Manuel Zelaya: Difference between revisions

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"caused ... his ousting" makes it sound like he brought it upon himself, which is POV. "Led to" instead.
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|footnotes = *Zelaya was [[Honduran coup d'état of 2009|deposed]] on 28 June 2009 and the [[National Congress of Honduras|National Congress]] swore in [[Roberto Micheletti]]. Both dispute the presidency.
|footnotes = *Zelaya was [[Honduran coup d'état of 2009|deposed]] on 28 June 2009 and the [[National Congress of Honduras|National Congress]] swore in [[Roberto Micheletti]]. Both dispute the presidency.
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'''José Manuel''' "'''Mel'''" '''Zelaya Rosales''' (born September 20, 1952) is a [[Honduras|Honduran]] politician who was elected [[President of Honduras]] in 2006. Zelaya's attempt to hold a [[Honduran constitutional referendum, 2009|constitutional referendum]] caused a political crisis and his ousting.<ref>{{cite news|publisher=[[Al Jazeera]]|url=http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/06/2009628153818231321.html|title=Honduran president seeks exile|date=June 28, 2009|accessdate=June 29, 2009}}</ref> He was [[2009 Honduran political crisis|deposed by the Army on June 28, 2009]], but is seen as the legitimate president by the international community.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/06/28/honduras.president.arrested/index.html|title=Honduran Congress names provisional president|publisher=[[CNN]]|date=June 28, 2009|accessdate=June 29, 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://u.tv/News/New-Honduran-government-under-pressure-to-quit/e6fcabef-44da-49f4-ae1e-a4bfefa9ae58|title=New Honduran government under pressure to quit|date=2009-06-29|publisher=UTV News|accessdate=2009-06-30}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://espana.cubanoal.cu/index.html|title=Comunicado del Buró de Coordinación del Movimiento de Países No Alineados sobre la situación creada como resultado del golpe de Estado militar contra el Presidente constitucional de la República de Honduras|date=2009-06-29|publisher=MNOAL|accessdate=2009-06-30}}</ref>
'''José Manuel''' "'''Mel'''" '''Zelaya Rosales''' (born September 20, 1952) is a [[Honduras|Honduran]] politician who was elected [[President of Honduras]] in 2006. Zelaya's attempt to hold a [[Honduran constitutional referendum, 2009|constitutional referendum]] led a political crisis and his ousting.<ref>{{cite news|publisher=[[Al Jazeera]]|url=http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/06/2009628153818231321.html|title=Honduran president seeks exile|date=June 28, 2009|accessdate=June 29, 2009}}</ref> He was [[2009 Honduran political crisis|deposed by the Army on June 28, 2009]], but is seen as the legitimate president by the international community.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/06/28/honduras.president.arrested/index.html|title=Honduran Congress names provisional president|publisher=[[CNN]]|date=June 28, 2009|accessdate=June 29, 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://u.tv/News/New-Honduran-government-under-pressure-to-quit/e6fcabef-44da-49f4-ae1e-a4bfefa9ae58|title=New Honduran government under pressure to quit|date=2009-06-29|publisher=UTV News|accessdate=2009-06-30}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://espana.cubanoal.cu/index.html|title=Comunicado del Buró de Coordinación del Movimiento de Países No Alineados sobre la situación creada como resultado del golpe de Estado militar contra el Presidente constitucional de la República de Honduras|date=2009-06-29|publisher=MNOAL|accessdate=2009-06-30}}</ref>


He defeated [[National Party of Honduras|National Party]] candidate [[Porfirio Pepe Lobo]] in a national election on November 27, 2005 and was inaugurated on January 27, 2006, replacing [[Ricardo Maduro]] and becoming the fifth President from the [[Liberal Party of Honduras|Liberal Party]].
He defeated [[National Party of Honduras|National Party]] candidate [[Porfirio Pepe Lobo]] in a national election on November 27, 2005 and was inaugurated on January 27, 2006, replacing [[Ricardo Maduro]] and becoming the fifth President from the [[Liberal Party of Honduras|Liberal Party]].

