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CENTRAL AMERICA |
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U.S.
Sending Top Diplomats to Honduras
WASHINGTON – A team of senior U.S. officials
will travel to Honduras on Wednesday to
foster an agreement between ousted President
Mel Zelaya and the de facto regime headed by
Roberto Micheletti, the State Department
said on Tuesday.
Leading the delegation will be the assistant
secretary of state for Western Hemisphere
Affairs, Thomas Shannon, and the National
Security Council’s director for the Western
Hemisphere, Dan Restrepo.
The high-ranking U.S. officials will ask the
parties in conflict for “flexibility” and
that they redouble efforts to end the
crisis, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly
said.
Kelly said that the delegation will be in
Honduras for a couple of days and going with
them will be a representative of the
Organization of American States, the
Bolivian Victor Rico, an OAS official told
Efe.
The spokesperson said that the United States
is “actively committed” to work with both
parties and added that Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton spoke last weekend with
Micheletti and Zelaya.
Talks between representatives of Zelaya and
the coup regime broke down last weekend over
Micheletti’s unwillingness to accept the
reinstatement of the elected head of state.
Kelly said Tuesday that “the clock is
running,” since the lack of an agreement
threatens the legitimacy of the elections
called for Nov. 29, given that some
countries have said that they will not
accept the results under present conditions.
“We want to see an election, which is coming
in about exactly a month, to enjoy the kind
of international legitimacy that these
people of Honduras deserve for their
government,” he said.
Micheletti 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 incumbent
stepped down.
Zelaya, who slipped back into the country on
Sept. 21 and remains holed up at the
Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, has made
numerous concessions to achieve an accord
with Micheletti.
The ousted president agreed to preside over
a national-unity government for the balance
of his term, which ends in January.
He also pledged to abandon the push for
constitutional reform that provoked the ire
of the military, the political establishment
and the few dozen families who dominate the
Honduran economy. EFE |
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