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Honduras Accord Is on Verge of Collapse
Ousted president says U.S. lacks commitment to reinstatement
Less than two weeks after U.S. diplomats announced a historic agreement to reverse a coup in Honduras, the accord is in danger of collapse and both Honduran officials and U.S. lawmakers are blaming American missteps for some of the failure.
Honduras' ousted President Manuel Zelaya gestures inside the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009. Zelaya urged the international community not to recognize the results of the upcoming Nov. 29 general elections. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix) Ousted president Manuel Zelaya, who was expelled by the military in June, said in a telephone interview that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had assured him as recently as last week that the U.S. government was seeking his return to the presidency. But he said that U.S. pressure had eased in recent days and that he no longer had faith in the agreement.
José Miguel Insulza, the head of the Organization of American States, which is helping implement the accord, said that negotiations between Zelaya and the de facto government had fallen apart and that he would not send a mission to Honduras to observe presidential elections at the end of the month. That added to the possibility that the previously scheduled elections will not be internationally recognized -- and that Honduras's five-month-old crisis will continue.
The Obama administration has invested its credibility in the Oct. 30 accord, which was reached after Clinton dispatched a senior diplomatic team to bring the two sides together. But the agreement started to fray within days, with each side interpreting the vaguely worded document its own way. Key American lawmakers, and Zelaya's followers, were startled by remarks by Assistant Secretary of State Thomas A. Shannon Jr. last week that the U.S. government would recognize the election results irrespective of whether the ousted Honduran president was returned to office promptly.
"The State Department's abrupt change of policy towards Honduras last week -- recognizing the elections scheduled for Nov. 29 even if the coup regime does not meet its commitments under the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord -- caused the collapse of an accord it helped negotiate," said Frederick L. Jones, a spokesman for Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John F. Kerry (D-Mass.).
Zelaya said he was finished with the agreement.
"Everything they do will be tricks," he said, referring to the de facto government led by Roberto Micheletti. He said U.S. guarantees had formed the underpinning for the agreement.
"Their priorities were my restitution. . . . This is a very dangerous change of foreign policy for the United States," he said.
State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said there had been no change in policy.
"We'll see what happens in the election before we can evaluate its results," he said. He rejected criticism that U.S. officials weren't pressing for the accord to work, noting that a senior diplomat handling Latin America affairs, Craig Kelly, had just spent two days in Honduras.
Another senior U.S. official noted the agreement never specifically said that Zelaya would be reinstated, instead giving the Honduran National Congress the power to vote on it. Zelaya may have decided to back out of the accord after realizing his support in Congress was softer than he initially thought, said the official, who was not authorized to comment publicly.
The first snag in the accord occurred when Micheletti asked Zelaya to submit names for a government of national unity. Zelaya balked, saying that he should head the interim government. Micheletti then decided to establish the government himself -- a move criticized by the Organization of American States.
Then the Congress indicated it could take weeks before it voted on Zelaya's reinstatement. That infuriated the ousted president, who has been holed up in the Brazilian Embassy in the Honduran capital since sneaking back into the country in September.
Some observers said the Honduran legislators appeared nervous about moving on the politically charged subject. Micheletti has urged them to hold the vote.
Shannon's comments on the elections coincided with an announcement by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) that he would no longer block Shannon's nomination as ambassador to Brazil. DeMint said he made the decision after Shannon told him that the U.S. government would recognize the Nov. 29 Honduran election results whether or not Zelaya was back in the presidency.
DeMint and some other lawmakers have called for a tougher line against Zelaya, an ally of Venezuela's anti-American president, Hugo Chávez.
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15 Comments so far
Show All"DeMint and some other lawmakers have called for a tougher line against Zelaya, an ally of Venezuela's anti-American president, Hugo Chávez."
Zelaya has allies in most of the Central and South American countries; and the Organization of American States (OAS) voted 33-0 to suspend Honduras; yet this slanted article attempts to smear Zelaya because of his relations to Chavez (who the US regularly attempts to smear). Zelaya has good relations with Brazil; does that make Brazil part of an axis of evil?
Yes, that last line about Zelaya being an ally of Hugo Chavez is a giveaway about what's actually going on.
The U.S. walked away from the accord at a critical pre-determined moment to blow up the whole process while running out the clock.
Enough time was wasted meaning Zelaya will not return to the presidency before the election.
The upcoming election may not be certified by the OAS but it will be certified by the Washington Post and isn't that really all that matters?
Agree that the last line is a giveaway that this article is aligned to US policy talking points. Almost anytime you read or hear that other countries or leaders being termed "anti-American" or "anti-Israel", it is almost always without context, that is, never clarifies that these countries or leaders are against foreign policies, not citizens. Don't want to bother the public with details that make them think critically. Of course the US is never anti-anything(sarcasm).
