Honduras has undergone a military coup, with left-leaning president Manuel Zelaya being sent into exile by the Army after proposing a referendum on a constitutional change that would have let him run for a third second term in office. This is the first successful Latin American military coup since the end of the Cold War (though Honduras has a large English-speaking native minority, so "Latin American" may not be the right word here). Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, a close ally, has warned that any moves on the Venezuelan embassy will be treated as an act of war.
We honeymooned on Roatan, one of Honduras' Bay Islands, and it was not without its political problems. Indeed, martial law was briefly declared on Roatan during our two week stay, after a series of blockades and sabotage in protest of massive rate-hikes from the newly privatized power company. Zelaya's personal handling of that problem was less than perfect. But as developing nations' governments go, Honduras had a pretty stable, relatively non-corrupt government and administration. Certainly, a military coup is less democratic than a leader seeking a mandate to try for a constitutional reform.
U.S. President Barack Obama and the European Union expressed deep concern after troops came for Zelaya, an ally of socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, around dawn and took him away from his residence. He was whisked away to Costa Rica.
Zelaya, who took office in 2006 and is limited by the constitution to a four-year term that ends in early 2010, had angered the army, courts and Congress by pushing for an unofficial public vote on Sunday to gauge support for his plan to hold a November referendum on allowing presidential re-election.
Army overthrows Honduras president
Update: Xeni adds, "Regarding the notion that Honduras isn't all that corrupt — I have some experience with the country, not in resort areas but in the poor/average areas, and it's bad. Wealth highly inequally distributed, but more importantly to the point of your statement, there is extreme and widespread corruption. So much so that Honduras placed WORSE than both Nigeria and Rwanda in transparency.org's list of corruption by country. They're worse than Nigeria and Rwanda. That's terrible. "
