The Solution for Honduras

Granted: Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was a democratically elected leader who was on a mission to crown himself as dictator. He had joined the axis of evil of leftist Latin American presidents, and he was following their playbook on rewriting their constitutions to perpetuate their stays in power.

Granted: His June 28 ouster was legal and constitutional, and it had the support of the courts, the Honduran Congress and even some high-ranking members of his own political party.

But the way in which the court order for his arrest was carried out — the way he was taken from his home in his pajamas and forcibly deported from his country, without even a hearing for him to defend himself — turned a perfectly justified and legal procedure into a coup d'etat.

Some locos still are trying to deny it was a coup, but regardless of what you call it, this was a huge mistake that should have a price.

That mistake — a last-minute decision made by the military — should make the government of interim President Roberto Micheletti reconsider its unwillingness to reach a negotiated settlement with Zelaya.

I know. Zelaya is a law-breaking crook. But the mishandled arrest already turned him into a popular victim. Please don't turn him into a martyr!

Zelaya is threatening to return to Honduras and organize an armed rebellion, much to the delight of leftist presidents who stand behind him. They would like nothing more than to see bloodshed in Honduras so they can claim that armed revolution was justified to save democracy.

It would be a crock — because they are the only real threat to democracy in Latin America — but we know that's what they would say.

They are itching for a fight, and the current Honduran leaders should not fall in their trap.

For the true democrats in Honduras, here's the one logical solution: Go back to the negotiating table, and allow Zelaya to return to Honduras as president, but only after placing conditions that would ensure he abides by the law, respects the constitution and makes no further attempts to impose illegal referendums or to stay in power after his term expires in January. Through the courts and Congress, make him a super-lame duck. And then, after he is out of office, try him for all his crimes.

Unfortunately, the Micheletti government has been recalcitrant. Some of his supporters have been boasting about Honduran cojones , about how they are the first in Latin America to stand up against the tide of populist leaders following the Hugo Chavez model for turning democracies into socialist dictatorships.

In a way, they are right. It needed to be done. And if they had done it the right way, I would be giving them a standing ovation; most of the world would be clapping; and only a few leftist losers would be complaining. Unfortunately, Zelaya's pajamas arrest and expulsion changed the whole scenario.

The Honduran leadership currently in power seems to be locked into the conviction that because they were right to begin with, the method used to depose Zelaya should not really matter.

It does!

Any coup, whether insane or justified, sets a terrible precedent in a hemisphere where so many leaders are itching to become dictators.

The reality now is that Zelaya is calling for insurrection and threatening to establish a second government and a rebel army, which potentially could go to war with the Honduran army.

Coming from Zelaya, that's to be expected.

He would like nothing more than to be seen as a rebel leader and liberator, another soldier in Chavez's phony Bolivarian Revolution.

But even worse is the rhetoric we have been hearing from the so-called mediators in this conflict.

Amazingly, what we hear from people like Oscar Arias and Jose Miguel Insulza is talk of war. Arias, who is the Costa Rican president and is supposed to act like a mediator, warns of potential "civil war and bloodshed" as he clearly tries to exert more pressure on Micheletti than on Zelaya. And Insulza, who is the secretary-general of the Organization of American States and should try to stay impartial in these matters, already has categorized the Micheletti government as a dictatorship.

"It is almost impossible to call for calm when the dictatorship seeks to test everyone's patience and stay in power," Insulza told a Chilean radio station Monday.

With peacemakers like Insulza, who needs warmongers? This is the same person who wants to see Cuba reinstated into the OAS even though the Castro dictatorship still violates the organization's most basic principles. Cuba still fails and Honduras still abides in "respect for human rights," holding "periodic, free and fair elections based on secret balloting" and allowing a "pluralistic system of political parties." Apparently, the only kind of dictatorship that Insulza sees is the kind on the right.

For the record, while Zelaya's mishandled ouster should be called a coup, the interim government in Honduras hardly can be called a dictatorship — especially because elections are planned, there is no military strongman, and the country is ruled temporarily by Micheletti, a former legislator who was selected by Congress.

Apparently, because presidential elections still are planned for November, officials in the interim Honduran government feel they can ride out the time until a new president takes over in 2010. But at what cost?

Regardless of who gets elected, won't the new administration be affected by the way the old administration was terminated? Won't the new president, regardless of which side he is on, be haunted by the ghost of the coup?

By allowing Zelaya to return to Honduras while limiting his power to do more damage, the people currently in power could avoid a civil war and demonstrate to the world that they are freedom-loving democrats. If the Honduran people are truly tired of Zelaya, they will not elect another leftist to replace him. The time has come for real cojones in Honduras, the kind that are needed to put one's faith in the democratic process.

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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