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CENTRAL AMERICA |
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Draft
Accord Emerges from Honduran Talks
TEGUCIGALPA – Representatives of ousted
Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and the de
facto regime led by Roberto Micheletti
reached agreement Wednesday on the draft of
an accord to restore the elected head of
state to office.
“We have managed to achieve a consensus on a
unified text that will be submitted to the
discussion and analysis of President Manuel
Zelaya Rosales and Mr. Roberto Micheletti,”
a member of the deposed leader’s Cabinet,
Victor Meza, told reporters outside the
Tegucigalpa hotel hosting the talks.
He said the contents of the draft would
remain secret until Zelaya and Micheletti
render their opinions on the pact.
During a recess in the talks, Meza and the
other Zelaya delegates went to the Brazilian
Embassy in Tegucigalpa, where the legitimate
president has been holed up since slipping
back into Honduras on Sept. 21, nearly three
months after the coup that toppled him and
forced him into exile.
“If we agreed to it, it’s because it seems
acceptable to us, because we concur that a
text of that nature could be the door for
finding a way out,” Meza said, adding that
he “would not speak of a solution to the
political crisis, but of an exit from the
political crisis.”
Micheletti delegate Vilma Morales, a former
Supreme Court chief justice, said the sides
planned to reconvene later Wednesday after
meeting with their respective principals.
In comments after Tuesday’s session, Morales
told Efe the two sides had made progress on
eight of the 12 points of the San Jose
Accord, a proposal put together by Costa
Rican President Oscar Arias.
Zelaya, whose term ends in January, has
already pledged not to attempt to convene an
assembly to rewrite Honduras’ constitution,
an initiative bitterly opposed by the
military, the political establishment and
the 25 families that dominate the country’s
economy.
The deposed head of state also agreed to the
formation of a national-unity government,
once a comprehensive pact is signed.
Micheletti contends Zelaya’s ouster was not
a coup, insisting that the soldiers who
dragged him from the presidential palace
were simply enforcing a Supreme Court ban on
the president’s planned non-binding
plebiscite on the idea of revising the
constitution.
Though the coup leaders accuse Zelaya of
seeking to extend his stay in office, any
potential constitutional change to allow
presidential re-election would not have
taken place until well after the incumbent
stepped down.
Time is running out before the Nov. 29
presidential elections, as both the European
Union and Washington have said they will not
recognize the winner of that balloting
unless Zelaya is restored to office
beforehand. EFE
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