this guy will live out the last month of his presidency as a laughing stock

Pact appears to end Honduras coup standoff

By JUAN ZAMORANO (AP) – 24 minutes ago

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Deposed President Manuel Zelaya and his opponents have agreed to a U.S.-brokered deal that he believes will return him to power four months after a coup shook faith in Latin America's young democracies.

The power-sharing agreement reached late Thursday calls for Congress to decide whether to reinstate the leftist Zelaya. While the legislature backed his June 28 ouster, congressional leaders have since said they won't stand in the way of an agreement that ends Honduras' diplomatic isolation and legitimizes presidential elections planned for November.

"We are willing to be cooperative in Congress with the agreement of the negotiators," Porfirio Lobo, a National Party lawmaker who is favored to win the Nov. 29 presidential elections, said Friday. "The best decision for Honduras will be taken."

While officials did not explicitly say the deal would return Zelaya to power to serve out the remaining three months of his term, the ousted president was clearly confident that it will.

"This signifies my return to power in the coming days, and peace for Honduras," Zelaya told opposition Radio Globo.

The breakthrough was a major foreign-policy victory for President Barack Obama. He sent his top envoy for the Americas, Thomas Shannon, to Honduras this week to pressure the two sides to resolve the crisis after months of diplomacy failed to break the stalemate.

Speaking to reporters in Islamabad, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called it "an historic agreement," noting: "This is a big step forward for the inter-American system."

Interim President Roberto Micheletti's government, which had argued that any decision rested in the hands of the hard-line Supreme Court, softened his position.

Zelaya was ousted after ignoring orders from the Supreme Court to abandon a referendum aimed at rewriting the constitution. Opponents said his secret plan was to lift a constitutional ban on presidential re-election; Zelaya denies that.

Zelaya had increasingly alienated Honduras' elite by forming an increasingly strong alliance with Venezuela's socialist president, Hugo Chavez.

The new agreement would create a power-sharing government and bind both sides to recognize the presidential elections. The international community had said it would not recognize the vote if Zelaya were not reinstated, raising the prospect of continuing political chaos in one of the Americas' poorest countries.

With the accord came international acceptance of the elections: Victor Rico, political affairs secretary of the Organization of American States, said "the United States and the OAS will accompany Honduras in the elections."

Micheletti called the pact a "significant concession" on his part, and said that one point would require foreign powers to drop sanctions or aid cutoffs imposed after the coup, and send observers to the elections.

Zelaya was flown out of the country by soldiers at gunpoint, but slipped back in Sept. 21 and took refuge at the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.

Imagine if he get back into office and pull a coup with Hugito"s army.

even Obozo would have to send in the Marines if that happened amigito Hillary told them how it was going to be ......and they said How high ? and What colour ?.....now you Goofy in the Hat go over there and sit by the door for a couple of months then disappear if you know what's good for you

not a bad idea..... lets see if they like it !!!! the draconian way !

Glim the commies camarada I bet you will leave your confortable life behind to be part of the revolucion.

If there is one person in Honduras who is more despised these days than deposed president Manuel Zelaya it is a foreigner who goes by the name of Hugo. We refer here not to the Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez but to U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens.

Many Hondurans, including, rumor has it, President Roberto Micheletti, see Mr. Llorens as the principal architect of a U.S. policy that has caused enormous Honduran hardship.

There is a chance that the agreement signed late Thursday between the interim government and Mr. Zelaya will put an end to that suffering. Finally the U.S. and the Organization of American States (OAS) have agreed to step aside and allow Honduran institutions to decide if Mr. Zelaya is to be reinstated. Without international meddling, it is quite likely that Mr. Zelaya will be refused the presidency once more.

Yet many risks remain, starting with the fact that though the U.S. said it was going to butt out of Honduran affairs, old habits die hard. Referring to Mr. Zelaya's bid for reinstatement, Thomas Shannon, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemispheric affairs, said last week, "That's the issue that's the most provocative and the one we will be watching most closely." Mr. Shannon should try watching the World Series instead.

The need to dictate to Hondurans how to run their country has been the problem from the start. The moment the Honduran Supreme Court ordered the arrest of Mr. Zelaya in June for organizing mob violence and attempting to overthrow the constitution Mr. Llorens anointed himself colonial viceroy in charge of imposing U.S. will. Plenty of Molotov-hurling leftists also took Mr. Zelaya's side. But Mr. Llorens staked out a position for the U.S., defending the legitimacy of the erratic former president. The U.S. ambassador used every weapon he could lay his hands on to try to force the country to restore Mr. Zelaya to power.

