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LATIN AMERICA |
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Brazil Faults
Obama’s Handling of Honduran Coup
BRASILIA – The top foreign affairs adviser
to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da
Silva said Wednesday that Barack Obama’s
administration “should put more pressure” on
the de facto regime in Honduras to agree to
the reinstatement of ousted President Mel
Zelaya.
A month after Zelaya, who was sent into
exile after the coup, slipped back into
Honduras and took up residence at the
Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Marco
Aurelio Garcia said that Lula’s government
still hopes for “firmer” action from the
United States.
“The ideal would be that President Obama
takes a more active position in the search
for a political accord” in Honduras, Garcia
told TV Brasil.
“I believe the United States could put more
pressure on the putschists,” Lula’s aide
said, though adding that “Latin America is
not a priority for the United States now,
because it’s a region at peace.”
Obama condemns Zelaya’s ouster and calls for
his reinstatement, but is so far unwilling
to exercise the enormous leverage that
Washington has over Honduras, a nation whose
economy is almost entirely dependent –
through trade, aid and remittances – on the
United States.
Garcia also insisted Wednesday that the
Brazilian government has “acted correctly”
and in defense of democracy and the rule of
law by giving Zelaya sanctuary at the
embassy.
After acknowledging that some members of
Brazil’s foreign service were initially
uncomfortable with the decision, Garcia
said: “The diplomats know an embassy is not
just for political gatherings and
receptions.”
The Honduran de facto regime contends
Zelaya’s ouster was not a coup, insisting
that the soldiers who dragged him from the
presidential palace and put him on a plane
to Costa Rica 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 his term
ends in January.
Time is running out to settle the conflict
before Honduras’ 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.
Though Zelaya has accepted the conditions
suggested by mediators, the coup regime is
balking at restoring the elected president.
EFE
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