Time running out for Honduras' Manuel Zelaya, experts say

TEGUCIGALPA -- If history is any indicator, Honduras' ousted president Manuel ``Mel'' Zelaya should get a change of clothes and a comfortable air mattress -- his stint at the Brazilian Embassy here could go for a long spell.

The deposed president sneaked into his country on Monday to force a resolution to the political crisis that has gripped this country since he was forced into exile 90 days ago. But experts say that since Zelaya's term was set to expire at the end of this year and elections were already scheduled for November, the cowboy hat-wearing populist has few options.

With the United States' support weaker than Zelaya would like, the international community not doing much beyond offering rhetoric on his behalf, and his enemies appearing willing to call his bluff, experts say Zelaya is a man running out of time.

``The way this is going, you'll see this go on for another year,'' said Central America expert Manuel Orozco, of the InterAmerican Dialogue in Washington. ``This is going to become a protracted crisis.''

The military here spirited Zelaya out of the country three months ago at gunpoint. Authorities later produced both a resignation letter and a criminal arrest warrant charging Zelaya with treason.

REASON FOR OUSTER

The ouster stemmed from Zelaya's insistence on holding a nonbinding referendum that would have asked voters whether they supported a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution, which the Supreme Court had ruled illegal. Zelaya billed it as nothing more than an opinion poll, but the military, Congress, Supreme Court and business leaders viewed the referendum as a thinly veiled attempt to write a new constitution that could eventually allow him to stand for reelection.

Zelaya was forced out, and Roberto Micheletti, the head of Congress, was swept in. Micheletti has succeeded in defying virtually every country in the world, which does not recognize his government.

In a TV interview Wednesday, Micheletti said Zelaya should simply support a candidate for the elections, and let him win. He hopes Jimmy Carter will agree to monitor the elections.

Zelaya told a local radio station Thursday that he met with a member of Micheletti's team, and has discussions with business leaders later this week, the Associated Press reported. ``Obviously, the most logical solution for us is for Manuel Zelaya to return to power and then have elections on Nov. 29,'' said popular movement leader Samuel Zelaya -- no relation to the ousted president.

``The coup-plotters have made it clear this is not acceptable to them.''

OUTCOMES

Samuel Zelaya envisions three outcomes:

• The United Nations Security Council provides security for Zelaya to come back and finish his term -- a scenario Micheletti considers a deal-breaker.

• Zelaya doesn't return to power, and popular movements that support him fight for the constituent assembly to change the constitution.

• Elections are held, but the results would likely not be recognized by much of the international community. Zelaya would either go back into exile or stay at the embassy while Honduras' new leadership quells social upheaval.

Others have suggested postponing the elections, which few people here support.

``It's clear Micheletti and company's strategy is essentially to wait it out, get to elections and hope the international community will recognize the results,'' said Philip Williams, director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida. ``If they go ahead and have the elections and Zelaya is sort of out of the picture because his term is up, then what is he fighting over? What's any new agreement going to be about?''

The last agreement, which Micheletti refused, would have allowed Zelaya to finish his term as long as he gave up on the constituent assembly and those who ousted him got amnesty.

Zelaya is not the first Latin American president to seek refuge behind diplomatic walls.

One example: Panama's Manuel Noriega fled to the Vatican Embassy on Christmas Eve 1990, a few days after U.S. troops invaded. He was blasted with rock music at all hours before he surrendered 10 days later: the Vatican envoy had decided that Noriega's matter was criminal and not diplomatic and suggested it was time for him to run along.

Experts say it will take international intervention to force a resolution to spare Zelaya from a years-long stretch sleeping on office chairs.

``The international community has to step in to force a negotiated agreement,'' Orozco said. ``We are getting to the point where everyone has exhausted their political higher ground.''

Rule of law? Zeleya wanted to change the constitution so he could be a dictator for life - no wonder they impeached him (BTW - that is also possible in the USA)

What is the problem if it's his people who would have voted ?

Honduras Crisis Update: Zelaya Might Be Losing It

25 September 2009, 5:14 PM. By Cindy Casares



hondurasokOusted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, holed up in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, has called on the Red Cross for emergency aid saying the de facto government is throwing noise bombs and toxic gas at him. Police spokesman Daniel Molina retorted with, “you lie!”

Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim told CNN en Español he thinks Zelaya has lost it after he told the Miami Herald that “Israeli Mercenaries” were torturing him with toxic gas. Amorim ordered him to simmer down while he remains an embassy guest.

Incognito there is an article in the main page referring to a Bishop here in the DR complaining about politicians buying votes.
In Honduras it was argued this man would have simply bribed with a few dollars all the peasants there who react to an immediate windfall gain.
In much the same way as Thaksin did in Thailand before he took off with billions of dollars tax free money

* Brazil gov't losing domestic support for Zelaya refuge

* Critics say Brazil fell for trap set by Hugo Chavez

* Minister says abandoning Zelaya now would be cowardice (Adds Amorim comments)

By Raymond Colitt

BRASILIA, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Brazil's government is facing growing criticism at home over its handling of the Honduran crisis as senior lawmakers accuse it of allowing the ousted president to use its embassy as a political platform.

Manuel Zelaya, who was toppled as Honduran president by a coup on June 28, has set up camp in the Brazilian embassy with dozens of supporters and has given numerous interviews to foreign and domestic media.

His surprise return from exile a week ago triggered violent protests in the capital Tegucigalpa and placed Brazil at the center of the Honduran power struggle and an international diplomatic crisis.

Government and opposition legislators in Brazil's Congress have urged President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to stop Zelaya from using the embassy as a political theater.

