HONDURAS: U.S. Appeals for Calm, Repeats
Support for Zelaya
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON (IPS) - Confirming that that
exiled Honduran President Manuel Zelaya has
secretly returned to Tegucigalpa, the U.S.
State Department Monday appealed for calm
and reiterated its recognition that he is
the legitimate president.
"We have confirmed that he is in Honduras.
Where exactly he is, I don't know," the
department's spokesman, Ian Kelly, told
reporters during his midday press briefing,
shortly before photos of Zelaya in the
Brazilian embassy in the Honduran capital
began circulating on the Internet.
"At this point, all I can say is (to)
re-iterate our almost daily call on both
sides to exercise restraint and refrain
from... any activities that could provoke
violence," he added, noting that Washington
still considered Zelaya to be the
"democratically elected and constitutional
leader of Honduras".
That message was echoed by the
secretary-general of the Organisation of
American States (OAS), Jose Miguel Insulza.
"The constitutional president of Honduras,
Jose Manuel Zelaya, is currently in
Tegucigalpa at the Embassy of Brazil," he
said in a statement from OAS headquarters
here.
"I would like to call for calm to all
stakeholders in this process and stress to
the authorities of the de facto government
that they should be responsible for the
safety of President Zelaya and the Embassy
of Brazil," he added.
Zelaya's return comes as a serious
embarrassment to the de facto government in
Tegucigalpa headed by Roberto Micheletti,
who was elected interim president by members
of the Honduran Congress after army units
seized Zelaya and flew him into exile Jun.
28.
But it also poses an unexpected foreign
policy challenge to the administration of
President Barack Obama on the eve of this
week's U.N. General Assembly meeting, where
Obama plans to serve briefly as president of
the Security Council.
While it has long insisted that Zelaya be
restored to office, the administration has
also complained about his previous efforts
to return to Honduras in the absence of a
pre-arranged settlement – as worked out in
talks earlier this summer mediated by Costa
Rican President Oscar Arias and
representatives of both Zelaya and the de
facto regime.
Indeed, when Zelaya tried to return to
Honduras in July, Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton called the attempt "reckless" in
what was widely interpreted as a deliberate
distancing by Washington from his cause.
Nonetheless, the administration has stood by
its recognition of Zelaya as the legitimate
president and has tried to gradually
increase pressure on the Micheletti
government to agree to the Arias Accord.
Immediately after Zelaya's ouster,
Washington suspended some 20 million dollars
worth of bilateral military and economic
assistance and supported moves at the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund to
freeze disbursements to Tegucigalpa.
In August, it cancelled the U.S. visas of
four senior officials of the de facto
regime, an action which it extended to 17
other officials ten days ago.
Earlier this month, the State Department
halted more bilateral economic aid,
including 11 million dollars from the
Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), the
last instalment of a five-year,
215-million-dollar grant initiated by the
administration of President George W. Bush.
At the same time, the State Department
hinted that it would not recognise elections
to be held this fall unless Zelaya was
restored to office.
Each step has evoked major protests from
many Republican lawmakers here who have
depicted Zelaya's ouster as an effort to
save democracy in Honduras from the designs
of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, with
whom Zelaya had become increasingly
associated during his presidency. Indeed, at
least one Republican senator has held up the
confirmation of Obama's top Latin America
aides for months in order to press the
administration to drop its support for
Zelaya.
Florida Rep. Ileana Ros Lehtinen, a
right-wing Cuban American who also serves as
the senior Republican on the Foreign Affairs
Committee of the House of Representatives,
has been among an outspoken group of
right-wing politicians and columnists who
have argued that Zelaya's ouster by the
military was justified under the Honduran
constitution and that Washington should
oppose his restoration and recognise the
Micheletti regime as an interim government
pending elections to be held this fall.
"By withholding support for these elections
absent the return of Manuel Zelaya, the U.S.
is imposing prerequisites that run contrary
to the rule of law and the Honduran
constitution," Ros-Lehtinen declared in a
release issued Monday morning before
Zeleya's return became known. Her office had
no comment on the latest events at press
time.
Groups here that have supported Zelaya's
restoration, however, expressed satisfaction
over the latest news, even as they voiced
concern about the possibility of violence,
especially if the de facto regime attempts
to arrest Zelaya or confront his supporters
who have reportedly been rallying around the
Brazilian Embassy.
"I think it's brilliant that he went to the
Brazilian Embassy, because the prestige and
stature of Brazil and (President Luiz Inacio)
Lula (da Silva) is unmatched in the region,"
said Vicki Gass, an analyst at the
Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a
human rights group here.
"Had it been any other embassy, especially
Venezuela's, the situation could have been
much more explosive, and would be used by
the pro-coup side to bolster claims that
Chavez was pulling the strings," she said.
Brazil's apparent agreement to host Zelaya
also increases the likelihood that
Washington will add its weight to his cause,
if only because the Obama administration has
made cultivating close ties with Brasilia a
top regional priority.
At the same time, the fact that the de facto
regime appears to retain control over the
army also gives them leverage, particularly
at a time when Obama will take centre stage
at the United Nations, which has
consistently called for Zelaya's return.
"The question is, will this go from one
impasse to another," said Gass. "Will the de
facto regime continue to be intransigeant,
or will they see this as an opportunity to
try to bring this a peaceful conclusion. The
concern is that they won't and that violence
will erupt as the pro-constitutional side
clashes with the pro-coup side."
"This could be a recipe for violence," said
Cynthia Arnson, the head of the Latin
America programme at the Wilson Centre for
International Scholars here. "It's
brinkmanship at its height and it's hard to
know what's going to happen next," she said.
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