US Ambassador to Honduras meets Zelaya

This issue has gone completely off the press radar at least the anglophone press. Zelaya achieved absolutely nothing and the coup govt got absolutely everything they wanted. No word though about what the aid situation is. I expect the aid that was stopped has begun flowing from the US already. Many Latin American countries may not recognise the new elected president although we will see what happens. The US is no doubt happy except that it would like to do something to ensure that more countries recognise the new government. Of course countries such as Colombia , Panama and Costa Rica will do so. Costa Rica's recognition is sort of a bad joke since Micheletti snubbed and undercut Arias at every turn but then Arias no doubt is getting some goodies from the US for being such a nice guy! This is from presstv.

US Amb. meets Zelaya at Brazil embassy
Sun, 20 Dec 2009 14:05:00 GMT
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FWashington Ambassador to coup-hit Honduras Hugo Llorens has met with ousted leader Manuel Zelaya at the Brazilian Embassy in a bid to settle the political crisis in the Central American nation.

"Hugo Llorens came to the embassy and told Zelaya he would travel to the United States for Christmas. Steps to resolve the crisis will follow," AFP quoted Zelaya's advisor Rasel Tome as saying on Sunday.

"Efforts are ongoing at the Central American level and in the Dominican Republican for a dialogue in a neutral environment."

Zelaya, the constitutional president, was removed from power by his own army in a bloodless coup on June 28, and was subsequently sent into exile.

He secretly returned to his country in September and sought refuge at the Brazilian embassy in the capital Tegucigalpa.

Numerous rounds of talks failed to restore Zelaya to serve the remainder of his term and the nation went to polls to elect a new president on November 29, while coup leader Roberto Micheletti served as interim head of state.

Llorens had earlier praised the presidential election but had described it as 'not enough'.

"It is important to work looking ahead on the implementation of Tegucigalpa-San Jose Agreement, which it also makes a path, together with the elections, to solve this problem and bring the reconciliation of the Honduran people," Llorens told the press, Xinhua reported.

Initially Washington was in favor of Zelaya's reinstatement before the November vote. However, US support for the ousted leader cooled down with the White House insisting that Zelaya's restitution is an internal matter.

RB/MMN

US to fund Honduran election observers including mission of National Democratic Institute

Just one more skit in the farce that is the US brokered agreement to solve the Honduran crisis. Zelaya has already said that the agreement is dead and that even if the Congress does reinstate in a vote to be taken after the elections he will not accept the reinstatement. Micheletti and his supporters simply used the agreement as a means to stall implementing the agreement until after the elections. The US at one point at least said that it would recognise the elections whether Zelaya was reinstated or not. Very little coverage is given in the media of this tawdry episode in US diplomacy. It would seem that the US and Panama will be among the few countries to recognise the legitimacy of the elections. One would expect the International Republican Institute to go along with this but it seems the issue is bi-partisan and all the feigned opposition to Micheletti is just that as far as Democrats are concerned. But what could one expect since Micheletti is represented in the US by a big PR firm associated with Hilary Clinton This is from the Huffington Post.

Robert NaimanPolicy Director of Just Foreign Policy

Will the National Democratic Institute Support the Coup in Honduras?



A statement put out by Senator Lugar's office this week contained a striking revelation: apparently, the State Department intends to fund election observer missions of the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute for the controversial November 29 Honduras election supervised by the coup regime. If the US sends election observers before President Zelaya is restored, it would prepare the ground for recognizing the coup regime and its election as legitimate, putting the U.S. at odds with the rest of the hemisphere. Funding election observers appears to be part of a strategy of legitimizing the June coup against President Zelaya.

Both the IRI and the NDI are funded by Congress through the National Endowment for Democracy.

The International Republican Institute is affiliated with the Republican Party and the National Democratic Institute is affiliated with the Democratic Party. The IRI has a sordid history of anti-democratic actions, like supporting the 2004 coup in Haiti.

The NDI, on the other hand, is at least nominally accountable to the Democratic Party, so its involvement in trying to legitimize elections under the coup regime is quite surprising. Democratic leaders in Congress, like Senator Kerry and Representative Berman, have strongly opposed the coup. Congressional Democrats have urged President Obama not to recognize elections under the coup regime.

President Rich Trumka of the AFL-CIO, which has good relations, to say the least, with many Congressional Democrats, has written that continued repression of trade unionists by the coup regime makes it impossible to hold free and fair elections. President Trumka called on the U.S. government to oppose national elections in Honduras unless President Zelaya is reinstated. Note that Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, an AFL-CIO affiliate, sits on the NDI board.

