NarcoNews: "Micheletti Blinks: Zelaya's Return Not Barred from Costa Rica Mediation"

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http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2009/07/micheletti-blinks-zelayas-return-not-barred-costa-rica-mediation

Micheletti Blinks: Zelaya's Return Not Barred from Costa Rica Mediation
Posted by Kristin Bricker - July 7, 2009 at 11:21 pm

Micheletti Backed Down from Previous Statements that Zelaya's Return is "Not Negotiable"

All eyes were on Washington on Tuesday as dueling Honduran commissions vied for the international community's support. On one side, ousted President Manuel Zelaya met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. On the other side, Honduran businessmen and politicians who support the coup government--but did not "officially" represent it--attempted to "clean up Honduras' image at the international level." They got nowhere.

Both Zelaya and coup-imposed President Roberto Micheletti have agreed to mediations led by Costa Rican President Óscar Arias Sánchez. The mediation will begin on Thursday in President Arias' house in Costa Rica. Zelaya will arrive in Costa Rica on Wednesday night, and Micheletti is scheduled to arrive on Thursday morning. One crucial sticking point is on the table: Zelaya's return to power--something that prior to now was "not negotiable" according to Micheletti.

In One Corner: Zelaya

Before entering a closed-door meeting with Clinton, Zelaya told reporters, "Have no doubt, I will return to Honduras. But I won't say how, because otherwise they will wait for me in any town or state."

The LA Times reports that Zelaya cabinet member Luis Roland Valenzuela hinted that Zelaya's next attempt to enter Honduras would be over land: "This time he won't fly into the lion's mouth." Valenzuela told the LA Times that Zelaya would make a second attempt to re-enter Honduras as early as this Wednesday. Zelaya did not give an exact date for his return in speaking with the press. However, Zelaya's return date appears to have been postponed pending the outcome of Thursday's mediation, which he agreed to after meeting with Clinton on Tuesday.

Zelaya has already postponed one attempt to return to Tegucigalpa to allow diplomatic processes to play out. He had originally scheduled his first return attempt for last Thursday, July 2, but postponed it to this past Sunday in order to let the Organization of American States (OAS) 72-hour ultimatum to the Micheletti government expire.

Neither Clinton nor Zelaya have released any details about what they discussed during their meeting. However, the AP reports:

A senior U.S. official said one option being considered would be to forge a compromise under which Zelaya would be allowed to return and serve out his remaining six months in office with limited powers.

Zelaya, in return, would pledge to drop his aspirations for a constitutional change that might allow him to run for another term, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the diplomatic exchanges.

The second paragraph quoted above is ambiguous due to widespread misunderstanding that surrounded the opinion poll Zelaya wished to carry out on June 28. It has been widely reported that Zelaya was pushing for a new Constitution so that he could run for a second term in office. Honduras' Constitution currently prohibits presidents from running for a second term. However, as Narco News reported on June 27, it was Zelaya opponents, not Zelaya himself, who raised the issue of re-election in a new Constitution. Zelaya has never said that he would seek re-election; on the contrary, he has repeatedly stated that his term ends on January 27, 2010, when his current term expires.

Given this widespread confusion regarding Zelaya's true intentions in the June 28 opinion poll, the AP's report that the State Department might want Zelaya to agree to "drop his aspirations for a constitutional change that might allow him to run for another term" can be read two ways:

1. That he may have to add a clause to any future attempt to re-write the Constitution prohibiting changes to the current Constitution's article that bars presidents from running for re-election. Or
2. That he may have to completely drop his campaign to re-write the Constitution.

It is important to note that the State Department official's statements represent one of several options reportedly floated by his or her department. Regardless of what possible solutions the State Department might have proposed, the US government will not participate in the Costa Rica mediation.

Zelaya, for his part, insists that Thursday's mediation is by no means a "negotiation." He told a press conference following his meeting with Clinton, "We are not holding a negotiation. There are things that are non-negotiable—the restitution of constitutional order in Honduras," meaning his return to power.

Zelaya sent a direct message to his supporters to keep up the protests as he goes into mediation with Micheletti, "You have to keep up the struggle so that your opinion is respected, we've always won our civil rights through struggle." Even though he does not consider the mediation to be negotiation, sustained protests and direct action will give him considerably more power to assure that the will of the people is respected and that his powers as President aren't limited upon his return.

In the Other Corner: The Golpistas

Whereas Zelaya hasn't publicly agreed to any conditions going into the mediation, the Micheletti regime has found itself eating a big serving of humble pie. Up until now, Micheletti's government had insisted that Zelaya's return "is not negotiable."

The Christian Science Monitor reports that all possible solutions to the crisis floated by the US State Department include Zelaya's return to power. US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told the press that the United States is urging a "peaceful, constitutional, and lasting solution to the serious divisions in that country through dialogue.... In the most immediate instance it means the return of the democratically elected president to Tegucigalpa."

Clinton, for her part, said "It is our hope that through this dialogue mechanism overseen by President Arias that there can be a restoration of democratic, constitutional order, a peaceful resolution of this matter that will enable the Honduran people to see the restoration of democracy and a more peaceful future going forward."

These statements mean that Micheletti, whose government has made it clear that it will not negotiate Zelaya's return to power, is now entering into a mediation where Zelaya's return is most certainly on the table.

The big question going into the mediations, then, is whether Micheletti will take advantage of an opportunity to negotiate a way out of his current predicament--being the leader of the one of the most universally unpopular coups ever--or whether he'll continue to hold on for dear life to his "coup and me against the world" stance, as Narco News' Al Giordano so eloquently put it.

Micheletti's hand is looking increasingly weaker. In a move that was severely over-hyped in Honduras' pro-coup press, a delegation of pro-coup Honduran businessmen and politicians went to Washington on Monday in an attempt to "clean up Honduras' image." Their goal: get US press with international reach to cover their version of the Honduran crisis. So far they've been very unsuccessful, judging from the deafening silence in the media regarding their presence in the US.

Their other goal is to meet with representatives of the OAS. A similar delegation sent by the coup government last week came back empty-handed. Even the pro-coup Honduran press had to admit that "it is speculated that the OAS didn't receive them due to the fact that that organism does not recognize Roberto Micheletti's government." As much as the pro-coup press tried to soften the blow of rejection, OAS Secretary General made it very clear that the delegation's rejection wasn't simple speculation; he told the press that he had no intentions of meeting with the coup's delegation.

The new pro-coup commission that arrived on Monday claims that OAS representatives have agreed to dialogue with them. Given the OAS' outright rejection of the coup and its refusal to recognize the coup government, if the coup commission's claims of an OAS dialogue are true, it's not likely it will be very fruitful."