An ultimatum from ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya left little room for compromise in U.S.-backed talks Saturday aimed at resolving a crisis that has become the latest test for democracy in Latin America.
A test for democracy, indeed. The international community is worthless, so I don't expect much from them. But I expect better even from the Obama administration. It is a test that so far the United States is failing by failing to support the interim government in Honduras. We can't even see that it is Zelaya who is the threat to democracy:
What didn't the OAS, the U.N. and other leaders know that before ordering Hondurans around? As Honduran lawyer Octavio Sanchez pointed out in the Christian Science Monitor, when Zelaya issued a decree ordering a referendum on changing presidential terms, he "triggered a constitutional provision that automatically removed him from office." (Google the Honduran Constitution and read it for yourself -- Article 239.) Zelaya had ousted himself, so impeachment was unnecessary.
So it was quite legal for the military to remove Zelaya, though the nighttime act gave an impression of a military coup to outsiders.
It is Zelaya, Insulza, Chavez, the U.N. and all the OAS member-states who are playing at banana republic politics, not the government in Tegucigalpa.
I'm disgusted that we siding with the Axis of El Vil in this crisis. They wrote the global test, this time. And our president is determined to pass it.
UPDATE: Instapundit links to this not-so-shocking report:
A Spanish Catalan newspaper is reporting that Honduran authorities have seized computers found in the Presidential Palace belonging to deposed president Mel Zelaya. Taking a page right out of the leftist dictator's handbook, these computers, according to the news report, contained the official and certified results of the illegal constitutional referendum Zelaya wanted to conduct that never took place. The results of this fraudulent vote was tilted heavily in Zelaya's favor, ensuring he could go ahead and illegally change the constitution so he could remain in power for as long as he wanted to.
The only shock is that it didn't already contain Jimmy Carter's written blessing of the fairness of the vote.
Yeah, this is looking a lot like that global test.
