The 2009 Honduran coup d'état occurred during the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis. It was triggered after President Manuel Zelaya refused to comply with a Honduran Supreme Court ruling. On 28 June 2009, the Honduran Army ousted Zelaya and sent him into exile.
Zelaya had sought to schedule a non-binding poll on convening a constituent assembly to write a new constitution (the fourth ballot box referendum). After he defied court orders to cease, the Supreme Court issued a secret arrest warrant on 26 June. Two days later, soldiers stormed the presidential residence, detained Zelaya, and halted the poll. Rather than putting him on trial, the army flew him to Costa Rica. Later that day, after presenting a resignation letter of disputed authenticity, the Honduran Congress voted to remove Zelaya from office and appointed congressional head Roberto Micheletti, the constitutional successor, to complete his term. This was the first coup in Honduras since 1978.
The international reaction was widespread. The United Nations, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the European Union condemned Zelaya's removal as a military coup. On 5 July 2009, the OAS voted unanimously to suspend Honduras.
In July 2011, the Honduran Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that while Zelaya had broken the law by defying the Supreme Court, his removal was also illegal and constituted a coup. The commission found Congress's appointment of Micheletti unconstitutional, labeling his administration a "de facto regime." Chaired by former Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein, the commission presented its report to then-President Porfirio Lobo Sosa, Supreme Court head Jorge Rivera Avilez, and OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza.
In November 2021, over a decade after the coup, Zelaya's wife, former First Lady Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, was elected as Honduras's first female president.
Background
President Zelaya was promoting a controversial nonbinding poll on whether to include a referendum in the form of a fourth ballot box in the November elections on convening a constitutional convention to write a new constitution to give future Presidents the option of more terms in office. He had ignored a restraining order in this regard. Some claim his goal in doing so was to extend his term. But as the scheduled balloting would have been simultaneous with the election of his successor, his term would have ended long before any possible constitutional changes.
Executive decrees and their legal consequences
The ballot was scheduled for June 28, 2009. On May 27, 2009, the Administrative Litigation Court annulled the Executive decree PCM-05-2009 that enabled the ballot. In response the Executive accepted the ruling, but issued decree PCM-019-2009, identical to the previous decree, but substituting "consultation" with "public opinion survey". On May 30, the same Court clarified that the scope of the previous ruling covered any decree that attempted to conduct the proposed ballot - howsoever worded or published. This clarification annulled PCM-019-2009 as well.
Zelaya then issued a new executive decree PCM-020-2009 (La Gaceta article number 31945) to replace decrees PCM-05-2009 and PCM-019-2009. The new decree called for a "Public Opinion Survey Convening a Constitutional Assembly" and referred to it as "an official activity of the Government of the Republic of Honduras".
According to a legal analysis by former Supreme Court President Vilma Morales, Zelaya automatically ceased being President of Honduras with the publication of decree PCM-020-2009 and thus no coup d'état existed. However, PCM-027-2009 was never processed by the Honduran courts. This new decree, published in La Gaceta on 26 June 2009, further explained the purpose, form, and objectives of the opinion poll to be carried out by the National Institute of Statistics. Despite this, the courts had already made up their minds about any attempts related to this issue. Zelaya's lawyers were also denied the possibility to participate in the process. PCM-027-2009 was sheltered in article 5 of the "Law of Citizen Participation" and articles 2 and 5 of the Honduran Constitution. Zelaya defined his actions as a non-binding opinion poll, but his political opponents portrayed his actions as a binding referendum aimed at reforming articles in the Honduran Constitution regarding forms of government and re-election.
Attorney General's office acts
On 27 May 2009, the Administrative Law Tribunal issued an injunction against holding the referendum at the request of the Honduran Attorney General Luis Alberto Rubi. On 16 June, the Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the 27 May injunction. On 18 June, the Administrative Law Tribunal ordered Zelaya to comply with the ruling. The Attorney General's office filed charges against Zelaya on 25 June.
Supreme Court issues arrest and search warrants
On 26 June, the Honduran Supreme Court unanimously found that the Presidency had not complied with 16 June court order. It also found he was answerable to charges for crimes against the form of government, treason to the motherland, abuse of office and usurpation of functions that damaged the administration. It appointed Supreme Court Justice Tomás Arita Valle to try the case.
On 26 June, the Supreme Court issued a sealed (secret) arrest warrant for President Zelaya, signed by Justice Tomás Arita Valle. The interim government confirmed that the Supreme Court of Justice unanimously voted to appoint Tomás Arita Valle to hear the process in its preparatory and intermediate phases; and that he lawfully issued an arrest and raid warrant. The government also states that an investigation was conducted under the auspices of the Honduran Supreme Court that lasted for weeks.
Some Zelaya supporters have sought to cast doubt on the Supreme Court's documentation. Jari Dixon Herrera Hernández, a lawyer with the Attorney General's office, said the order to arrest Zelaya came a day after the coup.
Zelaya's detention and exile
Soldiers stormed the president's residence in Tegucigalpa early in the morning of 28 June, disarming the presidential guard, waking Zelaya and putting him on a plane to Costa Rica. Colonel Bayardo said, "It was a fast operation. It was over in minutes, and there were no injuries, no deaths. We said, 'Sir, we have a judicial order to detain you.' " In Costa Rica, Zelaya told the Latin American channel TeleSUR that he had been awakened by gunshots. Masked soldiers took his cell phone, shoved him into a van and took him to an air force base, where he was put on a plane. He said he did not know that he was being taken to Costa Rica until he landed at the airport in San José.