Revision as of 16:36, 2 July 2009

Manuel Zelaya
President of Honduras
Disputed since 2009
Assumed office
27 January 2006*
Vice PresidentElvin Ernesto Santos
Arístides Mejía
Preceded byRicardo Maduro
Succeeded byRoberto Micheletti (Disputed)*
Personal details
Born (1952-09-20) 20 September 1952 (age 71)
Catacamas, Honduras
Political partyLiberal Party
SpouseXiomara Castro
Alma materNational Autonomous University of Honduras (Incomplete)

José Manuel "Mel" Zelaya Rosales (born September 20, 1952) is a Honduran politician who was elected President of Honduras in 2006. Zelaya's attempt to hold a constitutional referendum led a political crisis and his ousting.[1] He was deposed by the Army on June 28, 2009, but is seen as the legitimate president by the international community.[2][3][4]

He defeated National Party candidate Porfirio Pepe Lobo in a national election on November 27, 2005 and was inaugurated on January 27, 2006, replacing Ricardo Maduro and becoming the fifth President from the Liberal Party.

Background

Zelaya was born the oldest of four children in Juticalpa, Olancho. He attended Niño de Jesús de Praga y Luis Landa elementary and the Instituto Salesiano San Miguel. He studied Industrial Engineering in The National University of Honduras (UNAH) but left after four years with 11 courses passed to engage fully in the agroforestry business sector. Two of his brothers remain alive, one is Carlos Armando and the other is Marco Antonio, while his mother, Ortensia Rosales de Zelaya, has been described as his best campaigner. He has engaged in various business activities, specifically timber and cattle, which were handed down to him by his late father. He is now a landowner in the department of Olancho. His family first lived in Copán then they moved east to Olancho.

Political career

He joined the Liberal Party of Honduras (Partido Liberal de Honduras, PLH) in 1970 and became active a decade later. He was a deputy in the National Congress three consecutive times between 1985 and 1998. He held many positions within the PLH and was Minister for Investment in charge of the Honduran Social Investment Fund (FHIS) in a previous PLH government. During the government of Carlos Roberto Flores Zelaya introduced an Open counties programme to decentralize decision making and return power to the local communities. He used both the official division according to Municipality and another method which categorised people according to their indigenous or traditional communities, with said categorisation creating 297 different groups and he planned to revive this scheme during his presidency.

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During the election campaign Zelaya promised to double police numbers from 9,000 to 18,000. He also promised to initiate a programme of re-education amongst the Mara Salvatrucha gangs. In this question his approach was very different from that of his main rival Pepe Lobo, who advocated the death penalty for these groups, leading the Honduran media to describe the country as having chosen reconciliation over confrontation.

Presidency

George W. Bush and Manuel Zelaya greet each other in New York, 18 September 2006.

General opinions about his presidency were very divided by political, ideological, party and class lines. The traditional left praised him for his economic policies and social reforms which on occasion have put him at odds with the economic powers which traditionally have ruled in Honduras. The more conservative part of the population expressed their opposition to both his foreign policy, particularly his alliance with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and his adhering Honduras to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas as well as for his periodic attacks on the United States, and periodic confrontations with the business sector.

The Economist gave Zelaya mixed reviews for his first year in office, saying that "Despite success in fulfilling some of his campaign promises [...] Zelaya’s lack of a coherent programme has limited the government’s ability to address Honduras’s long-standing problems," and that "introducing far-reaching reforms will be difficult" in the face of vigorous opposition and "simmering social tensions."[5] In 2008, Zelaya's popular approval dropped amid the 2007–2008 world food price crisis and worsening drug-related violence that gave Honduras one of the highest homicide rates in Latin America. [6]

Conflict with media

On May 24, 2007, Zelaya ordered ten two-hour cadenas (mandatory government broadcasts) on all television and radio stations, "to counteract the misinformation of the news media."[7] The move, while legal, was fiercely criticized by the country's main journalists' union, and Zelaya was dubbed "authoritarian" by his opposition.[8] Ultimately, the broadcasts were scaled back to a one-hour program on the government's plans to expand telephone service, a half hour on new electrical power plants and a half-hour about government revenues. According to the University of New Mexico's electronic bulletin NotiCen, "Zelaya's contention that the media distort his efforts is not without merit," citing reports which gave the public the impression that murder rates were rising, when they actually fell by 3% in 2006.[7]

