Word: caudillo
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...constitutional reform that could have lifted Honduras' ban on presidential re-election. And he claims he's protecting Honduras from the sway of Zelaya's left-wing ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. But critics say Micheletti is acting a lot like just the kind of authoritarian caudillo he accuses Chávez of being. Micheletti recently fired back at visiting OAS delegates that they and his other critics "don't know the whole truth, and at times it appears that you don't want to hear it." Neither Micheletti nor his spokespeople have answered queries from TIME...
...including the Obama Administration and every other world government, argue that condoning a military coup would simply set Latin America's democratic clock back to the dictator-infested 20th century. Zelaya's opponents equate his leftist politics with those of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez - whom they call a socialist caudillo - and they point to Chavez's declaration this week that he helped Zelaya get to Tegucigalpa as proof that Zelaya is the Venezuelan's puppet...
...Latin Americans have made in electing their Presidents, they often fall back on old habits when removing them - whether it's oligarchies bidding soldiers do the job in Central America or populists galvanizing street mobs in the Andes. Allowing the Honduran putsch to prevail won't exactly strengthen a caudillo-prone continent's democracies...
...appear to have become unhinged. Technically - before Sunday, anyway - Honduras' Justices and generals could claim they held the legal high ground: Zelaya was, after all, blatantly defying a high-court ruling, as well as his legislature and attorney general. He was, they could argue, behaving like the populist caudillo his opponents warned he wanted to be. But their violent Sunday-morning response has made them look like the Latin oligarch lackeys of old - and has in fact lent credence to Zelaya's suggestion that they were indeed just defending a constitution fashioned exclusively for the haves of Honduras...
...Tuesday's verdict, say human rights watchdogs, is a warning to authoritarian leaders everywhere that the age of impunity has passed. And when human rights records are scrutinized, water pumps and new streets are not the basis on which caudillo leaders will be judged...