All this suggests that if Members of Congress and Democratic constituency groups would speak up, the National Democratic Institute, at least, could be prevented from participating in the legitimation of elections under the coup regime.


Follow Robert Naiman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/naiman

Honduras Coup
Honduras

The Honduran Coup and US involvement.

This article suggests that the U.S. was actually involved in planning the coup. I somehow doubt that. I expect that the US probably wanted Zelaya to be neutralised in some fashion or forced to abandon his leftist ways. However, the fact that the U.S. has so much influence in Honduras Cournoyer's view a certain degree of plausibility.
However it would seem that the U.S. would be happy enough if the coup agreed to the San Jose accords but so far has not been able to convince the coup leaders to sign on. After all, the coup operatives would all get amnesty and Zelaya would be a lame duck president. It would seem that the coup government is willing simply to stick to its own position and will simply wait out the period until a new president is elected. However, if they are still in power the legitimacy of the election may be an issue and also as this article points out the economy is suffering and a grass roots movement is still opposing the government even if Zelaya is not in Honduras.

Honduras Coup: A Template for Hemispheric Assault on Democracy By Felipe Stuart Cournoyer
8 August, 2009 — MRZine – Monthly Review

TThe people of Honduras have now suffered more than 40 days of military rule. The generals’ June 28 coup, crudely re-packaged in constitutional guise, ousted the country’s elected government and unleashed severe, targeted, and relentless repression.

The grassroots protests have matched the regime in endurance and outmatched it in political support within the country and internationally. Its scope and duration is unprecedented in Honduras history. Popular resistance is the main factor affecting the international forces attempting to shape the outcome of the governmental crisis. It weighs heavy on the minds of the coup’s authors and their international backers.

As Eva Golinger has convincingly documented, the United States took part in conceiving, planning, and staging the coup. (See www.chavezcode.com/.) The U.S. ambassador in Tegucigalpa, Hugo Llorens, coordinates a team of high-ranking U.S. and Honduran military officials, and creatures from the old Bush administration, using the Soto Cano (Palmerola) U.S. Air Force base.

But when the army assaulted President Zelaya’s house, machine guns blazing, kidnapped him, and dumped him — still in pajamas — in Costa Rica, this forged unprecedented unity in Latin America and the Caribbean against the coup regime, and enraged hundreds of thousands within the country.

Latin American unity

In the first days after the coup, it appeared that the whole world was coming out against the Honduran generals and their civilian front men. ALBA — the nine-nation Bolivarian alliance initiated by Venezuela and Cuba — took the initiative in uniting Latin American governments around a common stand. Nicaragua’s capital, Managua, became the temporary capital of Our America. Many Latin American presidents knew only too well that they could soon suffer Zelaya’s fate.

Argentina’s Cristina Fermandez devoted her entire speech to this theme at the OAS general assembly, which took a unanimous stand against the golpistas (coupsters). That was followed quickly by a UN General Assembly meeting, convened by its president Father Miguel d’Escoto (a veteran Nicaraguan Sandinista leader), which also passed a unanimous resolution repudiating the coup and recognizing Zelaya as the legitimate president of Honduras.

Faced with this reality, the U.S. government hastened to portray itself as a key opponent of the military take-over and a supporter of Zelaya’s return. It was politically urgent for the Obama regime, not only in Latin America but domestically, to disclaim involvement in the coup.

There has been much speculation that Obama may disagree with his government’s duplicitous policy on the coup. That can of course not be excluded. But what counts for the people of Honduras and their supporters is not Obama’s possible private opinions but his government’s actions. Its walk betrayed its pronouncements.

The U.S. has not acted to cut the legs out from under the coup regime. It could topple the coup through a five-minute phone call that included a few bottom-line dollar figures. Its words, as time has shown, were mainly those of deceit and of manipulation of different forces acting on the Honduran crisis.

