Witty Ivor (sneaking past my comment box defences without leaving an email address) piles on the pressure:

This is splendidly comical.  On one side, the United Nations, the OAS, the United States government and, apparently, most informed opinion worldwide. Lined up against them, someone who spent 12 months as Honduran Minister of Culture – a political big-hitter, quite clearly – and your good self. It promises to be quite a battle of ideas!

If we are entering a "post-democratic age" (tremendous stuff – a counsel of impotence and despair reduced to one glib soundbite), perhaps we will nevertheless be better served by "post-democratic" elected politicians promoting self-interested constitutional change, rather than "post-democratic" Third World generals mounting coups. Just a thought.

But Francisco who has a Honduran wife and (unlike I suspect Ivor and I) knows something about the subject, replies:

My wife is from Honduras.  Her family and the majority of other Hondurans are totally in support of the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court requesting that the military remove the president who was in direct defiance of the Honduran Constitution.  Not a military acting independently.  This is not a coup. 

This is a democratic country acting in defense of its democratic government.  The bad guy here is Zelaya who was thumbing his nose at the Honduran Constitution and its people.  Its sad to see that an American President is ok with that.  I wonder why?

Battle is joined.

The modest point I am trying to make (but not managing to get across to Ivor at least) is that a weighty body of Honduran opinion and the Honduras top court agree that the ‘former’ President was acting illegally/unconstitutionally.

This at the least qualifies the bland claim that his ouster is ‘illegal’.

The Honduras constitution appears to have been drafted precisely to stop this sort of situation arising, by deterring those in office from manoeuvring to carry on doing so beyond the constitutionally allotted time as has happened ruinously elsewhere.

I can well agree that the way the President was bundled out of office was not ideal. But if the Honduran political and legal establishment think that (a) the President is acting illegally, and (b) that he is planning to abuse his power to thwart all normal legal measures to respond to that alleged illegality, what else should they do? 

Wait until he is able to rig an election to get his way when it will be too late?

In other words, constitutional change has to be proposed constitutionally. If not it’s just a sly coup wearing different trousers. 

The big point here is that so many of the countries which have voted at the UN for Mr Zelaya howl like banshees against ‘interference’ when anyone dares criticise their own wretched human rights records.

And see eg the African Union now digging in its heels over the Sudanese President’s ICC indictment. So much for ‘legality’ there. Do I hear the thud of footsteps down UN corridors as Ambassadors rush to condemn this studied African slap in the face for the UN and international rule of law? Nope.

As far as I can tell, Honduras under this current constitution has made a significant effort to move towards substantive constitutionality, ie the regular turnover of its leaders by democratic means and the national stability/consensus that brings. 

No wonder it now has so many vociferous international critics.