Word: overthrows
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...Administration also sent a significant mixed signal. It didn't use the m-word: Military. Its lawyers have determined that while Zelaya's overthrow was a coup d'etat, it was not technically a military coup. The main reason: even though soldiers threw Zelaya out of the country at gunpoint, in his pajamas, he was not replaced with a military leader. Instead, Micheletti, a civilian who headed Honduras' Congress, was made President. Other "complicating factors," as the U.S. calls them, include lingering questions about which Honduran institution - Congress, the Supreme Court or the Army - actually ordered Zelaya's removal after...
...legal semantics matter. If the State Department labels a coup "military" - the most brutal and anti-democratic kind of overthrow - it automatically triggers a suspension of all non-humanitarian and non-democracy-related U.S. aid. In the case of Honduras, State Department officials insist that those measures have already been taken without the military-coup tag. But critics, who fear Obama is keeping the Honduras coup designation downgraded to mollify conservative Republicans, argue that further steps, like freezing Honduran bank accounts in the U.S., are still available to the Administration. (Read about President Obama's challenge in Latin America...
...Obama Administration has political reasons for eschewing the m-word. The most important is that calling an overthrow a military coup requires certification by Congress - where Obama and Clinton foresee a fight they'd rather avoid. Conservative Republicans are angry at Obama's support of Zelaya, who they insist was trying to remove presidential term limits in Honduras and usher in a socialist government like that of his oil-rich left-wing ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. As a result, they're blocking a number of the White House's State Department appointees, including Arturo Valenzuela, Obama's pick...
...politicians and the public have also distorted People Power, using its catalyzing effect not to overthrow dictators but to dissolve democracies. A second EDSA uprising in 2001 against elected President Joseph Estrada cheapened the impact of its noble forerunner. Similarly in Thailand three years ago, an elected - if divisive - Prime Minister was forced out by massive street rallies that culminated in a military coup. In a perverse reworking of history, the Thai putsch's supporters dubbed it a victory for People Power. Later, in a bid to reclaim the leadership their side lost in another set of elections...
...radical Boko Haram sect, was shot while in police custody on July 30, as security forces moved to squash a five-day uprising by the militant Islamic group. Boko Haram members attacked police stations, churches, schools and private homes, killing nearly 800 people in an effort to overthrow the government and impose a stricter version of Islamic law in Africa's most populous nation. Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua, seeking to maintain control of an increasingly volatile situation, ordered an investigation into Yusuf's death, which authorities claim occurred during an attempted escape. Human-rights groups say the leader...