Costa Rica: Arias for Early Elections? Vivanco. Swipe at Chavez. Great protest signs.

[magbana]

"Nobel Laureate Arias May Push for Early Honduras Vote (Update1)
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Last thing, first. The best excerpt in the article: "A small group of protesters held a sign near the barricade with images of pigs dressed as police shooting demonstrators. Text on the signs read, “Arias, you’re part of the military coup,” and “Oink, oink, another Nobel.”


By Jens Erik Gould and Bill Faries

July 9 (Bloomberg) -- Oscar Arias, the Costa Rican president who won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for brokering an end to Cold War-era conflict in Central America, is now charged with resolving a political crisis in Honduras.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton helped arrange for Arias to host a meeting in San Jose today between representatives of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, who was deposed and deported in a June 28 coup, and de facto President Roberto Micheletti. Two people have been killed in clashes between Zelaya’s supporters and the armed forces in Honduras, where a Venezuelan plane carrying Zelaya was prevented from landing on July 5.

The Costa Rican wants to prevent more regional governments from being overthrown, he said last week. He may push for Zelaya to be allowed to serve out his term, which ends in January, said Jose Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch Americas in Washington. An alternative is to advance November’s elections, in which neither Zelaya or Micheletti is running for office, said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas in New York.

“Arias is someone who will offer the kind of leadership and credibility to the negotiations that is in everybody’s best interest,” said Vivanco, who said he has known the Nobel laureate for more than 20 years. “He is clearly on the side of democracy, the rule of law and human rights. But he also understands politicians.”

Leaders Arrive

Zelaya and Micheletti met separately with Arias today at his home in San Jose. Police blocked off the area near his residence and television trucks clogged surrounding streets with satellite dishes. Zelaya said after meeting with Arias that he must be restored as president.

Micheletti said upon arriving in San Jose today that he was confident that the mediation will bring a swift resolution to the political situation, and that any solution must conform with Honduras’s constitution.

A small group of protesters held a sign near the barricade with images of pigs dressed as police shooting demonstrators. Text on the signs read, “Arias, you’re part of the military coup,” and “Oink, oink, another Nobel.”

Chavez

The selection of the 68-year-old Arias as mediator robs Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who provided Zelaya’s government with subsidized oil, of the chance to take a lead role, said Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based policy group.

Chavez, who has accused the U.S. military of supporting the coup, may not want the Costa Rican president heading negotiations because Arias is a U.S. ally and free-trade champion who has publicly chided leaders -- including Chavez -- for denying democratic freedoms, said Sergio Moya, a professor of political science at the University of Costa Rica.

In a July 2 news conference, Arias said other fragile democracies might be brought down by armed forces should Zelaya’s ouster be allowed to stand.

“If this coup d’etat receives impunity, we would be opening a path for militaries in Latin America and other parts of the world to distort democracy,” he said.

Arias declined to be interviewed for this story, said Pablo Gueren, an adviser to the president.

Studies

Born in Heredia, Costa Rica, Arias joined the country’s cabinet as minister of planning and economic policy when he was 30 years old, after studying law and economics at the University of Costa Rica and earning a doctorate in political science from the University of Essex in England.

He served as president from 1986 to 1990 and was elected again in 2006. In 2007, he campaigned for the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the U.S., saying it would spur growth and be beneficial to the poor. Voters in Costa Rica, whose economy totaled $30 billion in 2008, approved the pact.

During his first term, Central America was plagued by civil wars fueled by arms and funding from the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The fighting, which ravaged Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador, took the lives of more than 100,000 people, according to Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive in Washington.

Arias orchestrated peace talks with the heads of Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala in 1986 and 1987 and united them behind an accord that Egil Aarvik, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, called “a signpost in the work for peace the whole world over” based on democratic ideals.

National Poll

Zelaya, 56, sparked a power struggle in Honduras when he tried to hold a national poll to gauge support for his proposal to makes changes to the constitution, which the Supreme Court ruled would be illegal. He ignored a court order overturning his firing of the head of the military for refusing to help administer the poll, and later led a group of civilians onto a military base to seize ballots that had been impounded.

