Ortez Colindres joins Lobo Sosa in admitting it was a coup

Is confession good for the soul? It must be, because it sure isn't obvious how it is good politically, yet here comes another Honduran politician to join Porfirio Lobo Sosa in admitting that what happened June 28, 2009 was a coup.

In the latest episode, Honduras' Tiempo brings back one of the most outrageous members of the Micheletti regime, Enrique Ortez Colindres, the man whose racist comments about Barack Obama never were translated into completely accurate equivalents in English language coverage.

And it isn't just that Ortez Colindres-- briefly the Secretary of State for Micheletti until his impolitic comments brought him down-- admits it was a coup. He says it was completely planned and executed by the Armed Forces.

Colindres made the comments by telephone to Cholusat Sur (Channel 36), a noted anti-coup media outlet in Tegucigalpa.

Esdras Amado López, the reporter Colindres tried to take on, was reportedly criticizing Ortez Colindres for suggesting that Lobo Sosa should be talking to Hugo Chavez in pursuit of readmission to the OAS. Amado López expressed the view that Ortez Colindres was contradicting the position he took during the coup, when he characterized Chavez as "the devil".

Seeking to explain his position, here's what Ortez Colindres said, live, on television:

“The conditions did not exist to negotiate with Chávez [in the de facto regime] because the enemy of the Army of Honduras is Chávez and Micheletti had been put in the hierarchy of command by the Army."

“I don't believe that Micheletti would have had the courage, nor the individual ability to go to sit with Chávez without having the approval of the commander who put him in that moment, which was the Armed Forces, today it's different."

“The military are those that made the legal chain run and put in [Micheletti]."

"The Army put him in and why would I am deny it, they are the ones that made the succession."

Now, the one thing obvious after Ortez Colindres brief, disastrous "career" as a diplomat for Micheletti is that he is-- well, loose cannon hardly seems strong enough. A buffoon?

But still: these seem likely to be explosive comments among politicians so eager to pretend that what happened was completely legitimate that they have bullied their "Truth Commission" not to even use the words "coup d'etat".

It has always been clear that one way for the civilian authors of the coup to attempt to wriggle out of responsibility would be to blame the whole thing on the military. That was one of the reasons there were so many press statements by the military last year. But unlike their almost hysterical efforts at PR during the coup, the current military seems disinclined to respond to this provocation.

Yet these are the most open attempts to implicate the army that are possible. Ortez Colindres said

“I recommended to the [military] command that they go to speak with Zelaya Rosales to respect him, but they said: He is olanchano [from Olancho] and he is going to command us... if we ask that he stops the cuarta urna and he fired Romeo Vásquez Velásquez."

So: is this blame-shifting? or what Ortez Colindres actually thinks happened? And how can the Armed Forces actually ignore being blamed, not just for the decision to remove Zelaya (illegally) from Honduras-- which Ortez Colindres says set in motion the (presumably constitutional) installation of Micheletti-- but the very idea of a coup?

And: what on earth does it mean to say that the enemy of the Honduran Army is Hugo Chávez?

Who's the legitimate president of Honduras?

Don't ask the Christian Science Monitor. In an article published yesterday about the dilemma facing the Central American Parliament (Parlacen) in the wake of the 2009 coup d'etat, this usually reliable source gives the following tagline:

The turmoil surrounding last years ouster of Honduras President Manuel Zelaya has mostly died down. But the Central American Parliament is considering giving him a seat at the table over his rival, new President Porfirio Lobo.

Well, no.

The issue is whether to seat Zelaya in the Parlacen as the representative of Honduras, or Roberto Micheletti. So why is the Christian Science Monitor so confused that it not only leads the story this way, but captions the accompanying photo with the same inaccurate claim that the "Central American Parliament is now considering [Zelaya] over his rival, new President Porfirio Lobo, for membership in the Parlacen".

After correctly reporting that "many countries in Latin America continue to question the legitimacy of the new administration of Porfirio Lobo, because he was elected to office without Zelaya being restored to office first", the story equally accurately says the question before Parlacen is who the legitimate former president of Honduras is.

This question is pertinent because Parlacen seats former presidents of member nations.

The CSM article quotes Hena Ligia Madrid, described as "a lawmaker in Honduras from the Liberal Party" as saying

Our founding treaty is very clear as to who forms part of Parlacen. It stipulates that outgoing presidents of member states are immediately admitted. … In the case of Honduras, it is obvious to me, as a politician and Parlacen legislator, that the man who should come is President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, because he was elected in free elections and was sworn in as constitutional president of the republic.

This quotation comes from a story by IPSNews that contains the curious detail that, in fact, neither Micheletti nor Zelaya has made any move to take up the seat afforded to former presidents. The issue is presently being debated by members of Parlacen representing right-wing and leftist political positions within Central America, whose positions are completely predictable.

But who first raised it?

An English-language online media outlet, Honduras Weekly, began publishing articles in February claiming that Zelaya was actively seeking the position, noting that it would come with diplomatic immunity from prosecution.

Also in February, pro-coup Honduran daily newspaper El Heraldo published an article including a statement from Public Prosecutor Luis Rubí saying Zelaya should return to Honduras to face prosecution. In this article, Lobo Sosa was quoted as saying he would be talking to Parlacen officials to resolve the issue

in the face of demands by right-wing political leaders in the country who consider that Micheletti should be included in the Parlacen, not Zelaya.

And here, finally, we find the source of the controversy: right-wing Hondurans who fear seeing Zelaya in an official capacity that would acknowledge his legitimacy as former president.

On February 15, pro-coup La Prensa published an interview with none other than Enrique Ortez Colindres, famous for his undiplomatic comments on US President Barack Obama and the nation of El Salvador during his time as Roberto Micheletti's minister of foreign affairs. Dismissing Parlacen as a failed institution, he nonetheless argued that Micheletti should have the seat given to former presidents because only he had "completed his mandate" as president. You know, because Zelaya didn't stay on after June 28.

And besides, Ortez Colindres said,

if Pepe Lobo accepted [the appointment of Zelaya], then he would be accepting that there was a coup d'Etat and to accept that would be to make his own presidential election vulnerable.

So, now finally we get to why the Christian Science Monitor has gotten the idea that the Parlacen problem is between Zelaya and Lobo Sosa.

Because in a manner of speaking, it is: if Lobo Sosa wants to keep support from the right, he has to oppose Zelaya's non-existent candidacy for Parlacen, or admit that his own election took place under the administration of an illegitimate administration.