HONDURAS
The Military Still Have
Veto Power
By Thelma Mejía
TEGUCIGALPA (IPS) - The de facto veto
power that the military exercised with
the toppling of president Manuel Zelaya
exactly one year ago today effectively
blocks any possible political or
electoral reforms, experts say.
That was made clear once again when the
head of the Supreme Electoral Court
(TSE), David Matamoros, made an
about-turn after saying the Court was
studying the possibility of removing
from the military the task of
transporting and guarding the ballot
boxes during elections.
Matamoros said earlier this month that
the armed forces were given that role in
the 1982 constitution because the
country was heading towards democracy
after years of dictatorship, and that
"now we believe that it is no longer
necessary, and, like in other countries,
should fall within the jurisdiction of
the TSE. For that reason it is now part
of the reforms we are proposing."
But the story changed a few days later.
After a meeting between the TSE judges
and the heads of the armed forces and
Defence Minister Marlon Pascua of the
governing right-wing National Party,
Matamoros said his remarks had been
misinterpreted.
The new version is that the TSE will
seek to "expand" the functions of the
military, including the possibility of
allowing members of the armed forces to
vote. (Neither soldiers nor the police
vote in Honduras.)
Both Matamoros and Pascua praised the
role played by the military in the
November elections organised by the coup
government, which were won by Porfirio
Lobo, who took office in late January
and whose government is recognised by
less than 60 countries.
Experts consulted by IPS said the
military's growing role in the public
sphere is one of the most painful
consequences of the Jun. 28, 2009 coup
d'état, when Zelaya was taken from his
house at gunpoint and put on a plane to
Costa Rica, still in his pajamas, and
Roberto Micheletti was named president.
Leticia Salomón, an expert in military
affairs, told IPS that as a result of
the coup, we now have "highly
politicised security forces, and in the
case of the military, the leadership has
become a decision-making body, which is
simply not right."
The military has repositioned itself in
society over the last 15 years, until
achieving a degree of legitimacy. But
"that all came crashing down with the
coup," she said.
"They threw overboard everything that
had been built up, and they have mixed
up defence objectives with the national
and political objectives of a country,"
Salomón said.
Her concerns were echoed by other
analysts, both Honduran and foreign, who
took part last week in an academic forum
on the country's future, organised by
the National Autonomous University of
Honduras and civil society groups.
Francisco Rojas Aravena, director of the
Latin American Faculty of Social
Sciences (FLACSO), said there is an
urgent need to review the military's
role in democracy, and added that "weak
governance and the dearth of public
policies aimed at reducing inequality
and poverty fuel, to some extent, coups
d'état.
"Leaving in place constitutional
articles that are cast in stone also
paves the way for recurrent crises,"
said the Chilean academic.
There are at least seven articles in the
Honduran constitution that cannot be
modified. They include a prohibition of
consecutive terms for presidents and of
holding a constituent assembly to
rewrite the constitution. (To amend the
constitution, the vote of two-thirds of
all members of parliament at two
consecutive regular annual sessions are
needed.)
It was precisely Zelaya's attempt to
hold a non-binding referendum to ask
voters if they wanted a constituent
assembly that served as the argument for
the coup.
A year after calling on the armed forces
to topple the government, Lobo's
National Party and the centre-right
Liberal Party -- to which Zelaya himself
belonged but which he alienated by
making a shift to the left -- have been
forced to consult them, and avoid
talking about reforms of the military's
role, a legislator who asked to remain
anonymous in order to steer clear of
"friction" with other lawmakers from his
party, told IPS.
For his part, sociologist Eugenio Sosa
remarked to IPS that the role played by
the military in "democracy-building
processes" should be reviewed "so they
can no longer veto or arbitrate" in
public life.
Under president Carlos Roberto Reina
(1994-1998), Honduras underwent a
process of demilitarisation -- a
strategy that earned the late former
president at least three attempts on his
life attributed to groups in the
military opposed to the reforms.
Reina, according to Salomón, was the
only president who imposed himself on
the military. "The rest began to yield
ground and power to them, including
Zelaya himself," she said, saying "the
forms that this took ranged from paying
for favours to salary hikes and other
mechanisms to keep them happy."
In addition, the soaring levels of
violent crime -- Honduras has one of the
highest murder rates in the world --
have also given the military and police
growing influence.
"Today we are paying dearly for these
policies," she added.
In Salomón's view, the armed forces
should be downsized in accordance with
the real needs of the country, and in
order to do that, they must lose their
power of veto. |
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