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LATIN
AMERICA: Summit Does Not Recognise Elections
in Honduras
By Mario de Queiroz
ESTORIL, Portugal (IPS) - The
hard-line stance taken by Brazil, Argentina
and most other Latin American countries has
clashed with U.S. efforts to push for
international recognition of the elections
organised Sunday by the de facto regime in
power in Honduras since the Jun. 28 coup.
Costa Rica, Colombia, Panama and Peru, the
only countries in the region that called for
the results of the elections to be accepted,
ran up against Brazilian President Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva's emphatic "no, no and
no; categorically no."
Lula was speaking at the 19th edition of the
Iberoamerican summit, annual meetings that
bring together heads of state and government
from 19 Latin American countries along with
Spain, Portugal and Andorra.
Leaving Estoril, the beach resort 20 km from
Lisbon where the summit was held, a few
hours before it ended Tuesday, the Brazilian
president said "we must not recognise, or
even converse with," Porfirio Lobo.
Lobo, a conservative rancher, won Sunday's
controversial elections in Honduras with 55
percent of the vote, five months after
President Manuel Zelaya was removed from the
country at gunpoint.
In the case of Honduras, "we have to be
coherent: we cannot reach agreements with a
supporter of the coup, pretending that
nothing happened, because soon they'll start
to say that everything was Zelaya's fault,"
said Lula.
He added that his country, Latin America's
giant, with a population of 192 million
people, "does not compromise with political
vandalism."
In equally harsh terms, Argentine President
Cristina Fernández questioned the validity
of the elections and complained about
"double standards" when it comes to judging
leaders in the region, depending on where
they stand on the ideological spectrum.
"Respect for freedom is neither of the right
nor the left," said Fernández. Without
naming names, she lashed out at leaders who
argue that Lobo should be recognised as
president-elect as a compromise solution,
saying "there is no such thing as a bit more
or less of democracy. It's like being
pregnant: either you are, or you aren't."
With regard to democracy, "it's the same
thing: either you have democracy, and all
rights and guarantees are respected, or you
don't have democracy," said Fernández,
adding that "respect for democracy in our
region has a tragic history, which means
defence of democracy must be an all-out
defence that makes no concessions."
The nine countries of the Bolivarian
Alternative for the Americas - an
alternative bloc led by Venezuela - also
reiterated in Estoril that they did not
accept the "illegal and illegitimate"
elections in Honduras.
ALBA, which is made up of Antigua and
Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador,
Honduras, Nicaragua, Saint Vincent and the
Grenadines and Venezuela, also called for
those "morally responsible for the military
coup in Honduras to be brought to
international justice for their crimes" by
an ad hoc tribunal.
Former Nicaraguan foreign minister Miguel
d'Escoto, who presided over the United
Nations General Assembly from September 2008
to September 2009, said the coup set an
"appalling precedent" and described Sunday's
elections as "illegitimate."
"What we are seeing now is that a small
group of countries, unconditional allies
that are heavily dependent on Washington,
decided to initiate a process of recognising
the elections, but the immense majority of
Iberoamerica is opposed to them," said
d'Escoto, a Catholic priest.
In response to a question from IPS during
d'Escoto's conversation with journalists on
the role played by Costa Rican President
Óscar Arias, the Nicaraguan diplomat accused
the president of being "the main instrument
of the United States in blocking the return
of full democracy in Honduras."
Arias unsuccessfully attempted to broker an
agreement between Zelaya and the de facto
Honduran government of Roberto Micheletti,
and his administration has now become one of
the few to recognise the election of Lobo.
"Arias is a fraud," said d'Escoto, "because
this Nobel Peace Prize-winner is the biggest
obstacle to progress in the region and its
emancipation from Washington."
Spain, meanwhile, the biggest donor to Latin
America, said at the summit that it would
neither "recognise nor ignore" the elections
- a stance shared by Portugal.
Given the lack of agreement, the summit put
out a special statement on the situation in
Honduras, which condemned the coup and
called for the restoration of the
constitutional order and the immediate
reinstatement of Zelaya until the Jan. 27
end of his term, as "a fundamental step for
a return to normality."
The situation in Honduras ended up virtually
monopolising discussion at the summit in
Estoril, whose main theme was to be
"Innovation and Knowledge" - areas that were
hardly touched on.
The 20th Iberoamerican summit, which is to
focus on "Education", will take place next
year in the Argentine resort city of Mar del
Plata.
As on previous occasions, the Iberoamerican
leaders called in their statement for the
United States to "immediately" lift the
nearly half-century embargo against Cuba, in
compliance with 18 successive U.N. General
Assembly resolutions.
The leaders also agreed to cooperate with a
view to achieving a "wide-ranging, ambitious
and balanced" agreement at the Dec. 7-15
15th Conference of Parties to the U.N.
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC)
in Copenhagen.
The statement says the Iberoamerican
countries consider it indispensable for
developed countries to step up financial and
technological support for developing
nations, in the area of climate change.
It also states that the fight against
climate change must be completely compatible
with sustained economic growth and efforts
against poverty, while responding adequately
to the need for adaptation, especially in
the most vulnerable developing nations. |
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