This violated Honduran sovereignty. But Mr. Llorens's boss back home, Barack Obama, seemed more interested in appeasing U.S. enemies than standing by friends, or even sticking to his pledge not to meddle in other countries' affairs. Mr. Chávez and Fidel Castro were supporting Mr. Zelaya, and Mr. Obama apparently wanted to be part of the gang.

Clearly no one in Washington expected it to be so hard to break the will of Hondurans. That effort became even more embarrassing when zelayistas mounted a campaign of terror, kidnapping and murdering Honduran authorities and their relatives. There were at least three such incidents in two weeks. The terrorists were also sabotaging the country's electricity grid. To avoid further taint, the U.S. sent a delegation to strike the compromise reached late Thursday.

The spin is that Mr. Zelaya will return to power. But the Honduran Congress will decide that, using opinions from the Supreme Court, the attorney general and other legal experts. Since it was the court and Congress that threw Mr. Zelaya out, this is positive. Yet if the court, which has the legal upper hand, stands firm and Congress reverses itself in favor of Mr. Zelaya, there will be a constitutional crisis.

That's not impossible, as the Zelaya reputation for buying votes is legendary. In May, the mayor of Tegucigalpa publicly denounced an offer by the Zelaya government to pay him $15 million to support a referendum on rewriting the constitution. Mr. Chávez has money too, and so do other drug-trafficking terrorist organizations around the region, like Colombia's FARC and numerous Central American gangs. These groups are notorious for infiltrating institutions. Honduras isn't immune.

Yet it is likely that the interim government decided to take the gamble because it believes that the high court and Congress, which both voted overwhelmingly to strip Mr. Zelaya of the office, will stand strong. In return for this risk, it gets U.S. and OAS recognition of the Nov. 29 presidential elections.

What is more, there will be no amnesty for Mr. Zelaya. He already has more than a dozen outstanding arrest warrants against him, and when he steps out of the Brazilian Embassy it is fully expected that he will be detained. The agreement also says that there will be no constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution so as to end presidential term limits.

Unnamed U.S. officials have told the press that Mr. Zelaya probably is coming back, turning up the heat on Honduras's Congress. And the OAS's General Secretary José Miguel Insulza is making noise about returning to Honduras to involve the OAS in Congress's decision. But Mr. Shannon reiterated to me Sunday that the U.S. believes this is now an issue for Honduran institutions to settle. He completely rejected a report in Sunday's El Pais newspaper claiming he is lobbying for votes for Mr. Zelaya's return.

By signing this agreement, Honduras helped Mr. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton save face. In return, Mrs. Clinton should tell Mr. Insulza to stay out of the country and its affairs. She should also tell U.S. officials to cease and desist with their pro-Zelaya rumors. While she's at it, the secretary could reassign Mr. Llorens. Havana comes to mind as a suitable posting. He will be greeted as a hero by the Castros and will find it easy to continue his friendship with Mr. Zelaya.

Write to O'Grady@wsj.com

we hope his 15 minutes will soon be over and he can ride into the sunset with that Goofy hat

Zelaya's Hopes of Return Fade in Committee Vote

By JOSé DE CóRDOBA

A Honduran legislative committee voted not to convene a special session of Congress to consider returning the country's ousted leader, in a move likely to dash chances of Manuel Zelaya's returning to power even temporarily under a deal brokered last week by the U.S.

On Tuesday, a committee of 13 legislators voted to not convene the special session, opting instead to wait until Congress receives nonbinding legal opinions on the issue from Honduras's Supreme Court, attorney general's office and other institutions. It set no deadline for when the reports had to be received.

The decision means a presidential election scheduled for Nov. 29 could take place before any vote on Mr. Zelaya.

Even if Mr. Zelaya pulls out of the U.S.-brokered deal, the interim government appears to have the upper hand. In announcing the deal, the U.S. made clear that it would respect any decision by the Honduran Congress, and would recognize the November elections even if Congress blocks Mr. Zelaya's return.

That may cause some friction with other countries in Latin America. Since the signing of the agreement, the Organization of American States and some Latin American countries have appeared to condition their support of the Honduran election on Mr. Zelaya's return to power.

