THE START OF A CRISIS On 28 June, 2009, Honduran troops took
President Manuel Zelaya into custody and exiled him to Costa
Rica. They were carrying out a warrant from the Honduran Supreme
Court in the wake of Zelaya’s repeated defiance of that court’s
orders prohibiting referendums to rewrite the constitution to
extend Zelaya’s term in office. The Honduran Congress later
affirmed the military’s action, voting Zelaya out of office and
appointing Roberto Micheletti, the Speaker of Congress, as
interim president. In an interview with SOF, Lt. Col. Ralph
Peters, USA (Ret.), a New York Post columnist and Fox News
strategic analyst, said, “[T]hey gave a legal order to the army
to remove the president; he was removed without violence and
sent out of the country. The army went back to its barracks.
That is NOT a coup.” Those points were lost on the rest of the
world. International reaction to Zelaya’s removal from power was
decidedly negative. The United States, European Union, and
Organization of American States all