Main Aims of the Coup

Washington staged the coup to promote a number of closely interacting aims:

•To strike a blow at the ALBA alliance, by taking out its assumed “weakest link”: the ALBA member government of Honduras, headed by Zelaya.
•To prepare for an assault on revolutionary Venezuela, prefaced through the announcement of new U.S. military bases that will convert Colombia into a gigantic aircraft carrier and platform for staging hostile operations against ALBA countries, with Ecuador and Bolivia also high up on the list.
•To “take back” Honduras and again use it as a platform to strike out against left-wing presidencies and mass movements in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, and to demoralize and discourage the grassroots support for those disobedient or defiant regimes.
•To test the waters for a revival of coup-making in Latin America and the Caribbean. And, to use Honduras as a laboratory for coup-making under present 21st-Century conditions. This involves attempting to re-inspire and regroup right-wing supporters in both political and military spheres across the hemisphere. It also took a measure of where the powerful Catholic Church would fall. A free Bible if you guess right.
•To probe South America’s “soft underbelly” — mainly Brazil and Chile — to see if they were amenable to a deal, or at least if their silence could be purchased. This involves an effort to drive a wedge between the ALBA Alliance and so-called centre-left regimes (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Chile).
Since then, a lot of water has gone down the Rio Coco (between Honduras and Nicaragua).

The coup regime threatened to become a millstone around Washington’s neck and hinder its renewed drive to find leverage and points of support, especially in South America. Hence Washington’s efforts for plausible denial with no qualms about letting the golpistas hang out to dry if necessary.

Events over the past months show some success for Washington, but mainly on the international level. Latin American unity, for example is now being sorely tested by the provocative decision to place U.S. military air and naval bases in Colombia. While both Brazil and Chile have reluctantly bowed down with the argument the issue is a “sovereign” decision for Colombia, others like Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Cuba have denounced the measure.

An Effective Resistance

Meanwhile, the Honduran resistance has had immense impact on the population, the regime, the national and regional economy, and international opinion. This outcome is horrifying to the local ruling class and to Washington.

The Honduran economy is in tatters. Estimates indicate that import-export activity is down by 60 per cent. Zelaya reported in a press conference in Mexico City that over 200 road barricades had been erected, most of them heavily repressed by the army in an attempt to keep produce moving. Public schools have not functioned since the coup because of teachers’ strikes and student boycotts. Health workers have maintained a long strike, and many other workplaces have been hit by shorter strikes and slowdowns.

The de facto government has been unable to meet payrolls, and profits of the ten ruling families are starting to dry up. Adidas, Nike, and GAP — flagships of the maquila sector — have urged the U.S. government to accelerate Zelaya’s return because its products are not being exported. They are suffering losses in the millions. The crisis is also hitting hard Nicaraguan and El Salvadoran import-export enterprises that depend on the northern Honduran port of Cortés for commerce with the eastern and southern U.S. and with Europe.




Yet despite stiff resistance and surprises on the international front, de facto President Roberto Micheletti’s “government” has not collapsed. Its main weapon, aside from Catholic Church sermons and virtual monopoly control over media, has been targeted killings and arrests of unarmed protesters, who take nothing into their actions but conviction, courage, and picket signs. Disappearances and torture are selectively carried out, the right to free circulation permanently violated, curfews often lengthened.

The regime has now moved to close down Globo Radio, the only station that has dared to oppose the coup, support Zelaya as the country’s legitimate president, and give the resistance a voice. It is still on the air as of August 6. Hundreds of supporters have surrounded it with defense guards. If the regime hangs on, it will likely also close down TV Cholusat Sur (Channel 36/34), which works hand-in-glove with Globo.

The Arias Plan

The plan of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias for surmounting the coup and restoring “stability” to Honduras is misnamed. It should be called the “Obama-Clinton-Lula Plan.” Santiago O’Donnell, regular journalist for the Argentine Pagina 12, wrote on July 26 that the Arias Plan was traced out in a Moscow meeting between Lula and Obama. “Lula wanted Zelaya to return but Obama didn’t want him to stay on, so they agreed in Moscow that Zelaya should return but remain [with any real power]” (see “Made in Washington”). The plan’s evident but unstated intent was to marginalize Zelaya from any real power and block any possible return to office in the future. And, above all, to debilitate the mass resistance movement. The two presidents met again at the G-8 summit in Italy.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chose Arias, whose skills in serving imperialism won him a Nobel Peace prize, to host talks between the Zelaya government (in exile) and the coup leaders. He “mediated” in San José between representatives of “both sides.” With the OAS pushed out of the picture, the talks moved away from the demand for the immediate and unconditional return of Zelaya to a framework of conditional and delayed return (and ipso facto, the conditioned and delayed retirement of the de facto regime!).