Under terms of last week's deal, Honduras's interim government and Mr. Zelaya agreed to let Congress decide on Mr. Zelaya's return and set up a government of national unity. In return, the U.S. promised to renew suspended aid to Honduras and recognize the legitimacy of the Nov. 29 presidential poll. Mr. Zelaya isn't on the ballot.

While many interpreted the deal last week as a sign Mr. Zelaya would return to power, Honduran politicians appear in no mood to change their vote from June 28, when they overwhelmingly voted to replace the president. With the election little more than three weeks away, analysts say neither side wants to risk losing votes by reinstalling a controversial president.

"Zelaya is the kiss of death," says Miguel Angel Calix, a Honduran political analyst.

Honduras's rival political factions disagree on what the deal was meant to achieve. Mr. Zelaya says he will consider the deal broken if he isn't reinstated by Thursday. But the agreement itself offers no guarantee of reinstatement.

Write to José de Córdoba at jose.decordoba@wsj.com

Zelaya once again Kaput --With Nowhere to go
Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on Friday pulled out of an agreement that was supposed to solve the country's political crisis, leaving the next moves to voters in a presidential election on Nov. 29 -- and to Latin American leaders who will have to decide whether to accept the winner.

"This deal is dead. The other side has failed to uphold their end," said Mr. Zelaya in a radio interview Friday. His move followed the Honduran Congress's failure to vote this week on reinstating him.

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Associated Press

Honduras's ousted leader Manuel Zelaya, at the Brazil Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Friday, said a crisis pact was dead.
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zelaya

Mr. Zelaya and the interim government, led by President Roberto Micheletti, agreed a week ago to create a government of national unity and let the country's Congress decide on the issue of Mr. Zelaya's return to office, which has been the central issue of the crisis since he was removed on June 28.

In return, the U.S., in what was a policy turnaround, said it would recognize this month's election even if Congress didn't return Mr. Zelaya to power, and would lift economic sanctions Washington had placed on Honduras, one of the hemisphere's poorest countries.

After Mr. Zelaya's statement Friday, a U.S. State Department spokesman said the U.S. didn't consider the agreement to be dead. "Both sides need to return to the table and negotiate the formation of a national unity government," the spokesman said.

Mr. Zelaya made his intention to withdraw from the agreement obvious late Thursday when he didn't submit a list of candidates for a unity government. Earlier, Mr. Micheletti's cabinet ministers had tendered their resignations to pave the way for the new government. On Friday morning, U.S. diplomats made a last-ditch, failed attempt to get Mr. Zelaya to submit names, according to a person close to the negotiations.

U.S. officials had hoped that Honduras's Congress would reinstate Mr. Zelaya until his term ends in January in order to secure widespread international recognition for the election. But as days passed, it became clear Honduras' Congress was in no mood for a quick return of the controversial leader. It put off a vote and said it would wait for decisions on the legality of Mr. Zelaya's restitution from the country's Supreme Court and other institutions.

Mr. Micheletti is likely to gain from the latest fracas. The Micheletti government, along with many Hondurans, says elections represent the best way out of the crisis, which has turned Honduras into an international pariah.

If Mr. Zelaya's return does come to a vote in Congress, he is likely to lose. He would be facing the same legislators who on June 28 voted overwhelmingly to replace him. Mr. Zelaya's Liberal Party, which has a majority in Congress, is now split, while Honduras's other major party, the Nationalist Party -- whose candidate now is expected to win the election -- is solidly anti-Zelaya.

Mr. Zelaya's withdrawal from the accord could put the U.S. at loggerheads with a number of Latin American countries who are insisting that the ousted president be restored to power as a necessary part of any political settlement in Honduras. Most of these countries, such as Nicaragua and Bolivia, are closely allied to Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, Mr. Zelaya's most vocal supporter. But hemispheric heavyweight Brazil, which is increasingly seeking a higher profile role in Latin America, is also among the countries loudly demanding Mr. Zelaya's return.

Mr. Zelaya was forced from the country by the army at the end of June after the Supreme Court ruled that he violated the constitution by trying to promote a referendum that critics said was aimed at keeping him in power beyond his term. Mr. Zelaya denies that was his intention.

Republican Sen. Jim DeMint lifted a hold Thursday he had placed on two key Obama administration nominees to top Latin American posts. Mr. DeMint placed the holds because the State Department had suggested it might not recognize election results if Mr. Zelaya wasn't returned to power.

The legislator said he had received assurances from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the U.S. would recognize the outcome of the elections "regardless of whether Manuel Zelaya is reinstated."