In a radio and television chain, last night President Manuel Zelaya dismissed the head of the Joint Staff, Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, for refusing to accompany with Armed Forces’ logistics the public opinion poll of Sunday, which has been declared illegal by the judiciary, because it seeks to subvert the constitutional order.
He also accepted the resignation of Defense Minister Edmundo Orellana.
Immediately resigned in solidarity commanders of Force Army, Navy and Air Force.
However, today the Supreme Court reversed the dismissal of the chief of the Joint Staff, so General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez continues in office.
Also material brought by a Venezuelan plane for next Sunday consultation was seized by the Prosecutor’s Office.
Today Congress met to reject the illegal removal of Romeo Vasquez. This dismissal was illegal because nobody can be fired for refusing to comply with an illegal order.
The political crisis provoked by the President who insists on conducting an illegal “survey” is being undermined by legal institutions and by Armed Forces’ obedience to the Constitution of the Republic.
Democratic rule is on the line, a military coup is feared, but tens of thousands of Hondurans rushed to the defense of the President, filling and surrounding the presidential palace. The crisis is a tipping point in a political transformation of the country that has taken shape during Manuel Zelaya’s presidency.
Months ago, “Mel”, as Hondurans refer to their president, proposed that this Sunday, June 28, a national referendum be held to present Hondurans with the question whether a ballot box (the Cuarta Urna) should be established during the November 29, 2009 national elections in which Hondurans could vote whether or not to convoke a Constituent National Assembly (CNA) to write a new constitution in Honduras. For background info: http://www.rightsaction.org/articles/Copinh_052905.html
The current constitution was written in 1982 in the midst of repression and State terrorism that blanketed Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980’s. Honduras was controlled, at that time, by a US-backed military regime; the United States had 14 military bases in Honduras.
The Honduran Armed Forces initially pledged support to the President and commander in chief, and provide logistical support for Sunday’s referendum, to be administered by the National Statistics Institute.
Then, on Tuesday June 23, the Honduran army informed the president they would not support the referendum. The president fired the head of the armed forces, the School of the Americas graduate General Romeo Vasquez, and the Minister of Defense resigned.
Fearing for the safety of the President, thousands of Hondurans surrounded the Presidential Palace.
The National Congress is strongly opposed to the referendum, and today met to draft a letter of resignation for the President. The Congress has also called upon the OAS to withdraw the elections observers currently arriving to observe Sunday’s referendum, and entertained initiatives to block their entry to the country. Efforts to intimidate the voters include public statements by influential political figures claiming that if voters participate in Sunday’s referendum, they could face 10 to 15 years in prison.
Around midday today, June 25, President Zelaya and thousands of civilian supporters left the presidential palace in city buses and headed to the Air Force base and successfully – ! – recovered the ballot boxed needed for Sunday’s referendum.
The proposal to draft a new constitution, via the establishing of a CNA, is the culmination of a series of positive measures undertaken during “Mel’s” presidency, including: a raise in the minimum wage; measures to re-nationalize energy generation plants and the telephone system; signing a bill that improves labor conditions for teachers; joining the Venezuelan Petrocaribe program which provides soft loans for development initiatives via petroleum sales; delaying recognition of the new US ambassador after the Bolivian government implicated the US embassy in supporting fascist paramilitary groups destabilizing Bolivia, and others.
In the measure that popular support has grown, with a reported 80% of population in support, opposition has grown in the economically and politically powerful minority sectors. The president has been blocked from the press, and important events have gone virtually unreported.
Hendrik are you for real? It's Mel who is threatening the democratic order of the country. He is not a reformer, he is a crook, as much of a crook as those who are in congress. Tell me, which article of the Constitution reflects the repression of the eighties? I dare you to present me with one article that is to blame for the socio/political/economic mess that Honduras is in? No Hendrik, the problems in Honduras are not the result of the Constitution, the USA but ours alone. We have fallen prey to our own neglect.
Congress, the Supreme Court, the Attorney General and the overwhelming majority of Hondurans are against his illegal actions and his desire to sell our country to Hugo Chavez.
Hendrik's is a classical peace of leftist disinformation.
Yesterday, in the presidential palace, there were not tens of thousands of Hondurans supporting Zelaya, but less than three thousand persons. Most of whom were government employees or leftist social groups allied with the president.
The marches in defense of the Constitution and against Zelaya's project of a new constitution are bigger.
The president, acting in open defiance of the legal institutions of the State sets the stage to be dismissed.
This government has been an administrative disaster. The most obvious of which is the fact that at this time of the year the national budget has not been sent to the Congress.
Mel's government has ignored urgent tasks such as the prevention of swine flu, the rebuilding after a recent earthquake, and fighting street crime, in order to meet his illegal fourth ballot box project.
Most political analysts agree that the intention to call for the draft of a new Constitution is to continue in office indefinitely, as the bulk of ALBA presidents try to do.
This is against of the stony articles of the current Constitution, and it represents high treason against the State, according to this Constitution.
There is no need to draft a new constitution to adress the many problems of this country. Leftist here keep repeating the lie that anyone who is agaisnt the president represents powerful grous of economic interests. But the president is not so popular as he imagine he is.
The president has not been blocked from the press. On the contrary, he has the power to call for "national chains" of radio and television where he has a lot of time to expose his ideas.
Hendrik's comment comes from a Marxism newsgroup:
http://www.marxmail.org/msg63727.html
I just googled a sentence from his comment and found this.
Thanks for your reports, Ardegas.
Keep writing! I love your perspective as a Honduran.
From my outsiders perspective, not familiar with all the details, I can only provide a logical argument: If what Ardegas says is true, and it is truly illegal for there to be another referendum within this time frame, then the the supreme court can simply overturn any of the results. Exiling the president in that case is grossly overreacting. And if holding this referendum is in fact aloud by law, then it is the actions of the supreme court that are treasonous.
Hooooooolaaaaaa?
Are you there?
Have you been destituted also?
Looking for your opinion on what is going on!
🙂
here's a video about it from TheRealNews