The talks began as a means to delay Zelaya’s return and to buy time for the coup regime, in the hope it could stabilize its rule within the country. Zelaya accepted the Plan as a basis for discussion. But talks soon collapsed, because the coup regime categorically rejected Zelaya’s return as President. A second attempt by Arias failed for the same reason.

Zelaya then turned away from the Arias exercise and began again to refocus on building the resistance and on diplomatic outreach. His government in exile operates mainly on the Honduran-Nicaraguan border (Ocotal) and at the Honduran embassy in Managua.

Impact of Resistance

Mass opposition resurged, inspired by Zelaya’s attempts to return via the Nicaraguan border, and by the effective work done by his wife (Xiamara Castro de Zelaya) within the country. This had its effect. Obama then came out with another more pointed reiteration of the U.S. stand that the coup regime had to accept Zelaya’s return through the San José-Arias path. Brazil and Mexico backed this stance, as did OAS General Secretary Insulza.

The coup regime has continued to defy this course. On the heels of Obama’s statement, José Miguel Insulza, Oscar Arias, and Spanish vice-president Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega proposed sending an OAS ministerial-level delegation to Honduras to try to convince the military regime to accept Zelaya’s return, and perhaps try to extract more teeth from Zelaya. Coup leader Micheletti says he would accept such a delegation only if no ministers from ALBA countries are included. The mission will arrive on Aug 11. It is made up of foreign ministers of Argentina, Mexico, Canada, Costa Rica, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic, accompanied by José Miguel Insulza of the OAS

Meanwhile, Zelaya has agreed to major concessions. He has accepted the principle of a national unity government, whose main task would be to stabilize the country, get the economy moving again, restore services such as education and health, and organize the November national elections.

In essence, Zelaya’s team feels it has no choice but to accept returning as a debilitated and hand-tied regime with involvement of major figures of the coup. The authors of the Arias Plan hope this would leave the ruling class and the army with significant leverage to politically defeat the mass movement and the Zelaya current in the coming elections. That is not certain.

In a press conference in Mexico during his state visit this week, Zelaya sent a message to Washington and other hemispheric governments — either golpismo (coup making) by the extreme right will be contained, or Latin America’s left-wing guerrillas will be reborn. He again asserted the people’s right and possibility of insurrection under conditions of military dictatorship.

To the Grassroots




Anyone who leaves the mass movement out of their calculations may come up short. The resistance movement has emerged as a new force, much more sophisticated and powerful than before June 28. Greater unity between mestizo, indigenous, and Afro-Honduran peoples augurs well. Their international ties are more varied and stronger. Activists have been through a great school of class struggle of the most acute nature and brutal form.

The Zelaya current itself is not the same as it was before the coup. There is every possibility that the interim period, with or without Zelaya’s return, can be used to mature and consolidate this movement and to build its capacity to take on the ruling class in the electoral process and the ongoing battle of for the hearts and minds of the great majority of the nation. The next Day of Action is Aug 11, when feeder marches from all over Honduras will converge on the industrial center San Pedro Sula and the capital Tegucigalpa. Hondura’s National Resistance Front has appealed for simultaneous solidarity protests around the world on that day.

The outcome depends, above all, on the capacities of the grassroots to remain on guard and active in political struggle. Their activity will likely unfold under the twin banners of an election campaign and building support for convoking a Constituent Assembly.

Anti-imperialist fighters will do well to keep their focus on defending the mass movement and its leaders in Honduras and the goal of continental unity of Our America against imperial domination.

The Honduran coup of June 28 was an imperial dress rehearsal, a harsh school for the coup instigators and for all of Latin America. Above all, the coup is a school for the Honduran grassroots. Hondurans, no matter the short-term twists and turns among contending forces, will never be the same.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Felipe Stuart Cournoyer is a Canadian-born Nicaraguan citizen, who divides his time between the two countries. He is a member of the FSLN, and a contributing editor to Socialist Voice, published in Canada at www.socialistvoice.ca. He wishes to acknowledge news and analytical sources that inform this article, including Radio Globo (Honduras), Radio La Primerisima (Nicaragua), El19, Pagina 12 (Buenos Aires), La Jornada (Mexico, D.F.), Rebelion, Latin-American-Australian journalist Fred Fuentes (Green Left Weekly), Tortilla con Sal (Nicaragua), Via Campesina

Zelaya supporters plan new protests in Honduras

In spite of the fact there have been continual demonstrations and two protesters killed there seems almost no interest in the big media in the U.S. If the same had happened in Iran there would be constant reports and updates.
So far there seems no hope of a negotiated settlement as long as Micheletti refuses to allow Zelaya to return as president. The U.S. looks like a paper tiger or else behind the scenes is not all that unhappy that Zelaya does not return. However, if the U.S. is seen to be secretly supporting the coup this will sabotage any attempt of Obama to portray a new attitude towards Latin America. I find it quite surprising that the coup leaders do not go along with a negotiated settlement since Zelaya would return with little power, a new president no doubt more in line with elite interests, would soon be in power and they would be granted amnesty from any prosecution while aid would flow again and the American and Honduran troops could train and party together!

