Free Republic

After visiting Tegucigalpa last week and meeting with a cross section of leaders from Honduras's government, business community, and civil society, I can report there is no chaos there. There is, however, chaos to spare in the Obama administration's policy toward our poor and loyal allies in Honduras. In a day packed with meetings, we met only one person in Honduras who opposed Mr. Zelaya's ouster, who wishes his return, and who mystifyingly rejects the legitimacy of the November elections: U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens.

n Honduras the Obama administration seeks the restoration to power of a lawfully deposed Chavista thug. Among other things, in pursuit of this objective, the administration has cut off aid and yanked visas from Honduran officials who supported the thug Manuel Zelaya's removal. These officials (reportedly include) the fifteen justices of the Honduran Supreme Court and Jose Alfredo Saavedra, president of the Honduran Congress. According to (Mary Anastasia O'Grady:) "The lesson, presumably, is that judges in small foreign nations are required to accept America's interpretation of their own laws." O'Grady rightly observed: "The upshot is that the U.S. is trying...

In Billy Hoover's office today: U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens. My favorite Hugo Llorens quote: "One can't violate the Constitution in order to create another Constitution, because if one doesn't respect the Constitution, then we all live under the law of the jungle." Hugo Llorens, June 2009, in reference to President Manuel Zelaya's planned referendum on a proposed constitutional assembly. I guess we'll see if what Llorens thinks is good for the goose is equally good for the gander. Maybe he's there to give Billy Hoover a lesson on our Constitution. He could sure as hell use it.

"The last year and a half of the [President Manuel] Zelaya Administration will be, in my view, extraordinarily difficult for our bilateral relationship. His pursuit of immunity from the numerous activities of organized crime carried out in his administration will cause him to threaten the rule of law and institutional stability." —Charles Ford, U.S. ambassador to Honduras, May 15, 2008 Lots of hypotheses have been floated to explain why the Obama administration went to such extremes last year to try to force Honduras to reinstate deposed president Manuel Zelaya. Now the release of two WikiLeaked cables from the U.S. embassy...

Honduras signs a deal that means international recognition of the November 29 elections. If there is one person in Honduras who is more despised these days than deposed president Manuel Zelaya it is a foreigner who goes by the name of Hugo. We refer here not to the Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez but to U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens.