To Be Democratic, Or Not To Be? That Is The Question Facing Honduras

By Celia Canon- Talk Radio News Service

Latin American experts gathered in Washington on Thursday to deplore the blatant lack of democracy that currently exists in Latin America, magnified by the recent coup in Honduras.

Some of those who testified, such as Jim Swigert, Senior Associate and Regional Director of Latin America and Caribbean Programs at the National Democratic Institute, criticized the military for its forceful action, explaining that “I think those who decided to turn to the use of force to resolve the political dispute only exacerbate the situation [because] the military was engaged in the political process as the arbiter, as the enforcer.”

Adolfo Franco, Vice President of Global Regulatory Affairs at the Direct Selling Association, said that despite the international community condemning the coup, the world should also know that ousted President Manuel Zelaya should bear much responsibility for the crisis.

Franco defended the military’s role, saying “It [the referendum proposed by Zelaya] wasn’t against the will of the legislator, it was a violation of the Constitution of Honduras as that judicial body, the Supreme Court which is empowered to make those decisions, rendered a correct decision and issued a warrant for his arrest.”

Zelaya was forced out of power by military forces in Honduras after the former President scheduled a vote in late June asking the population whether a constituent assembly should re-write the Honduran Constitution. Zelaya declared that the constitution’s imperfections were the source of current national social issues.

Franco clarified that the events that occurred in Honduras should be no surprise as Honduras has been following the same pattern as its left wing homologues in the region.

“The model now in Latin America is don’t do coups; [instead] you get elected and you dismantle systematically democracy,” said Franco, adding that Zelaya had been an “increasingly anti-democratic president trying to use the mechanisms of democracy to destroy those [democratic] institutions and to perpetuate himself to power.”