Drugs

On February 22, 2008, Zelaya called on the United States to legalize drugs, in order, he said, to prevent the majority of violent murders occurring in Honduras. Honduras is used by cocaine smugglers as a transit point between Colombia and the US. Honduras, with a population of 7 million, suffers an average of 12 murders a day, an estimated 70% of which result from the international drug trade. He also said that Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico face the same problem.[9]

Call to change the constitution

Main article: Honduran constitutional referendum, 2009 § Constitutional Assembly plans

In 2009 Zelaya caused uproar with his plan to have a non-binding poll in June to decide whether to have a referendum in November about convening a Constitutional National Assembly to draft a new constitution.[10] The existing constitution explicitly bans reforms of some of its clauses within the existing constitutional framework. According to Alberto Valiente Thorensen from Counterpunch (a political newsletter), making it illegal to change some articles in the constitution is legally irrelevant for the wholesale replacement of the constitution through a constitutional assembly.[11] The poll was opposed by much of the Honduran establishment, which argued that Zelaya was merely seeking re-election (the constitution bans both re-election and attempts to reform the relevant articles).

The highest court in Honduras ruled that the referendum would be unlawful because of the constitutional ban on reforming some of its clauses.[12] Zelaya rejected the ruling and dismissed Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, chief of armed forces of Honduras, as he had refused to help with the referendum because he did not want to violate the law of the land. Both the Honduran Supreme Court and the Honduran Congress deemed the dismissal of Velásquez to be unlawful.[12][13]

Not only the Supreme Court but the Congress of Honduras, the attorney general of Honduras, and the top national electoral body declared Zelaya's proposed referendum to be illegal.[14][15] Congress began to discuss means to impeach Zelaya.[16] On June 27th and again on June 30, 2009, thousands of protesters opposed to Zelaya's rule marched through the capital city.[16]

The Supreme Court, the Congress, and the military have recommended that voters stay home because the referendum would be neither fair to nor safe for voters. The National Human Rights Commissioner, Ramón Custodio, said, "I would tell the people to stay calmly at home in order not to get involved in any incident or any violence by going to vote 'no,' because they might be assaulted by these mobs," referring to Zelaya's supporters. However, unions and farm groups supported the referendum as a necessary precursor to economic reforms favoring Honduras's poor majority.[6]

Coup d'etat

Main article: 2009 Honduran political crisis

On June 28, 2009, President Zelaya was seized by soldiers, acting ostensibly on the orders of the Honduran Supreme Court, and taken to an air force base.[17][18] Honduran radio station HRN reported that Zelaya had been sent into exile. He has been taken to Costa Rica, a neutral country.[19]

Immediately following his ouster, Zelaya spoke to the media from his forced exile in San Jose and described the events "a coup" and "a kidnapping." He stated that soldiers pulled him from his bed and assaulted his guards. Zelaya stated that he will not recognize anyone named as his successor and that he wants to finish his term in office. He also stated that he will now be meeting with diplomats,[20] and plans to attend the Summit of Central American Presidents in Managua, Nicaragua to be held June 30, 2009.[21]

The National Congress voted to accept what they claimed is Zelaya's letter of resignation, but Zelaya said he did not write the letter.[22]

National Congress President Roberto Micheletti assumed the presidency following Zelaya's ouster.[23]

All Latin American nations as well as the United States, Spain, France, and others, have publicly condemned the forced removal of Zelaya as undemocratic and most have labelled it as a coup d'état. U.S. President Barack Obama said "We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the President of Honduras."[24][25] No nation has publicly declared support for the Honduran military's actions or for the new acting President Roberto Micheletti, with the exception of Honduras itself. UnoAmerica (Union of Democratic American Organizations), an international organization founded by Venezuelan opposition organizer Alejandro Peña-Esclusa, has recognized Micheletti and the new government. [26] Venezuela has said it would suspend oil shipments, and Honduras's neighbors -- El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua -- announced that they would stop overland trade.[27]

