Honduran "Coup": Evidence Suggests Zelaya Planned to Steal Referendum

According to Europa Press, a Spanish newspaper, an investigation of former President Manuel Zelaya’s Presidential Palace found several computers that shed new light on the ongoing crisis in Honduras. Apparently, the data on the computers suggest that Zelaya had already planned out the fraudulent results of the referendum that was scheduled for the day he was removed from office.

According to a translation by Alberto de la Cruz of Babalu Blog:

The National Directors of Criminal Investigation seized various computers from the Presidential Palace that had recorded the supposed results of the referendum to reform the constitution that the deposed leader, Manuel Zelaya, was planning to conduct on June 28, the day he was removed from office.

The official investigation now deals with the possible crime of fraud and falsification of documents due to the fact that some of the certified voting results had been filled with the personal information of individuals that supposedly participated in the failed referendum that did not take place because of the coup.”

Zelaya had hoped that this vote would give him the legitimacy to run for a second term, something that is prohibited by the Honduran constitution. Due to his insistence that the referendum be held, the Supreme Court of Honduras issued a warrant for his detainment, which the army executed by flying the President out of the country. It seems, then, that the suspicions of Congress and the Supreme Court have now been confirmed. Had Zelaya been allowed to stay in office, he would have electronically stuffed ballot boxes and rigged the vote in his favor.

Why has this not been covered by media in the English-speaking world? My guess is that it would ruin the narrative that they have laid out – that of a democratically-elected leader forcefully deposed, valiantly fighting to return to his native land. Less surprising is that, despite these revelations, the Obama administration continues to call for Zelaya’s reinstatement as part of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias' mediation attempts.

This new information reaffirms what opponents of Zelaya had been claiming for quite some time. Hondurans are fortunate that their Congress and their Courts acted so decisively to prevent Zelaya from holding his crooked referendum. All Hondurans should celebrate the fact that they, at least for the time being, have diverged off the path towards a Chavez-style autocracy.