"Zelaya's political activities are unacceptable. They weaken Brazil's position and international image," Eduardo Azeredo, head of the Senate foreign relations committee, told Reuters.

Brazil should formally grant Zelaya political asylum and take him out of Honduras, Azeredo said. Brazil would still be seen as defending a democratically-elected leader without being directly involved in the dispute, he said.

Honduras' de facto government gave Brazil 10 days to decide what to do with Zelaya, but Lula rejected the ultimatum.

Former president and current Senate chief Jose Sarney, one of Lula's most influential allies, also criticized the government's position.

"There's a certain exaggeration in transforming the embassy into a campaign headquarters. This excess is not good for Brazil or Manuel Zelaya," said Sarney, adding that the embassy must abide by international rules on nonintervention in a country's domestic affairs.

Foreign Minister Celso Amorim defended Brazil's position before a Senate foreign relations committee on Tuesday.

"What's at stake here is not only a small country but the future of democracy in Central America," Amorim said. "Tolerating this coup could stimulate others in the region."

Amorim said Brazil had not acted irresponsibly. The Lula government received Zelaya's request for refuge only 30 minutes before he arrived at the embassy, Amorim said.

Several weeks ago, Zelaya requested a plane from Brazil to return to Honduras and Amorim himself had denied it, he added.

Major Brazilian newspapers have run critical editorials and almost daily caricatures, mocking Lula's perceived leniency with Zelaya.

Conservatives are upset that Brazil may have been put into this bind by Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez, with whom the more moderate Lula has friendly though sometimes uncomfortable relations.

Chavez had been fiercely advocating Zelaya's return and is rumored to have provided an airplane for the fellow leftist to fly to El Salvador for his overland return to Honduran.

A front-page caricature in Tuesday's O Globo newspaper showed Lula, Chavez and Amorim singing Zelaya a lullaby as he dozed under his signature cowboy hat, boots propped up on a chair in his embassy refuge.

In an editorial, O Globo said it was "deplorable that Brasilia allowed itself to be entangled in a Chavez trap." (Additional reporting by Natuza Nery;

leonel is changing the Constitution of DR for his benofit

Presidential candidates key to solving Honduras crisis
Costa Rican President talks about Honduras
Costa Rican President Oscar Arias talks about the Honduran political crisis.




BY ANDRES OPPENHEIMER

There is a new possible solution to the Honduran crisis that is gaining traction in Washington and key Latin American capitals: Bypass the country's two presidents, and get leading presidential candidates to work out a deal that would give credibility to the Nov. 29 elections.

Costa Rican President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias, the leading mediator in the Honduran crisis, said during his visit to Miami to address the Americas Conference this week that the Central American country's political standoff will not be solved by going ahead with de facto President Roberto Micheletti's plans to hold elections.

The international community won't recognize elections held by a government that staged a coup against ousted President Manuel Zelaya, much less now that Micheletti has suspended fundamental freedoms for 45 days, he said. Many countries, including the United States, say recognizing the November elections would create a precedent for other countries to break the rule of law.

So what's the solution? I asked Arias in an interview. He had already admitted that his proposal to solve the crisis by restoring Zelaya to power as part of a national unity government that convenes the elections -- known as the San Jose agreement -- has not been accepted, and that neither Micheletti nor Zelaya seem to have the political will to make concessions.

``The San Jose agreement is not the Ten Commandments: It's not written in stone. It can be modified,'' Arias said. ``I have no objections to it being modified, especially if it is modified by the presidential candidates, who are the most interested in making sure that these elections are recognized by everybody.''

Are you saying that the presidential candidates may hold the key to untangling the Honduran crisis, I asked.

``Yes,'' Arias said. ``I talked to all of them, and I told them: ``Make the necessary changes'' in the San Jose agreement.

He explained that the candidates would have a vested interest in doing

so because nobody would want to be president

of a country that would not have diplomatic recognition from any country, and that would continue to be subject to international economic sanctions that are hurting it badly.

Cuts in European and U.S. aid since the June 28 coup are depriving Honduras -- one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere -- of 20 percent of the money it needs to pay its annual budget expenses, he added.

A senior Obama administration official who follows the Honduras crisis closely agreed that the Honduran candidates could play a bigger role in reaching a negotiated solution.

``They are a pressure point, not the solution,'' the U.S. official said. ``If the candidates don't think that the election will be recognized internationally, they could tell Micheletti: If you continue this charade, we will not play along.''

How about asking Honduran candidates to withdraw from the campaign unless a deal is reached, I asked Organization of American States Secretary General José Miguel Insulza in a telephone interview late Wednesday.

``What I'm trying to do is getting representatives of Zelaya and Micheletti to sit on the same table, alongside the presidential candidates and other forces, to try to narrow down their differences along the lines of the San Jose agreements,'' Insulza said. ``We are trying to make that happen next Wednesday, during a scheduled visit by foreign ministers.''

My opinion: Arias is right about the elections. If Micheletti thinks that Honduras will overcome its crisis by holding elections under the current circumstances, he's dreaming. The winner of the elections will remain an international pariah, and Honduras will become increasingly poorer.

If Zelaya thinks that he can be restored to power and continue his unconstitutional effort to be reelected, following the Venezuelan script, he's dreaming, too.

Until now, I paid zero attention to the Honduran candidates, in the belief that they played secondary roles in this tragicomedy.

But after listening to Arias, I'm wondering: perhaps they should become the leading actors.

US only cares about cheap bananas - not democracy.
http://www.scq.ubc.ca/global-issues-for-breakfast-the-banana-industry-and-its-problems-faq-cohen-mix/
S.