Honduran president Manuel Zelaya is ousted by a local military coup following a failed request to hold a referendum to rewrite the Honduran Constitution. This was the start of the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis.
The 2009 Honduran coup d'tat, part of the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis, occurred when the Honduran Army on 28 June 2009 followed orders from the Honduran Supreme Court to oust President Manuel Zelaya and send him into exile. Zelaya had attempted to schedule a non-binding poll on holding a referendum on convening a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution. Zelaya refused to comply with court orders to cease, and the Honduran Supreme Court issued a secret warrant for his arrest dated 26 June. Two days later, Honduran soldiers stormed the president's house in the middle of the night and detained him, forestalling the poll. Instead of bringing him to trial, the army put him on a military aeroplane and flew him to Costa Rica. Later that day, after the reading of a resignation letter of disputed authenticity, the Honduran Congress voted to remove Zelaya from office, and appointed Speaker of Congress Roberto Micheletti, his constitutional successor, to replace him. It was the first coup to occur in the country since 1978.
International reaction to the 2009 Honduran coup d'tat was widespread; the United Nations, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the European Union condemned the removal of Zelaya as a military coup. On 5 July 2009, all member states of the OAS voted by acclamation to suspend Honduras from the organization.
In July 2011, Honduras's Truth Commission concluded that Zelaya broke the law when he disregarded a Supreme Court ruling ordering him to cancel the referendum, but that his removal from office was also illegal and a coup. The Commission found Congress' designation of Roberto Micheletti as interim president had been unconstitutional, and the resulting administration a "de facto regime." Former Guatemalan Vice-President Eduardo Stein chaired the commission and presented its report to the then Honduran President Porfirio Lobo, the head of the Supreme Court, Jorge Rivera Avilez and the Secretary General of the Organization of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza. In November 2021, more than a decade after the coup removed Zelaya from office, Zelaya's wife, as well as former Honduran First Lady, Xiomara Castro de Zelaya would be elected as the first female President of Honduras.
Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, and to the north by the Gulf of Honduras, a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea. Its capital and largest city is Tegucigalpa.
Honduras was home to several important Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya, before the Spanish Colonization in the sixteenth century. The Spanish introduced Catholicism and the now predominant Spanish language, along with numerous customs that have blended with the indigenous culture. Honduras became independent in 1821 and has since been a republic, although it has consistently endured much social strife and political instability, and remains one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. In 1960, the northern part of what was the Mosquito Coast was transferred from Nicaragua to Honduras by the International Court of Justice.The nation's economy is primarily agricultural, making it especially vulnerable to natural disasters such as Hurricane Mitch in 1998. The lower class is primarily agriculturally based while wealth is concentrated in the country's urban centers. Honduras has a Human Development Index of 0.625, classifying it as a nation with medium development. When adjusted for income inequality, its Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index is 0.443.Honduran society is predominantly Mestizo; however, American Indian, black and white individuals also live in Honduras (2017). The nation had a relatively high political stability until its 2009 coup and again with the 2017 presidential election.Honduras spans about 112,492 km2 (43,433 sq mi) and has a population exceeding 9 million. Its northern portions are part of the western Caribbean zone, as reflected in the area's demographics and culture. Honduras is known for its rich natural resources, including minerals, coffee, tropical fruit, and sugar cane, as well as for its growing textiles industry, which serves the international market.