Zelaya supporters eye new Honduras protests
By Noe Leiva (AFP) – 21 hours ago
TEGUCIGALPA — Supporters of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya mobilized Monday to prepare new protests calling for his return to power more than a month after the military threw him out of the country.
Foreign envoys meanwhile were set to meet Monday with Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, a Nobel peace laureate spearheading an effort to negotiate a deal between Zelaya and the interim government led by Roberto Micheletti.
Zelaya supporters said they would begin a five-day march on the country's two main cities starting Wednesday despite a crackdown threat from the de facto government and the death of a teacher who was shot at a protest last week.
"There will be two marches with people from all over the country. One will go to San Pedro Sula and another to Tegucigalpa," Juan Barahona, of the National Resistance Against the Honduran Coup, told AFP.
Arias was to discuss Honduras with Organization of American States Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza and Spain's Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega.
Enrique Iglesias, a top official with the Organization of Ibero-American States, was also expected to attend the meeting.
For his part, Zelaya, who spent much of last week on the Nicaraguan side of the border with Honduras, was in Managua preparing for a trip to Mexico for a meeting Tuesday with President Felipe Calderon.
Zelaya was bundled out of his bed at gunpoint and kicked out of the country in the June 28 coup, which has been condemned by the international community.
The Mexican president in turn will meet US President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at an August 9-10 summit in Guadalajara, Mexico, with the simmering Honduran crisis likely to be a hot issue.
Washington has said that Zelaya is the country's only president, and US ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens flew to Nicaragua and traveled to the border to meet the deposed president on July 29.
Micheletti expressed his displeasure in a Saturday interview with local HRN news.
"We are extremely surprised with the attitude taken by the (US) ambassador, and we call on him for a correction; he cannot be interfering in issues that are strictly of Honduras," Micheletti said.
"There is no country or people powerful enough in the world to bend us," he added.
Washington has canceled diplomatic visas for four members of the interim government, and Micheletti has threatened to retaliate by canceling the visas of US diplomats.
In Tegucigalpa, hundreds of Zelaya supporters -- including the president's wife Xiomara Castro -- gathered Sunday for a wake for Roger Abraham Vallejo, a 38-year-old high school teacher who was shot during a mid-week demonstration.
Another teacher, Martin Florencio Rivera, was stabbed to death after leaving the wake, which Zelaya supporters blamed on regime supporters.
"He was killed after being stabbed 27 times when he was leaving Vallejo's wake," Eulogio Chavez, a teachers organization leader, told AFP.
"That is the same way they killed the comrade in El Paraiso," he said, referring to a Zelaya supporter beaten and stabbed to death who was found near the border with Nicaragua on July 25.

Honduran Negotiations finish today (Wednesday)

If the two sides do not agree to the new solution Arias will turn over negotiations to the OAS. It is rather surprising that the U.S. was not able or not willing to put sufficient pressure on the coup administration to force them to sign. Maybe they will at the last moment. Zelaya claims he will return to Honduras agreement or no agreement. If that happens there could be a lot of bloodshed. I doubt that Zelaya will get much support from Clinton.

This is from Bloomberg.

Zelaya, in his interview with Telesur from the Honduran embassy in Managua, said the next step if the mediation efforts fail will be to ask the UN and OAS to help enforce the resolutions they passed unanimously to return him to power and restore constitutional order in Honduras.

He said he plans to meet again with U.S. State Department officials Thomas Shannon and Ian Kelly and Clinton in a bid to bolster support for his return.

Arias talks fail Zelaya to return to Honduras next weekend.

This is from my post to Allvoices. --with additional commentary.