Within hours, Zelaya spoke to media in San José, calling the events "a coup" and "a kidnapping". He said that soldiers pulled him from his bed and assaulted his guards. Zelaya stated that he would not recognise anyone named as his successor, that he would be meeting with diplomats and that he wanted to finish his term in office.
Television and radio stations broadcast no news. The electrical power, phone lines, and international cable TV were cut or blocked throughout Honduras.
Public transportation was suspended.
Later that day, the Supreme Court issued a statement that it had ordered the army to remove Zelaya from office. The Supreme Court stated "The armed forces, in charge of supporting the constitution, acted to defend the state of law and have been forced to apply legal dispositions against those who have expressed themselves publicly and acted against the dispositions of the basic law". On 30 June, the military's chief lawyer, Colonel Herberth Bayardo Inestroza Membreño, showed a detention order, signed 26 June by a Supreme Court judge, which ordered the armed forces to detain the president, identified by his full name of José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, at his home in the Tres Caminos area of the capital. It cited him for treason and abuse of authority, among other charges. Colonel Inestroza later stated that deporting Zelaya did not comply with the court order: "In the moment that we took him out of the country, in the way that he was taken out, there is a crime. Because of the circumstances of the moment this crime occurred, there is going to be a justification and cause for acquittal that will protect us." He said the decision was taken by the military leadership "in order to avoid bloodshed". He said "What was more beneficial, remove this gentleman from Honduras or present him to prosecutors and have a mob assault and burn and destroy and for us to have to shoot?" Colonel Inestroza also commented that Zelaya's allegiance to Hugo Chávez was hard to stomach and "It would be difficult for us, with our training, to have a relationship with a leftist government. That's impossible. I personally would have retired, because my thinking, my principles, would not have allowed me to participate in that."
Ramón Custodio, head of the country's human rights commission, said that the military made an "error" in sending Zelaya into exile rather than holding him for trial. "I didn't know they would take Zelaya out of the country," Custodio said in an interview in the week of 13 August at his Tegucigalpa office. Honduras's Supreme Court agreed to hear a case brought by a group of lawyers and judges arguing that the military broke the law taking Zelaya out of the country. On 17 August 2009, President Micheletti also said that putting Zelaya on a plane to Costa Rica instead of holding him for trial had been a mistake: "It wasn't correct. We have to punish whoever allowed that to happen. The rest was framed within what the constitution requires."
Congress removes Zelaya from office
The National Congress the following morning voted to accept Zelaya's resignation letter, dated 25 June, which Zelaya had denied signing. It studied a special report on Zelaya, and by a show of hands, the National Congress – the majority of whom belonged to Zelaya's own Liberal party – appointed the President of the National Congress Roberto Micheletti, a member of Zelaya's party, to succeed Zelaya. Some felt that the president had changed his politics during his administration, from right to left, which earned him the antipathy of his party.
The Honduran National Congress unanimously agreed to:
- Under the Articles 1, 2,3,4, 205, 220, subsections 20, 218, 242, 321, 322, 323 of the Constitution of the Republic,
- Disapprove Zelaya's repeated violations of the constitution, laws and court orders.
- Remove Zelaya from office.
- Name the current President of Congress Roberto Micheletti to complete the constitutional period that ends on 27 January 2010.
Legality of ouster
Many governments, media, and human-rights organisations outside Honduras have termed the ouster a coup. The United Nations, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the European Union condemned the removal of Zelaya as a military coup. On 5 July 2009, the Organization of American States OAS, invoking for the first time Article 21 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, voted by acclamation of all member states to suspend Honduras from the organisation.
Soon after the coup, U.S. President Barack Obama stated: "We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there." He stated: "It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition, rather than democratic elections." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, however, equivocated, saying that "We do think that this has evolved into a coup" and noting that under U.S. law, officially declaring a coup would oblige the U.S. to cut off most foreign aid to Honduras." Cutting off aid was seen as a possibility in the days after the coup, and State Department Director of Policy Planning Anne-Marie Slaughter urged Clinton to "take bold action" and to "find that [the] coup was a 'military coup' under U.S. law." Clinton did not do so, and the U.S. never formally declared that a coup had occurred. In September, Clinton was "pushing hard" for Zelaya to be restored to power. By November, the U.S. "focused on pushing for elections" in the country. In September 2009, the Board of the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation, headed by Clinton, cut off $11 million in aid to the Honduran government in the wake of the coup, and suspended another $4 million in planned contributions to a road project. From 2009 to mid-2016, however, the U.S. provided about $200 million in military and police aid to Honduras, a controversial decision given the violence in Honduras and the government's human rights violations.
Arguments that Zelaya's removal was illegal have been advanced by several lawyers. The Supreme Court never ruled on any of the charges filed by the public prosecutor on 26 June. The arrest warrant was issued for the purposes of taking a deposition from him. According to Edmundo Orellana, the events were constitutionally irregular for several reasons: because Zelaya was captured by the armed forces, not the national police (Art. 273, 292); and because the Congress, not the courts, judged Zelaya to have broken the law (Arts. 303 and 304). Orellana concluded, "Violations of the Constitution cannot be put right with another violation. The Constitution is defended by subjecting oneself to it. Their violation translates into disregard for the State of Law and infringes on the very essence of the Law. Therefore, a coup d'Etat never has been and should never be the solution to a political conflict." Other civic and business leaders, even those opposed to Zelaya's referendum efforts, agreed that Zelaya was deprived of due process in his ouster.