A one-page United Nations resolution, passed by acclamation in the 192-member body, condemned the removal of Mr. Zelaya as a coup and demanded his “immediate and unconditional restoration” as president.[28] The resolution calls "firmly and categorically on all states to recognise no government other than that" of Mr Zelaya.[29]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Honduran president seeks exile". Al Jazeera. June 28, 2009. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
  2. ^ "Honduran Congress names provisional president". CNN. June 28, 2009. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
  3. ^ "New Honduran government under pressure to quit". UTV News. 2009-06-29. Retrieved 2009-06-30.
  4. ^ "Comunicado del Buró de Coordinación del Movimiento de Países No Alineados sobre la situación creada como resultado del golpe de Estado militar contra el Presidente constitucional de la República de Honduras". MNOAL. 2009-06-29. Retrieved 2009-06-30.
  5. ^ "Honduras politics: Mixed report card for Zelaya". Economist Intelligence Unit. May 10, 2007. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
  6. ^ a b Weissert, Will (June 27, 2009). "Honduran leader pushes ahead with divisive vote". The Miami Herald. Associated Press. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
  7. ^ a b "HONDURAS' PRESIDENT TAKES ON MEDIA MOGULS FOR ACCESS TO THE PEOPLE". Access my library. 2007-06-28. Retrieved 2009-06-30.
  8. ^ Grant, Will (May 25, 2007). "Honduras TV gets government order". BBC News. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
  9. ^ "Zelaya sugiere a EUA legalizar drogas". La Prensa (in Spanish). February 23, 2008. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
  10. ^ "Sigue rechazo a la cuarta urna". La Prensa (in Spanish). June 11, 2009. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
  11. ^ Counterpunch, 1 July 2009, Why Zelaya's Actions Were Legal
  12. ^ a b Cuevas, Freddy (June 26, 2009). "Honduras heads toward crisis over referendum". Yahoo News. Associated Press. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
  13. ^ "Honduran leader defies top court". BBC News. June 26, 2009. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
  14. ^ Oppenheimer, Andres (June 27, 2009). "ALBA bloc leaders' main obsession: indefinite rule". The Miami Herald. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
  15. ^ De Cordoba, José (June 26, 2009). "Honduras lurches toward crisis over election". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
  16. ^ a b Luhnow, David (June 27, 2009). "Honduras crisis opens regional rift". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
  17. ^ Flores, Alex (June 28, 2009). "Presencia de nicas y venezolanos en Honduras aceleró captura de Zelaya". El Heraldo (in Spanish). Retrieved June 29, 2009. {{cite news}}: Check |url= value (help)
  18. ^ "Secretary: Soldiers arrest Honduran president". Yahoo News. Associated Press. June 28, 2009. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
  19. ^ Cuevas, Freddy (June 28, 2009). "Honduran military sends president into exile". Toronto Star. Associated Press. Retrieved June 29, 2009. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  20. ^ "Honduran president calls arrest a 'kidnapping'". The Washington Post. Associated Press. June 28, 2009. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
  21. ^ "Exiled Zelaya insists he is rightful Honduran president". Yahoo News. Agence France-Presse. June 28, 2009. Retrieved June 29, 2009.
  22. ^ Weissert, Will (June 28, 2009). "Honduran military ousts president ahead of vote". Yahoo News. Associated Press. Retrieved June 29, 2009. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  23. ^ Bremer, Catherine (June 28, 2009). "Q+A: Honduras president ousted in military coup". Reuters. Retrieved June 29, 2009. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  24. ^ "Obama says coup in Honduras is illegal". Reuters. 2009-06-29. Retrieved 2009-06-30. {{cite web}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
  25. ^ "Obama Says Coup in Honduras Would Set a "Terrible Precedent"". ABC News. 2009-06-29. Retrieved 2009-06-30. {{cite web}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
  26. ^ "UnoAmérica recognizes Roberto Micheletti". Diario LaPrensa.hn. 2009-06-30. Retrieved 2009-06-30.
  27. ^ "Two Hondurans Headed for Clash". Washington Post. 2009-06-30. Retrieved 2009-06-30. {{cite web}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
  28. ^ "U.N. Backs Ousted Honduran Leader". The New York Times. 2009-06-30. Retrieved 2009-06-30.
  29. ^ "UN backs Honduras leader's return". BBC News. 2009-06-30. Retrieved 2009-06-30.

External links

Political offices
Preceded by President of Honduras
Disputed since 2009
2006–present 		Succeeded by
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Manuel_Zelaya&oldid=299913536"