My family and spent a great week on the small island of Roatan Honduras this month. We enjoyed the beautiful grounds and atmosphere of the Bay Island Beach Resort and dived till our hearts content. I usually post an area report of our trips for those of you who may be considering purchasing a vacation home. I do love to travel and have been to many places that would be considered desirable vacation home areas and I hope my experience can be found useful to my clients.

Shortly after our return, however, I heard that Honduras experienced a military coup. I did some research and had a difficult time finding reliable information on the situation. I emailed the owner of the resort for his insights and the following is his response.

 Hi Susan,

I’m glad you guys had a good time. We enjoyed having you. It was a good week.

The news organizations are not accurately reporting the situation in Honduras, instead using dramatic headlines announcing a military takeover.

They are saying there was a coup d’etat in which the military deposed President Mel Zelaya and took charge of the government, suggesting a military dictatorship. This is not so.

In fact, 100% of the Honduran National Congress and the Honduran Supreme Court declared that the President had violated, and was continuing to violate, the laws of the country. His own liberal party opposed him, the Congress opposed him, the military opposed him, and probably 80 – 90% of the population opposed him. The government and the military are in concert. They are not, and were not, adversaries.

Zelaya supposedly signed a letter of resignation, perhaps under duress, which was accepted by congress. He was removed from the country by the military, but the military did not, and has not, taken control of the country.

The Vice President had resigned last year because he is running for President, and under Honduran law, prohibits a candidate running for public office to also serve in a national office. So the next in the line of succession is the President of the National Congress, Roberto Micheletti, who was sworn in as Provisional President until the election in November.

This was not a coup like those of the past in Latin America ; it was essentially an impeachment process.

Some of the things that Zelaya wanted to do were blatantly illegal and unpopular. He was trying to change the provision of the constitution to allow him to run again, which is expressly prohibited and which provision may not be amended.

There is widespread joy by the Honduran people at his removal, who were becoming increasingly concerned over Zelaya’s socialist / communist leanings and his close alliances with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela , Evo Morales of Bolivia, and the Castros of Cuba and the other ALBA countries.       What is ALBA?

In an abundance of caution, the Tegucigalpa government imposed a 2 day night time curfew which expires tomorrow morning. There have been isolated protests in some of the major cities, mainly Tegucigalpa , where a few remaining supporters are burning tires in the streets.
We expect Hugo Chavez and the Presidents of the ALBA countries, at their meeting today in Managua , to rattle their sabers and make threats to restore Zelaya to power, but we do not think the Honduran people will permit that to happen.

The political situation is better now than it was last week. The only way it could get worse, in my opinion, is if the pressure of the world leaders get him restored to power!

On Roatan, it’s life as usual. Had we not been watching the news, we would have no indication that anything had happened. At Bay Islands Beach Resort, our guests are enjoying their vacations and diving, as usual. Airlines have been flying their regular schedules.

Keep life interesting.

With best regards to everyone,

Ted O’Brien 

Tomorrow, I will post another letter from a different resident of Honduras