating. Arias won the Peace prize in 1987 for negotiating an end to the conflicts in Central America in the 1980s, and began working towards a negotiation between Zelaya and Micheletti last week. If there's a statesperson who has the legitimacy and the skill to deal with this situation, it's Arias.

In more Honduras-related news, Greg (who has been excellent in his coverage and analysis of this whole thing) has some comments on the Supreme Court's defense of the coup. As he points out once again (and as the Court itself fails to directly address), the vote that would have happened on June 28 would not have convened a Constitutional commission; it was to determine if a vote on whether to convene a commission should appear on the 2010 ballot. This has been one of the biggest weaknesses in the anti-Zelaya camp's defense: he wasn't creating a National Assembly. He was asking the Honduran populace to vote on whether they wanted to vote on convening an Assembly in 2010. There is nothing to guarantee that that 2010 vote would have resulted in a "yes" vote that would then convene the assembly - it could of course go down to failure. This is one of the major reasons why insistence that the Congress/Court/military had no other option than a military coup. Yes, they did: among other things, they could have let the vote go through on the 28th, and then spent the next year and a half mobilizing their resources and the population to work their hardest to bring the vote to a defeat next year. Regardless of whether they felt Zelaya's actions were legal or not, the coup was not the only solution here. (Though, in a possibly related story, the fact that 52.2% of Hondurans polled believe it's OK to break the law when fighting crime may be one cultural indicator as to why the support of the coup in Honduras has been so strong).

Greg also points out the hilarity of the Court's instruction to the military "to detain Zelaya because he was a threat to flee." Getting beyond the absurdity of the notion that Zelaya was about to abandon his post (because clearly, ever since the coup, he's shown he definitely does not want to be in Honduras), it's beyond ridiculous and risible to suggest that the only way to deter a president who wants to flee the country is to force him out of the country at gunpoint. That's some sound logic and problem-solving, there.

Finally, whatever one thinks of Zelaya, you have to admire the man's sense of humor:

“What have Latin American presidents learned from Honduras?” [Zelaya] asked Mrs. Clinton.
As the secretary shook her head, Mr. Zelaya smiled and said, “To sleep with our clothes on and our bags packed.”

Honduran Military Admits - Coup Was "A Crime"

"In the moment that we took him out of the country, in the way that he was taken out, there is a crime." That's army attorney Col. Herberth Bayardo Inestroza admitting this. For anybody who wasn't convinced that the coup is illegal, this really should put that notion to rest.

This admission makes me wonder if the return of Zelaya will now hinge on his resumption of duties in exchange for military acquittals. It may be more complicated than that, but I suspect that will have to be a part of the bargain, and one I imagine both sides will be willing to agree to.

See also Greg and the Latin Americanist.

More Analysis/Observations on the Honduran Coup

Greg hits it on the head in his four points about Zelaya, the coup, and issues of constitutionality and legality:

1. According to the constitution, taking Zelaya out of the country was illegal. Period.

2. Zelaya is charged with trying to amend the constitution to allow re-election of the president (which would be illegal), yet no one has ever provided evidence to that effect. It is illegal to amend seven particular parts of the constitution, but the wording of the proposed vote did not mention any of them.I do not care if you are positive he wanted to, as that does not constitute evidence. He said before the coup that he would leave office in 2010. Maybe he was lying, maybe not. But it deserves more investigation before overthrowing him. Ousting a president requires more than just assumptions about intent.

3. At various times, commenters have mentioned Venezuela as intruding (such as with the plebiscite materials) but I have never seen the Supreme Court or Attorney General mention evidence. Until I do, I think Venezuela is irrelevant. That Zelaya liked Hugo Chavez is not relevant to his standing as president. That Chavez says ridiculous things about invasion is not relevant to Zelaya's case either.

4. Zelaya was unpopular (even with his own party) and many people in Honduras are glad he's gone. This is irrelevant to the law. Surprisingly, I have not yet seen anyone make an argument for how a parliamentary system might have mediated the situation better--Honduran political institutions are so weak it might not have mattered.

I couldn't agree more with each of these items. As I said before, I think Zelaya overextended himself, I suspect thinking he'd have more support than he did when he tried to get the paper ballots for the referendum from the air force base and go against the Supreme Court - it wasn't necessarily that he was wrong in deed (and, as Greg points out, the definition of power in the constitution is nebulous at best); rather, he was wrong in the estimation of his limits. It is in this regard that I think you can say Zelaya is somewhat responsible (not "guilty") for what happened. However, the burden of the events rests on the military and the opposition (and those in Zelaya's own party) who supported the way things have played out since Sunday morning. Nothing was legal about this, if Zelaya is guilty of misestimations, the military and opposition are guilty of a blatantly illegal coup, and it shouldn't be too difficult for anybody to discern which of those two offenses is more severe. And given the points Greg makes, it really shouldn't be that hard for anybody to understand why Obama would want to come out against this coup. It's not about "meddling" in Latin America - it's about condemning an injustice committed against a democratically elected leader, something the global community has also vocally condemned.