These talks were set up only because of the insistence of the U.S. as a way of defusing the situation but the U.S. did not reckon on the intransigence of the coup leaders. Although Zelaya sounded just as uncompromising it was he who accepted Arias proposals for a government of reconciliation. But the coup will not let Zelaya resume the presidency under any conditions it seems. The coup leaders know that the U.S. is a toothless tiger when it comes to actually moving against a group that it had long supported and with whom it still has strong military ties. While in the short term the coup government will suffer international isolation in the longer term there will be presidential elections held under the auspices of the coup government and then things will return to normal with the elite ruling and the military watchful in the wings.
Zelaya is making plans to return next weekend. There are already organised demonstrations regularly and there will be more next week. Of course unless a few dozen people get shot the mainstream media will not bother covering them because they are not in Iran!

The possibility of increased violence is now much increased and should Zelaya carry out his pledge to return to Nicaragua the likely alternative is to be violence. The only alternative left to the Zelaya supporters it would seem is armed struggle. Probably Nicaragua would support such a struggle and also Venezuela at least. The United States will not. Obama is already in hot water among many for supporting Zelaya. Many in the US support the coup line that the military was simply supporting the constitution and the coup lobbyists are openly working in Washington. Many have good connections to the Democratic party and especially Hilary Clinton.
There are recent articles in PressTV (Iran) and Yahoonews.

Arias had Costa Rican constitution amended so he could seek another term!

Apparently no one see this as any great sin. It is only when it is done by supposed socialists such as Chavez that there is any harm done. Arias is a good guy well liked by the U.S. and a supporter of neo-con economic policies.
This is from my post at Allvoices.
but with some alterations..

It is ironic that the mediator in the Honduran crisis Oscar Arias actually did what Zelaya was accused of plotting to change the country's constitution so as to be able to run again. If he had not been able to change the constitution by changing some members of the supreme court he would not be president now! Where are the press on this one.

This is from Wikipedia.
The Costa Rican constitution had been amended to include a clause which forbade former presidents seeking reelection. Arias challenged this in Sala IV, the Constitutional Court, which initially rejected his application. That ruling came down in September 2000. Arias then used his considerable political connections to alter the Court´s composition and, with a majority of members favorable to his cause, succeeded at the second attempt -- April 2003 -- to have the constitution changed.[3] Arias - to the surprise of no one - announced in 2004 that he intended to run again for president in the February 2006 general elections. .........

Zelaya gives Marchetti one week to quit..

This appears as if it is sheer bravado on Zelaya's part. The Marchetti regime has no intention of quitting. I notice from U.S. media that there is a considerable amount of support for the coup rather than Zelaya because they associate Zelaya with Chavez. For years the U.S. supported military regimes in Latin America. As long as the new more democratic regimes are safely in the hands of the elites there are no problems but once anyone is elected who wants to reform the system the elites get restless and the military intervenes once again having been well trained by the U.S. The negotiations seem simply a stalling tactic. The Marchetti govt. will probably move up the presidential elections so that a new president will be chosen even before negotiations are finished so Zelaya's return will make little sense. Arias is a staunch U.S. ally. I expect that Zelaya was in effect forced into this mediation farce.


Honduras' Manuel Zelaya gives rival week to quit
Accusing the man serving as interim president of trying to sabotage mediation talks, ousted Honduran leader Manuel Zelaya said he'll give him a week to step down.
By TIM ROGERS AND JIM WYSS
jwyss@MiamiHerald.com
MANAGUA -- Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya gave his rival, Roberto Micheletti, one week to step down, saying he was prepared to risk bloodshed to recapture the presidency, which he lost on June 28.
Speaking from neighboring Nicaragua, Zelaya accused Micheletti, who is serving as interim president, of trying to sabotage ongoing mediation talks in Costa Rica and using the time to consolidate his power.
He also called on the administration to recognize the resolutions of the Organization of American States and the United Nations that demand Zelaya's return. ''The regime is just trying to buy time so it can keep terrorizing,'' Zelaya said. ``The Honduran people are just another victim.''
TALKS TO RESUME
Zelaya and Micheletti's negotiating teams are expected to resume talks in Costa Rica on Saturday. But if those talks do not produce results, Zelaya said he would pay ''any cost'' to reclaim the presidency.
''Let me come back -- me with the people and you with your bayonets,'' he said. ``And instead of shooting innocent kids, shoot me.''
The last time Zelaya tried to return to Honduras -- on July 5 -- the army blocked the tarmac of the capital's international airport with trucks, keeping his plane from landing. As protesters tried to scale the chain-link fence around Tegucigalpa's international airport, shots were fired and one teen died..............................
The ultimatum came as Micheletti spent Monday consolidating his power by swearing in the nation's top diplomat and its environmental chief.
.....................In his conference from Nicaragua, Zelaya also called on the government to cease its crackdown on the media and opposition politicians.
On Saturday, authorities detained pro-Zelaya reporters with the Venezuelan network Telesur and held them overnight. The government has also been interrupting the transmission of some news programs. In addition, Zelaya said his negotiation team's mobile phones were cut and their bank accounts frozen.
The Micheletti administration has yet to be officially recognized by a single nation. The newly minted foreign affairs minister, Contreras, said he hoped to change that.
The cabinet changes come as Micheletti has been trying to project a sense of normalcy. The curfew, which has been in effect since June 28, was lifted Sunday night. And the government began running public service announcements encouraging Hondurans to vote in the upcoming Nov. 29 general elections.
......................

