By Jerry Brewer
When former President José Manuel Zelaya of Honduras was removed from office on June 28, 2009, by approximately one hundred Honduran soldiers, a majority of the government, including the Supreme Court and prominent members of his own party, deemed it necessary. President Zelaya, strongly supported by Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chávez, planned to conduct a national poll, a referendum, regarding the possibility of changing the Honduran Constitution. That action capped months of tensions over Mr. Zelaya's efforts to lift presidential term limits, insofar as Honduran officials viewed such plans as unconstitutional. Honduras' Supreme Court issued a statement saying that the military had acted to defend the law against "those who had publicly spoken out and acted against the Constitution's provisions".