Zelaya and Micheletti, The Fight of the Decade?

Since I was a missionary in Honduras many many years ago, I've been watching the current crisis between "former president" Manuel Zelaya and "interim president" Roberto Micheletti in Honduras. I put those titles in quotes for a reason. Zelaya is the "former president" because, right or wrong, he's not in power. He can't even get back into the country. I also think calling Micheletti an "interim" president is also a bit laughable. Will he give up power when elections happen? Meantime, both men are claiming that the other is a criminal and a traitor, and now talks in Costa Rica have broken down.

I've been following the follies of Zelaya and Micheletti mostly on the BBC, and usually, I find them to be pretty fair in their reporting. I can't seem to find any real sense in any of it. Zelaya wanted to ammend the constitution to give him another run at the presidency. That seems fair. Let him try it. If it's really that big of a deal, he'd have been voted down. The referrendum was supposedly non-binding anyway. Judging from the mixed reactions in the public, I'd say he probably didn't have a lot of popular support.

But instead of letting him just fall flat, his "successor" decided to have him arrested at gunpoint and deported. Seems to me that he's really the one who's messing with the constitution, here. But then, especially in central america, constitutionality has often been decided by which end of the gun barrel you were on.

Here's my take: This seems to be a lot of petty bickering between two guys who want to be in charge.

These two guys are really coming across like a couple of snotty-nosed kids trying to kick each other out of the sandbox. It's not even like the mess in southern africa a while back, where one guy was clearly evil and the other guy was good, but defeated. Zelaya and Micheletti both need to stop and look around and see what the world is seeing.

But one guy who's really showing what an idiot he can be is Hugo Chavez. He's criticizing Obama for not intervening strongly.

What?

Did I just hear that right?

Chavez is mad because the US isn't meddling in Central American sovreignty enough?

That's what I thought I just said. It just doesn't sound right.

I love the Honduran people, and I'm sorry they're going through such a mess. Between this and Mitch (the hurricane), they've had a tough decade. I'm honestly not sure that this is something that the US SHOULD get involved in, though. I guess it's one of those situations where we're &^$%*&$ if we do, and (^%*&*#^@ if we don't. (Don't try to figure out what those words are. I just hit random keys with the shift key held down)

MRKH
Mark Hansen
http://markhansenmusic.com