Empire USA ---- Anti-world government
Why did Zelaya even bother to talk to the americans?Tony
reports on human rights in Honduras since the coup
http://americas.irc-online.org/updater/6570?utm_source=streamsend&utm_medium=email&utm_content=7184061&utm_campaign=%5BAmericas%20Updater%5D%20Special%20Updater%20on%20Honduras
It appears from this source, http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6565 that Obama deliberatly bungled the accord: "The secretary of state triumphantly announces a breakthrough in Honduras. Micheletti responds that he has not yet agreed to the restitution of the elected president, and a deceived Zelaya states the agreement is dead. The diplomatic fiasco is complete." And there is more context in the linked item that explains how this happened.
Obama and his masters are on the counter-attack south of the border. Attention should also be paid to Uruguay and Paraguay and the details of the deal that just made Colombia a US colony, http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4917
For those who haven't, this NarcoNews item and its comments are primary reading material, http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3588/questions-reader-about-honduras
"Another senior U.S. official noted the agreement never specifically said that Zelaya would be reinstated, instead giving the Honduran National Congress the power to vote on it. Zelaya may have decided to back out of the accord after realizing his support in Congress was softer than he initially thought, said the official, who was not authorized to comment publicly."
That's exactly what happened. The agreement specifically called for the Honduran Legislature to decide on the matter of reinstatement, and Zelaya signed it. Zelaya over estimated his popularity in his Congress and is now waffling his way out of the signature.
Sorry, but your analysis is trumped by the facts displayed by the NarcoNews.com item I linked in my comment.
Did "The agreement specifically call" for our U.S. senior official
to announce that elections would be recognized no matter what?
You know the agreement was fraud from start to finish,
which makes you and your comment a fraud.
The agreement didn't call for a senior U.S. official to announce anything. It was part of the agreement that the elections would be valid whether or not Zelaya was allowed to serve out his term or not.
MASS MEDIA HITS THE GUTS ---- LIBERAL MEDIA HITS THE LOGIC
Smoke screen: anything that blinds the mind by burning the emotions.
Surely mainstream media news is all about our guts, and how best to
stress our guts, with their news being only about the bloody effects
of the problem. Surely a smoke screen, a blinding of the mind
by burning of the emotions.
Whereas liberal media wastes none of our valuable time and emotional
capital on the unbearable effects of things like war that so unnerve
us, but so perfectly hits the root cause as needed and then hits
with a solution that best motivates toward organized action.
O if our self-complacent majority would take
but a moment to reflect on such wisdom.
This just legitimizes the overthrow of democracies for corporate plunder.
But don't worry, we haven't had a democracy for ages.
I am equally opposed to our country interfering in another country of our hemisphere for a dictator as for a democratic ruler. No good has ever resulted for us and those countries from our interfering.
The democracy and the constitution of Honduras are both doing fine.
Those who would like to make up "new" and "improved" ways to amend the constitution of Honduras are the ones who are becoming irrelevant to the politics in Honduras.
Honduras is a two major political party country similar to the United States.
The guy hiding in the Brazilian embassy in Honduras was nominated by, and Elected President as the candidate of one of those parties. In his case it was the Liberal Party.
The congress of Honduras is also currently controlled by the Liberal party.
The current defacto President is a member of the same Liberal political party.
The Liberal party candidate for President was nominated by the political party of the guy hiding in the Brazilian embassy before he, the guy hiding in the Brazilian embasy, was forced out of office and replaced by the Supreme Court and Congress of Honduras.
Both the member of the Liberal Party running for President, and the Member of the Liberal party who was the head of congress, supported the removal of the then President who was from their same political party, the Liberal party. Why? Because he was trying to illegally change the constitution of Honduras which they had all taken an oath to defend. A member of the same Liberal Party was selected by congress to replace the guy hiding in the Brazilian embassy after he was removed by order of the Supreme Court of Honduras.
The Liberal party candidate for President was ahead in the polls before the guy he was trying to replace, a member of his own party, decided to make up a new and improved way to change the constitution of Honduras.
The Liberal party is still participating in the election and hopes to still win the Presidency again. The Liberal party candidate supported the removal of the guy currently hiding in the Brazilian embassy ( the crazy guy from his same party ).
Those who would like to illegally change the constitution are claiming a wide spread boycott of the election by the opposition political parties. This is at best misleading - the only parties even considering boycotting are minor parties that get less than 10% of the vote historically and never had a chance to win any way. The party of the guy hiding in the embassy, the Liberal Party, IS NOT boycotting and they still hope to win.
Either the liberal candidate or the conservative candidate will win the election in a few days and one or the other will be the elected President of Honduras starting in January.
The guy hiding in the Embassy, may, or may not, get back in office, under adult supervision to avoid any more attempts to illegally change the Honduran constitution, for some period of time before January.
But his dreams of illegally changing the constitution while he is the elected President of Honduras are history.