The State Dept. insists that the Honduran military's removal of Zelaya from office on June 28 was a coup d'etat, and therefore illegal. We're insisting that he be allowed to return to the country and the presidency. But there's a pretty strong case to be made that the Honduran government was actually upholding their constitution and that the one in the wrong here is Zelaya.
He was removed from office the day before the holding of a referendum that he ordered to amend the constitution to let him serve a second term in office. The problem is that the Honduran constitution pretty clearly spells out that the one-term limit on the presidency can't be amended and that anyone trying to do so must be removed from office immediately. Honduras' legislature told Zelaya not to hold the referendum, so did their supreme court, but Zelaya was going ahead with it anyway. So in the end, the military stepped in, removed Zelaya from office and deposited him in neighboring Costa Rica apparently to stop a major violation of Honduran constitutional law.
Maybe it's just because we're not use to militaries removing presidents to uphold their constitutions, but the US has been solidly behind Zelaya since June. This whole problem could resolve itself in November when Honduras holds its scheduled presidential election (since Zelaya legally couldn't run for reelection he'd be out of office anyway), but now, according to the LA Times, the State Dept. is making noise about not recognizing the winner of that election as Honduras' new president either. Zelaya has some pretty powerful friends in Washington.
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