Honduran Lawmaker Says Costa Rica Talks May
Address Amnesty
By Jens Erik Gould
(Bloomberg) -- Honduran lawmaker Marcia
Facusse de Villeda said the acting
government is willing to discuss holding
early elections and granting deposed
President Manuel Zelaya amnesty against
charges that he violated the constitution.
Facusse said the offer may be made this
weekend at talks in Costa Rica aimed at
ending the political stalemate in Honduras
after the military forced Zelaya to leave
the country June 28. The lawmaker said today
she is slated to be part of acting President
Roberto Micheletti’s delegation at the
talks.
Micheletti’s representatives will push for
Zelaya to abandon his bid to be restored in
office and ask the former leader to persuade
his allies to end protests in Honduras,
Facusse said. A first round of talks in
Costa Rica ended last week, with Zelaya
insisting he is the rightful president and
Micheletti vowing to arrest him if he
returns to Honduras.
“The ideal result would be for Zelaya to
agree to stop the demonstrations that are
causing disorder in the country,” Facusse
said in a telephone interview from the
capital Tegucigalpa. She said any amnesty
granted to Zelaya would need to be approved
by Congress.
Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, who is
acting as a mediator in the dispute, has
offered to resume talks July 18, spokesman
Esteban Arrieta said today by telephone.
Micheletti told reporters in Tegucigalpa
yesterday that he’s ready to continue
negotiations.
Zelaya, who spoke from the Honduran embassy
in Managua, Nicaragua, yesterday, said he
must be restored as president by the end of
the next round of dialogue.
“If this situation continues, we would
consider that this process of mediation is
on the road to failure,” Zelaya told
reporters in comments broadcast by the
Telesur news channel.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly
told reporters in Washington today that no
“artificial deadlines” should be given to
resolve the conflict and said the U.S.
supports the return of democratic order and
the restoration of the democratically
elected president to power.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jens
Erik Gould in Tegucigalpa at [email protected]
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