Reporting the Honduras Coup, or, "How Some on the Left Are Reinforcing Ridiculous Perceptions of Obama"

Suffice to say, the coup in Honduras is a complex issue involving multiple power-struggles that cut to the core of how power is interpreted and assigned within the Honduran political system. Many people are trying to stay at the front of this story (including us), either through journalism or through analysis. However, as is typically the case in events like these, such quick rushes to judgement often look idiotic.

So it goes when one person has labeled this coup "Obama's First Coup d'Etat." Now, this could be interpreted in one of two ways: that it's the first coup that happened while Obama was president, or that it was the first coup he was involved with, directly or indirectly. I was willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt on the first interpretation, and it seemed that that may have been her viewpoint through the text. However, if it was, her updates leave her open to huge misinterpretation. Throughout the updates (which are frequent), Golinger repeatedly comments on Obama's failure to come out "fast enough" against the coup. I don't exactly know what she expects such a quick rush to judgement from the Obama administration will accomplish, but it's clear that she feels that, by not coming out "unequivocably" against the coup immediately, Obama is betraying some vague desire not to see Zelaya in power.

Fortunately, as Obama said in a recent press conference, the president of the U.S. doesn't work on a "24-hour news schedule." Instead (wonder of wonders), he waits to be informed of exactly what is going on, tries to let events play out some without directly jumping in and making matters worse, and then states his opinion. Indeed, yesterday Obama said that "the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras." I already know what many would say: "It's too netural," "if Obama really weren't behind the coup, why not say it's 'illegal'," "why doesn't he say 'we fully support Zelaya/oppse the coup'," etc. My answer would be because Obama does have to consider broader-picture issues, and nobody knows how this is going to work out; to blindly pick one side or another before it becoming clear exactly how events will play out over the next hours or days can lead to a huge backfire. Just ask the Bush administration when they supported the failed coup of Chavez immediately in 2002.

Why does this matter? Sure, it's clearly in a partisan online publication that favors Venezuela and looks with very skeptical eyes at U.S. policy, but it's just one site. So what?

The problem is, I found this by getting it from friends in South America. This story is making the rounds among young people (and perhaps older people) who consider themselves "leftist" or "intellectuals" in Laitn America. They may not buy into it, but people generally don't foward stuff without comment if they think it's ridiculous. As a result, this image of the U.S. effectively doing in Honduras under Obama what Bush tried in Venezuela reinforces an image of Obama as just another imperialist bastard out of touch with the world.

This irritates me to no end for the same reasons that accusations in Brazil that Obama is "just like Bush" irritate me: because such positions couldn't be further from the truth. Look, I'm not going to pretend that Obama will be perfect, or that I (or the "left" more generally, whomever it may be at that moment) will always like his policies. We haven't already, and we won't. But to imply that he is no different from Bush simply because he's the head of the U.S. is beyond absurd, particularly given his penchant thus far to do things like, you know, be informed of a situation, listen to others' opinions, and welcome differing viewpoints before making decisions. Vague insinuations and charges from the left (within or outside of the U.S.) that this is "Obama's coup" and condemnations that his wording isn't "strong enough" are as absurd as charges from the right in the U.S. that Obama's response to Iran likewise wasn't "strong enough."

In some ways, this isn't Obama's or the bloggers'/journalists'/intellectuals' fault. As the Times points out today, the overthrow of Zelaya is "pitting Mr. Obama against the ghosts of past American foreign policy in Latin America." And there are a lot of ghosts, from the Mexican-American war and the takeover of 1/3 of Mexico's territory at the time, to the Spanish-American war and the turning of Cuba into a virtual American territory, to the involvement in Guatemala in 1954, to Chile in 1973, to Argentina during the Dirty War, to Guatemala and El Salvador, to the Contras in Nicaragua, to Noriega in Panama, to Chavez...and that only scratches the surface of horrible political moves the U.S. has made. This isn't to excuse Golinger's interpretation, but it's not like she doesn't have her reasons historically.

But there are constructive ways to use that past together with the current administration to try to effect change in U.S. policy. Calling the coup in Honduras "Obama's first coup," with the perjorative connotation that brings (reinforced through constant updates chiding Obama for not coming out with a "strong" statement against the coup), in no way helps anything, is in no way in touch with political realities in international politics, and ultimately makes the left look as ridiculous as those on the right who condemned Obama when it came to Iran.

