In the early hours of June 28, 2009, infantrymen arrested Honduran President Manuel Zelaya at his home in Tegucigalpa. Dressed in his nightgown, Zelaya took him at gunpoint to the airport, where he boarded a plane bound for Costa Rica. of confrontation between Zelaya and almost all other political actors and establishments in Honduras, from the Supreme Court to the country’s highest devout authority and the president’s liberal party.
Zelaya’s ouster became the subject of heated controversy and gave way to a complex political war with hemispheric implications. The episode drew attention to issues related to the geopolitical disputes plaguing Latin America, the continued influence of the United States in the region, the validity of the Obama administration’s technique for its southern neighbors, the effectiveness of the Organization of American States (OAS) as guarantor of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, the limits of the foreign community’s ability to oppose a perceived democratic collapse. and the roots of populist authoritarianism in the region. . . .