Honduran Jorge Rivera Aviles Micheletti Replacement? Zelaya Misuse of Public Funds

Things are popping in Honduras after weeks of an ongoing stalemate. Roberto Micheletti, the country's interim President, has suggested that Jorge Rivera Avilas step-in as President until the next election. A local Honduran newspaper reports Zelaya's misuse of public funds and his luxury lifestyle. And wouldn't you know, a major U.S. newspaper recently editorialized that nothing short of Zelaya's return to the presidency can be considered a victory for the citizens of that country. Zelaya's return they say would "reverse the clear breach of democratic order that occurred."
 

Jorge Rivera Aviles

Micheletti recently suggested that Jorge Rivera Aviles, the President of the Honduran Supreme Court, replace Micheletti as President until election day results are in. Zelaya doesn't like that idea.

View a 13 minute video interview with Mr. Aviles here, and hear him explain that his country "defended" the Constitution, and how Zelaya broke many of the country's laws before they finally took action. The video is moderated by a PJTV reporter, and Aviles speaks in Spanish with well-done sub-titles. The editorial from the Washington Post mentioned above, goes on to say there are a few things that Mr. Zelaya must do, of course, if Mr. Micheletti's government allows Zelaya back into the President's seat.

Those things are, Zelaya must NOT do what he was doing before he was ousted:

...he would have to abandon his attempt to hold an illegal referendum on changing the Honduran constitution, and he would have to leave office when his term ends in January.

This, WaPo says, would "be a victory for the Hondurans who supported Mr. Zelaya's ouster because they feared he was attempting to mimic Mr Chavez's dismantling of Venezuela's democracy." Is this shameful spin, or what?

Make no mistake about it: Honduras and what happens to the Michelletti interim government matters, here and around the world. Zelaya's international supporters abuse the word "democracy" and ignore Honduran law, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Roberto Micheletti's government has the Honduran Constitution behind it.

Zelaya is a traitor - but he is one of the few traitors among the neighboring dictators who have not gotten away with snatching liberty from the people. Honduran auditors are now accusing Manual Zelaya of spending $6 million of the people's money on "horses, vacations and Harley Davidson motorcycles."

Government officials distributed a lengthy list of what they claimed were Zelaya's pet luxury items, including cash for the upkeep of his horses as well as airline tickets, jewelry, the use of a private helicopter, and his own top-of-the-range motorbike, local media reported.
In an audit of Zelaya's expenses by judicial authorities, the mustachioed leader -- who was ushered out of the country on June 28 in a military-backed coup -- also spent money on expensive wines renting high-end real estate.

The Obama administration continues to cut aid to Honduras - $30 million just this past week. If you are a regular reader here at Maggie's Notebook, you know that I, and my contributors, believe the Supreme Court had every right to make the decision to scoot the traitor Zelaya across a border anywhere - which is just what they did. One of my readers left a detailed comment on one of my posts on Honduras and has given me permission to use his statement. Hector Caballero's comments go to the heart of the fate ahead for the Honduran people - sovereignty:

Many focus on Article No. 239 to legally support Zelaya’s constitutional ousting; however, his constitutional crimes start with Article No. 2, please read below:

Article No. 2: Sovereignty of the people from which emanates all powers are exercised by representation. Imposture of popular sovereignty and the usurping of power are classified as crimes of treason; the liability in such cases is imprescriptibly and may be deducted automatically or at the request of any citizen.
Zelaya did not recognized peoples’ sovereignty representation in the other two democratic constitutional powers (Legislative and Judiciary), he though the executive branch was all mighty, encouraged by all the backing he was getting from Dictator Hugo Chavez and the Castro Brothers, and, as by doing so, Zelaya committed a crime of treason.

An example of him not recognizing the other two powers was his disobedience to the ruling from a judge against his proposal to carry out a Peoples Consult (First Executive Decree), not a referendum, to establish a Constitutional Assembly to reform the 1982 Honduran Constitution, he and his cabinet appeal getting the same response. You judge if this is a complete disrespect and disregard of the Judiciary.

