Word: chavezes
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Those who back Zelaya's restoration, 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...
Zelaya says he got no help from Chavez and, contrary to Chavez's statements this week that he advised Zelaya to take refuge with the Brazilians, tells TIME the Venezuelan President did not know he was headed to that embassy. "No one knew," says Zelaya. "I'm a great friend of [Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva], who has given me a lot of support, so going there was a sensible thing...
Zelaya also hints that he came to Tegucigalpa in part because he and his leftist allies in the region, including Chavez, felt the U.S. has been too tepid in trying to leverage Micheletti. (The Obama Administration has cut off some $30 million in aid to Honduras as well as visas, and has threatened not to recognize the presidential election results if Zelaya is not returned to office by then.) "President Obama and Secretary of State [Hillary] Clinton have made a great effort, and I realize they live in a democracy with limits on their actions," he says...
...coup, says Zelaya was booted out because he defied a Supreme Court order not to hold a non-binding referendum on whether to convene a special assembly to reform Honduras' Constitution. The move, say Zelaya foes, was a veiled attempt to eliminate presidential term limits and usher in Chavez-style socialism. But Zelaya, while arguing the Constitution needs to be modernized to better help the 70% of the population who live in poverty, says the referendum "was an opinion poll, and it never once mentioned extending presidential term limits...
...says.) But, like the rest of the hemisphere, he asks, "Even if I did, why wasn't I charged and tried in court instead of removed before dawn by the threat of soldiers' bullets and flown away? The army chiefs say it was because I was a communist, that Chavez and Fidel Castro were coming to take over the country. But in fact I was pursuing social policies, like raising the minimum wage, that our economic elite found threatening...