Honduras' Manuel Zelaya Ousted in Coup

The military has expelled Honduran president Manuel Zelaya in what is the first post-Cold War military coup in Latin America. There will no dobut be plenty more as I (or others) know more, but some quick thoughts:

-This is a pretty....interesting.....event. Zelaya's opponents have viewed his efforts to amend the constitution to allow a second presidential term as a Chavez-ian powergrab. I just don't buy this. Maybe Zelaya had the goal privately, but given the number of countries in the last 15 years that have increased the presidential terms from one to two (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, and Peru, for example), there doesn't seem to be anything that indicates that Venezuela rather than, say, Brazil, is the example of Zelaya's efforts. Thus, pointing to the one case (Venezuela) in Latin America in which an open-ended presidential administration to say that your president is trying to do the same, without pointing to at least four other cases where the president did not set up an open-ended administration, seems like flawed logic, to put it lightly. Again, perhaps this is Zelaya's secret goal, but if it is, it's a major secret, and there's as much evidence that Honduras could end up like the other four, rather than like the one outlier.

-While it's technically the first "successful" coup since the Cold War (there was the effort to overthrow Chavez in 2002), and definitely the first military one, it's definitely too soon to say where this is going, and I'm not even going to try. Once this plays out over the next few days/weeks, then we'll have a better idea where things may go. Some quick (tentative) thoughts include the fact that the new "interim" president will be the president of Honduras's Congress, Roberto Micheletti. But Micheletti is from Zelaya's party, which makes things particularly interesting. If he's remotely like Zelaya in terms of ideology, he could simultaneously have broad support from the working classes and a major "legitimacy" issue from the elements involved in the coup of Zelaya who would have reason to already be suspicious of Micheletti's administration. This is all a long way of saying this is really in flux, and it's almost impossible to figure out where it will go until things settle down (or at least develop further).

-That said, Zelaya's manuevering (including leading civilians to an air force base to take ballots), while perhaps brave, also (initially) strikes me as overextending himself, if not being downright foolish. When the middle class, elites, and military are all against you, it has traditionally been a bad idea to openly take on the military on its own turf with the support of the poor and working classes. This isn't to say that it could never succeed, and certainly, contexts vary, but this has been the problem behind too many coups in Latin America in the 20th century to ignore in this particular case. As above, time will make things clearer, but my first reaction is that this is a case of a president overestimating the power he could draw on these kinds of moves, and he found out too late that the opposition both in society and the military was more than equal to the challenge.

-Finally, I look forward to Erik's discussion of this, as I believe he has arrived in Honduras on the same day the coup has happened.

Threat of Coup Against Lugo Fades (For Now)

Last week, I mentioned that Fernando Lugo may have been facing talks of a coup. Fortunately, Congress quickly moved to resolve the situation:

The Paraguayan Senate managed on Thursday to defuse an institutional stand off
which threatened the stability of the recently inaugurated government of
President Fernando Lugo. With a simple majority the ruling collation disbarred
former president Nicanor Duarte who insisted in occupying a seat for which he
had been elected.

This doesn't completely resolve the situation. While it does address the Duarte situation, it doesn't address the fact that there are still tensions among higher levels of the military over Lugo's firing of top military officials after he was inaugurated. Still, Duarte was at the center of Lugo's allegations of coup discussions, so, at least for now, the situation seems a little better off.


...UPDATE: Boz has more, including an interesting story (in Spanish) that mentions the possibility of Lugo calling for a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution. I don't know if it will get to that point, but if it does, I wouldn't be surprised to see some efforts to re-define at least somewhat the role of the military so that another Stroessner or other military leader can't come into power.

Plans for a Coup against Fernando Lugo?

Maybe Fernando Lugo's not as safe as I thought:

Latin American leaders have rallied behind Paraguay's new president, Fernando Lugo, after he said he was the target of a possible coup plot.[... Lugo] has accused retired general Lino Oviedo and former president Nicanor Duarte of involvement in the alleged conspiracy. Both have denied this.

I don't really know what to make of this, honestly. Oviedo and Duarte both deny Lugo's accusations, claiming that Lugo's just making such claims for "political purposes," while Lugo is claiming he has "evidence of the meeting and plot and said all Paraguayans need to be on alert for coup attempts by "antidemocratic and retrograde” elements."

It's a really weird story, and a little unsettling. Certainly, his decision to sack the top military commanders could and probably did ruffle some feathers, so it gives some substance to his claims about Oviedo and Duarte. Oviedo and Duarte may be right; this may be a political ploy. If it is, though, it's a ploy that doesn't make much sense for Lugo: he is still in his honeymoon period, and he doesn't really have any major opposition from the electorate or domestic troubles yet. What's more, Lugo has never been a demagogue, and I'm not sure why he'd start now. If this is true, it's unsettling; hopefully more info will come to light, and Lugo will be able to complete his still-nascent presidency.