On June 28, Manuel Zelaya, president of Honduras, was ousted in a militarily backed coup d’état.

Since then, he has worked to regain his position. Subsequent to the coup, the international community refused to recognize Zelaya’s successor, Roberto Micheletti, as the legal president of Honduras.

The impetus for the coup was the alleged fear that Zelaya was attempting to lengthen his term in office by sponsoring a non-binding poll to determine whether or not to convene a constitutional convention in order to rewrite the constitution. However, this poll would have occurred simultaneously with the normal scheduled election to determine Zelaya’s successor.

As international pressure still continues to press for the Honduran government to reinstate Zelaya as president, the regularly scheduled elections are now to still take place. The candidates were selected more than a year ago and Zelaya’s term is scheduled to end Jan. 27.

The United States, Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, Peru and Colombia, among others, all accept the legitimacy of the coming elections.

However, Brazil and Argentina still vociferously claim if such elections occur without first restoring Zelaya, they will legitimize the coup and in fact set a dangerous precedent against the constitutional rule of law.

Americans may ask, “So what? Why should the constitutional crises of a small nation in Central America matter to us?”

I feel as though this is the majority opinion, seeing as how little attention has been paid to the situation in Honduras in the media. But I caution Americans against such ambivalence, since America’s track record of coup and other violent overthrows of Central American governments has often not boded well for America or Central America.

The U.S.-backed Somoza regime in Nicaragua, which had been supported by the U.S. since 1936, was overthrown in 1979 by the Sandinista National Liberation Front. The Sandinistas established a revolutionary government along Marxist lines. The CIA formed an organization called the “Contras” in order to oppose the Sandinistas; in fact, the Contras consisted of death squads who specifically targeted civilian populations.

Even after the Sandinistas won in the 1984 elections, considered free and fair by international observers, the CIA continued to back the Contras. Eventually, confronted with so many domestic problems and continued U.S.-backed opposition, the Sandinistas lost the 1990 elections.

The case in Nicaragua is only one of many examples of the U.S. opposing Central American governments nominally because of Cold War interests, which I do not think justifies such actions.

The Sandinista-Contra conflict in Nicaragua cost thousands of lives, and in my opinion was highly illegal, owing to the fact that the Sandinistas were elected legally.

Now America has the option of continuing to support Honduras’ Zelaya or the perpetrators of the coup. I see only one viable option: The U.S.

must take a stand for the rule of law and continue to insist that Zelaya be restored to the presidency, even if only for a few months now.

Reach Max at mfeldhak@asu.edu.