Micheletti, head of the Honduran Congress before being sworn in as interim president, has pledged to arrest Zelaya if he returns, saying he faces at least 18 charges handed down by the Supreme Court.

The Organization of American States voted 33-0 on July 5 to suspend Honduras from the regional group.

Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Samuel Santos urged Arias not to give in to “delay tactics,” saying unrest in the region could escalate.

“What’s important is that Arias doesn’t allow that any validity is given to that military coup,” Santos said in an interview. “The risk I see is that the negotiations consume the rest of Zelaya’s term.”

The Costa Rican president acting as mediator offers the best chance for a resolution, according to Hakim of the Inter- American Dialogue.

“Arias is a real bulldog,” Hakim said. “When he wants something there’s no stopping him.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Jens Erik Gould in Mexico City at [e-mail]; Bill Faries in Buenos Aires at [e-mail]
Last Updated: July 9, 2009 16:42 EDT "
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aaMW1BZIY1ew.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Oh, but of course we need a quote from Peter Hakim!

Here's his Source Watch:

Peter Hakim "is president of the Inter-American Dialogue. He writes and speaks widely on hemispheric issues, is regularly interviewed on radio and television, and has testified more than a dozen times before Congress. His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Financial Times, and Christian Science Monitor. He was a vice president of the Inter-American Foundation and worked for the Ford Foundation in both New York and Latin America. He has taught at MIT and Columbia. He currently serves on boards and advisory committees for the Foundation of the Americas, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, Foreign Affairs en Español, Intellibridge Corporation, and Human Rights Watch (see Human Rights Watch Americas Advisory Committee). He is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Peter_Hakim

We have their numbers now, we will have their numbers tomorrow! What a bunch of predictable professional liars.

The remark from Arias about his serving out the rest of his term sounds good, combined with the remark about Arias as someone who is like a bulldog going after something he wants..

Thanks, magbana.

[magbana]

2. Yes, Hakim and Vivanco. Here's the process. The State Dept.

refers the talking points on whatever they want said to the pundits. Then the newspapers interview the pundits and before you know it a story is spreading like wildfire. This is the way the US is managing this situation from Washington.

Today Vivanco is contacted to talk about the Honduras issue and he plants the seed that Arias might be in favor of early elections. You'll note that the title of the article is: "Nobel Laureate Arias may Push for Early Honduras Vote." If you didn't read down into the article to find out that it was Vivanco who planted that seed, you would think that Arias had made the statement and it was a done deal. Of course, I think it IS a done deal and guys like Vivanco are the ones who build the momentum. I think we can expect to hear this theme repeated by many right-wingers over the next few days.

And Hakim. Inter-American Monologue. I imagine he had much more substantive talking points, but he couldn't get it together and decided to talk about how tough Arias is.

Zelaya is screwed and, as Eva says, his only possibility of getting back to the presidential palace is ALBA.

[magbana]

3. Just as I posted the above comment about Hakim and the Inter-

American Monology, I get an email from the Monologue that has a series of articles, including this one. What a hack job on Zelaya.

"Zelaya's point of no return

By Michael Lisman
Guardian, July 7, 2009


As Honduras enters its second week of political crisis, the international community is beginning to take a second look at the murky circumstances under which the Honduran president Manuel Zelaya was removed from office and exiled from the country on June 28.

Until last weekend, world leaders were unanimous in their condemnation of the so-called military coup. But having been forced to watch the spectacle continue for a second straight week, the world has now become painfully aware of two things they had not anticipated.

The first is how ardent, unanimous, and organized the interim government in Honduras is against any sort of reprieve for Zelaya, much less his reinstatement.

The second is how erratic and unfit for leadership Zelaya has become. Both realisations have caused diplomats to rethink their strategies in the push for Zelaya's immediate and unrestricted return to power. As the standoff continues this week, the international community would be wise to bite its tongue and instead, push for what world leaders initially called a "Honduran solution" – even if it's not the one they had in mind.

