Dear Friends and Family,
As many of you know, we spent our first 18 years of missionary life serving in Honduras. We are very concerned about what has been happening in Honduras the last few days and how it is being portrayed in the newspapers and on television to the world. Please read the following for a more accurate depiction of what is happening.
In any case, please pray for a peaceful and just solution to the situation and for wisdom for those in power.
HISTORY OF THE SITUATION
--Former Honduran President Manuel (Mel) Zelaya had betrayed his party and the electorate by switching from the conservative platform on which he ran to the leftist camp after he was elected. This aligned him with Venezuela's president Hugo Ch†vez and the Castro brothers.
--He brought Honduras into ALBA, which is Chavez's anti-American 'alternative.'
--He tried to move against the legitimate government of Honduras by attempting to distribute a ballot for a binding resolution to form a commission to rewrite the constitution. That referendum was to have been held this past Sunday, 27 June. Honduran law states that no such referendum concerning elections may be held within six months of an election.
--The presidential elections are only 5 months away on 29 November. The courts had told him that such a referendum was unconstitutional, and Congress had ordered him not to hold it.
--He fired Joint Chief of Staff General Romeo Vasquez when the general refused to help distribute the ballots (which had been prepared by Venezuela and flown in to Honduras) after the supreme court declared the initiative unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ordered General Romero Vasquez to be reinstated as Joint Chief of Staff.
CURRENT SITUATION
--It was not a military coup. In Honduras, the military is like the national guard, necessary when large-scale law enforcement is called for.
--The military carried out an arrest warrant issued by the Supreme Court. Just as in the US a court has the authority to have a citizen arrested, so also in Honduras. In this case, the military acted as the police in order to carry out an arrest warrant for a citizen who repeatedly had been violating the law and the Constitution of the Republic.
--Evidently, when he realized that he was going to be prosecuted for his crimes, he chose to resign as President and to go into exile rather than to serve time in prison.
--The arrest was carried out according to Honduran law in order to maintain democracy and to protect the country from the ferment that Zelaya was inciting by his revolutionary rhetoric and appeal to disenchanted social and political groups.
--When his letter of resignation was presented to Congress, they unanimously accepted it.
--The head of the military did not take over as President which is what usually happens in a military coup. Congress elected the President of Congress, Roberto Micheletti, as the interim President while things get sorted out.
--On the other hand, much of what Zelaya had been doing was in direct violation of the Honduran law and Constitution. Had he not been stopped, he quite possibly would have carried out a real coup d'etat against the established order much as Chavez himself has been doing in Venezuela.
We have been told by missionaries living in Tegucigalpa (the capital) and friends in San Pedro Sula (4 hours north in the industrial center) Honduras that the unrest is very limited, and that they are able to leave their houses without problem, which was always our own experience when we lived there.
The international press is blowing the situation out of proportion with descriptions of a 'military ouster of the democratically elected president.' While Zelaya may have been elected democratically, he was conspiring to destroy the democracy that exists in Honduras, which Congress, the Supreme Court, the military and the majority of Hondurans realized.
LINKS
These are some articles which have a different perspective from most of the media--
The Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB124623220955866301-lMyQjAxMDI5NDI2...
Honduras This Week (English Language Weekly Paper)
http://www.hondurasthisweek.com/
PLEASE PRAY FOR--
--a peaceful and just solution to the situation
--wisdom for those in power
--protection for the people from violence
--the work the church is doing there through its people and their protection
Blessings,
Fr John and Susan Park
'Even when things are out of our control,
they are never out of God's control.'
Vonage line--412-567-5300 (US telephone-rings in Peru)
John+ & Susan Park
SAMS-USA missionaries
johnpark@sams-usa.org
susanpark@sams-usa.org
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