Such actions can be deduct automatically, and as these crimes do not prescribe before the Honduran Rule of Law, Zelaya, therefore, still has a pending trial, furthermore, such trial can be requested by any citizen who considered himself or herself an honest and patriotic Honduran.

Article No. 239: A citizen who becomes president of the Executive Branch cannot be reelected as president or as presidential designee of the Executive Branch. Anyone who violates this provision or PROPOSES a reform, and those who support it directly or indirectly, immediately cease in their public duties, and will be disqualified for ten years to exercise any public function.

All Zelaya’s followers argue that he did not want to remain one more day after his constitutional term in office, as he had repeated it again and again, a lie that his Venezuelan Master Hugo Chavez carry out to destroy Venezuela’s democracy. Zelaya also a pathological liar argue that he only wanted to do “simple” reforms to the Constitution in those articles that do not allow a more socially fair and democratic society.

However, Zelaya put himself above the Law when he violated the provision in this article and also conspire to reform it. The evidence, Zelaya unilaterally published a second Executive Decree called “Opinion Poll to Establish a Constitutional Assembly” in the Government of Honduras Official News Paper (La Gaceta) Friday night June 26th, triggering the events of June 28th.

When he argued that his opinion poll was no-binding with the proposal of establishing a Constitutional Assembly to reform the Constitution, if fact it was, his decree title says so and the content of it is also strong evidence that is was binding. The OAS and the hypocrite International Community should come to Honduras to check this evidence.

At the moment of Zelaya’s capture, he was no longer president of Honduras, as you can read from the above, violating this specific provision or only by proposing to reform Article 239 anyone would immediately ceased being president, in fact Congress and the Supreme Court were benevolent to all of Zelaya’s earlier transgressions, naïve or incompetent.

Many political and religious leaders told Zelaya not to continue with his proposal, the US Ambassador told him not to, but he was so filled of himself and highly motivated by his lavish advisors, many were expecting him to change his position and finish his term, but he was blinded, full of power and continue doing so, with the consequences we all know.

Now, the International Community is pushing back into power a crook (50 million Lempiras were taken out in a cart from the Honduran Central Bank to finance the opinion poll and 500 million Lempiras were used to paid the media campaign for his project), a drug abuser (his close friends and relatives say he is a drug user, there are other witnesses also), a megalomaniac (the man though he was almighty and invulnerable, in his mind he was out of reach from the long arm of the law) and a traitor (there are plenty evidences that he had a very close relationship with Hugo Chavez, a sworn enemy of the US).

Finally, a highly concerning truth is that helping Zelaya means providing support to Chavez, if Zelaya does not come back or he does to face trial; Chavez will have has his Waterloo in Honduras.

I also recommend two articles: Fausta at Fausta's Blog - a post from September 5th and a really interesting discussion between two U.S. Representatives, along with Fausta's commentary. The second is from Honduras This Week by F. W. Blake, dated August 12, 2009: Part 4: Conclusions to Mel fought the law and the law won. From Blake's article is this reminder:

Remember how he refused to approve a National Budget, refused to ratify or veto more than 96 bills over a three year span, and refused to provide the National Congress with the disbursements they were legally entitled to; remember him saying, “I will only give them enough for their cups of coffee.” Remember how he repeatedly chose to ignore and not abide by the rulings and judicial notices issued by the Supreme Court. Surely Mr. Zelaya was not very fond of the two other branches of the government.

You can access Mr. Blake's complete series at the link to Part 4.

Thank you to La Gringa's Blogicito, who is blogging and gardening in Honduras.

Related:
Honduras Thousands in the Street: Michelletti Supporters in the Streets Honduras: Last Bastion of Democracy  

Lugar Clinton: Explain Honduras Foreign Policy Please