Costa Rica eyes fresh Honduran mediation talks.

This allows more time for the coup government to settle into power. Given that the two sides are at complete loggerheads it could be that no solution is ever reached. Negotiations will drag on and the coup government will set new presidential elections as soon as possible. Zelaya is not eligible to run and probably Marchetti would not run either. Once a new president is elected the Honduran government can claim that now an elected president is in power everything is hunky dory. The government will be in control of the electoral process but then the system is designed to ensure that the right sort of people get in anyway. Zelaya was originally one of them but sometimes people turn against their own class as happened in Zelaya' case.
If the negotiations are successful it will probably be for Zelaya to return as president but with limited powers. He will be a lame duck president until the elected president takes power in January. No one involved in the coup will face any punishment.



Costa Rica eyes fresh Honduras mediation talks
By Gustavo Palencia Gustavo Palencia
– TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) – Mediator Costa Rica said on Monday it may call Honduras' interim government and ousted President Manuel Zelaya's negotiators within 8 days for fresh talks aimed at defusing the country's political crisis.
The talks began last week and stopped after two days, making scant progress. Zelaya insists on his reinstatement and Roberto Micheletti, installed as interim president by Honduras' Congress after the June 28 coup, is adamant that he cannot return to power under any circumstances.
"Unofficially, we've been told that we'll be invited to Costa Rica on Saturday by President Oscar Arias to continue the talks," Micheletti told reporters.
Micheletti made the statement after swearing in his lead negotiator, Carlos Lopez, as new interim foreign minister. Lopez said he would continue to head the caretaker government's delegation at the talks.
In Costa Rica, a spokesman for Arias confirmed the mediator, who is Costa Rica's president and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987, intended to issue a fresh invitation to the two sides.
"The president is thinking of inviting the parties within a period of eight days," the spokesman, Esteban Arrieta, told reporters in San Jose, but he could not give a precise date for the restart of the talks.
No foreign government has recognized Micheletti as president, and the United States and the Organization of American States have called for Zelaya to be restored to office after the coup in the impoverished Central American country.
Time appears to be on the interim government's side, said Mark Ruhl, a Honduras specialist at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania.
"The longer this goes on, the better it is for Micheletti. The downside is if the United States decides to squeeze the government financially. But if you were Micheletti, why would you leave?" he told Reuters.
Honduras, which exports bananas, coffee and textiles, has a long history of coups, only returning to democracy in 1980s after 20 years of mainly military rule.
Micheletti on Sunday held out the possibility of an amnesty for Zelaya if he returns home quietly and faces justice.
Outside the public prosecutor's office in Tegucigalpa on Monday, protesters held up banners that read "No amnesty for Mel's government," referring to Zelaya by his nickname.
TEST OF DIPLOMACY
Micheletti reaffirmed that Zelaya would not be allowed to return to power "under any conditions," arguing he had contravened the constitution by seeking to illegally extend his rule through the lifting of presidential term limits.
Zelaya, now traveling the Americas to shore up his support, ran afoul of his political base and ruling elites in the conservative country by allying himself with Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chavez. He took office in 2006 and had been due to leave power next year.
Chavez has called the mediation talks in Costa Rica "dead before they started," and Zelaya has vowed to return to Honduras at any moment.
The Honduras crisis has also drawn in U.S. President Barack Obama, who faces a tricky diplomatic test after vowing a fresh start with Latin America, where Washington has in the past been accused of backing coups and dictatorships that served its interests.
The Obama administration was quick to strongly condemn the Honduras coup as illegal.