Last week's stance was simple: whether or not Zelaya's ouster is deemed a coup or not, removal of a democratically elected president by military force cannot be endorsed. With little further understanding of the contemporary politics of Honduras, this was the starting point with which the international community reacted. Initially, it appeared highly unlikely that the interim government assembled last week would be able to resist the mounting international pressure and growing isolation to reinstate Zelaya. Central American neighbours temporarily closed their borders to Honduras, donor agencies suspended aid, and some governments even threatened military intervention. As of last week, not a single country had agreed to recognise Roberto Micheletti as the new head of state. For one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere, economic and political isolation in the name of liberty is simply not tenable, so the reasoning went.

Over the weekend, that reasoning changed. On Sunday, Zelaya's triumphant return was stymied by a determined Honduran military, and bolstered by popular support for the interim government. Zelaya's premature and embarrassing return attempt may well prove to be the turning point in this high-stakes drama. As the clock ticks on Zelaya's comeback, the option of moving up November's elections to September becomes an increasingly appealing resolution for the international community.

Widely reviled by the political class in Honduras (including the leaders of his own Honduran Liberal Party), Zelaya is now known not only as the hapless president ousted at gunpoint in his pajamas, but also by his atrocious governance record and erratic behaviour – which includes nearly doubling the minimum wage to the severe detriment of his country's economy, repeatedly refusing to submit a 2009 budget to congress, and ultimately disavowing both legislative and judicial checks on his power. Some countries, such as Canada, Taiwan and Israel are beginning to hedge their initial tacit support for Zelaya's return. Others that were only last week pushing for Zelaya's reinstatement are starting to realise that the bloodshed and turmoil that his return would inevitably cause may simply not be worth the trouble.

With the standoff as it is, key international leaders and organisations should take the following steps – some of which they may already be doing behind closed doors - to help Honduras move forward.

First, someone in Micheletti's circle needs to help his interim government understand the necessity of managing its international public relations to help position itself for the coming negotiations. Loyalist partisans now serving as spokespeople for the government have failed miserably in persuading anyone outside of Tegucigalpa that the Honduran constitution – which has no single mention of a provision for the removal of a president from office – provides a legal basis for their actions. Blind intransigence worked to create the impasse thus far, but it will undercut their position as they seek to regain the confidence and repeal the sanctions of their allies, as well to placate a confused and increasingly indignant Honduran population.

Second, outsiders must ratchet down the rhetoric on "the future of Hemispheric democracy," the pressure to cut out aid for the poor, and the impending loss of OAS membership. They should focus less on pure democratic principles – which have clearly failed Hondurans in one way or another over the past several months – and more on pragmatic solutions that take into account both the precarious conditions on the ground and alternative resolutions that don't necessarily include Zelaya's full restoration.

Third, as Zelaya returns this week to Washington DC for meetings, key players like Hillary Clinton and Jose Miguel Insulza should take the opportunity to privately remind Zelaya and his entourage that without widespread international support, he would quickly join the lonely ranks of other regional coup victims such as Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Ecuador's Jamil Mahuad – inept and corrupt heads of state that were also removed from office, but with less than fierce global support for their respective reinstatements (both men live quite comfortably in exile today).

This might temper Zelaya's sense of entitlement and help him see the merit of scenarios that entail him standing down for the good and safety of his country. If some world leaders – perhaps Brazil's Lula – can shake some sense into Zelaya by threatening to temper international support, Zelaya could be forced to acquiesce to a brokered deal of immunity in return for a voluntary resignation. If he refuses, his only other option would be taking shelter within the Latin American left led by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, a bloc which would make him a political martyr but likely be ineffective in retuning him to power, especially as the Honduran interim government seeks to run out the clock on Zelaya's remaining term in office.

We now know that a deal must be brokered, and that cooler heads must prevail. In order to curtail increased suffering and possible bloodshed, swift action towards a peaceful resolution is called for. Swift action this week, however, as opposed to last week, will now need to be coupled with more nuanced consideration of the problems and a focus on pragmatic solutions.

"
http://www.thedialogue.org/page.cfm?pageID=32&pubID=2026

[EFerrari]

4. Iirc, Hakim was on the al Jazeera report tonight.

I guess it's time to take a counter swipe at that mendigo Vivanco.