NYT is Stirring the Pot:: "Some Terms Reached in Honduras Dispute"

[magbana]

Can anyone confirm what is in this article such as statements made or TV interviews with Zelaya, Arias? This sounds like, "oh boy, isn't the world on the verge of being wonderful?" and then you realize you should wait until the other shoe drops.

A unity government? Zelaya MUST return even if with limited powers? Both parties agree to amnesty?

Stay tuned.

"Some Terms Reached in Honduras Dispute
Published: July 16, 2009

WASHINGTON — The chief negotiator for the political standoff in Honduras said Thursday that the two camps in the crisis had agreed to a number of compromises, including the formation of a so-called unity government and amnesty for crimes committed by both sides.

But, the negotiator warned, the two sides were still far apart on the central point of contention — the reinstatement of the ousted president — making it unlikely that they would reach a deal when talks formally resume this weekend. Indeed, tensions between the camps remain high, with the deposed president threatening to sneak back into the country and the de facto government enforcing a curfew after warning that armed groups were planning a rebellion.

The negotiator, President Óscar Arias of Costa Rica, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, said both sides had agreed to some form of unity government that would include members of all political parties and serve as a check on presidential powers. Fears that the deposed president, Manuel Zelaya, was trying to subvert the Constitution and extend his tenure were a driving force behind his ouster last month.

The two sides have also agreed to amnesty, Mr. Arias said, both for those who ousted Mr. Zelaya and for Mr. Zelaya himself, who has been threatened with arrest if he returns to Honduras. The de facto government of Honduras says Mr. Zelaya was legally removed based on a warrant for his arrest. But nations around the world, whether through the United Nations General Assembly or the Organization of American States, have denounced his ouster as an illegal coup.

Roberto Micheletti, the interim president in Honduras’s de facto government, said Wednesday that he would step down, but not if Mr. Zelaya returned to power. Mr. Arias dismissed that option, saying there would be no agreement without the president’s reinstatement, even if it meant Mr. Zelaya went back with significantly limited powers. Both sides have agreed, however, to invite international monitors to watch over the next presidential elections, which are scheduled for November, Mr. Arias said.

Despite the gulf that remains over Mr. Zelaya’s return to power, Mr. Arias said that he expected “some significant advances” when talks resume this weekend in Costa Rica, though he cautioned that whatever ground had been reached could dissolve. The first round of negotiations got off to a shaky start last week, when Mr. Zelaya and Mr. Micheletti left hours after they began and never met face to face.

Hundreds of Zelaya supporters blocked highways in Honduras on Thursday, as Patricia Rodas, the former foreign minister under Mr. Zelaya, said the ousted president was “on his way” back to the country, without specifying when or how he would enter, The Associated Press reported.
Sign in to Recommend Next Article in World (15 of 32) » A version of this article appeared in print on July 17, 2009, on page A9 of the New York edition.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/world/americas/17honduras.html

[flamingdem]

1. It looks like a war of words

since Zelaya discussed amnesty in strong terms and we see here that it is on the table.

Looks like they are still negotiating. But there is no good way out for the coupists.
They are going to get served if Zelaya regains power.

What is a presidency without powers? As if.

For sure the NYT knows something however.

[Downwinder]

2. and there might be weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

[Peace Patriot]

3. The coup and its US instigators (John Negroponte, John McCain, Otto Reich et al)

will have accomplished a number of important fascist goals if Zelaya is re-instated but with limited powers.

1. The end to reform. Zelaya raised the minimum wage, for instance--having recognized that US-dominated "free trade" was impoverishing Honduran workers. He also proposed a national discussion of the Constitution, and possible re-write and vote of the people on a new Constitution. The current one was written during the Reagan "reign of terror," to favor the rich elite and the Honduran military. There is also the issue of control of telecommunications (John McCain's particular interest in this coup--his US taxpayer funded "International Republican Institute" has poured millions into rightwing groups in Honduras to prevent nationalization and public control of telecommunications networks). All such reform will be squelched--or attempted to be squelched--and Hondurans will remain, for the time being, an extremely impoverished slave labor force for US and other corporations, propagandized by a corpo/fascist media that is even worse than ours. (The coup shut down all opposition and neutral news outlets in Honduras.)

2. Entrenchment of the US military in Honduras--for potential use in a war to grab Venezuela's oil, and for other dirty rotten schemes. Zelaya had proposed converting the US air base in Honduras to a commercial airport. Popular opinion in Latin America greatly opposes the presence of the US military in their countries, and their is increasing official opposition to the failed, corrupt, murderous US "war on drugs." Ecuador is throwing the US base at Manta out of Ecuador, and the Pentagon is fast building several bases in Colombia (a US client state) to replace it. Honduras is strategically located on the borders of three countries that now have leftist-democratic governments--Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala--and has a long coast on the Caribbean. Venezuela's main oil reserves and operations on located on its Caribbean coast. The Bushwhacks reconstituted the US 4th Fleet in the Caribbean last summer--a move that alarmed even more centrist presidents like Lula da Silva of Brazil.

3. The Honduran alliance with ALBA--a Venezuelan organized barter trade group--that has greatly benefited Honduras with cheap Venezuelan oil, and other such alliances, may be jeopardized. It is greatly in the interest of poor countries to band together to improve their collective economic and political clout. Zelaya recognized this and joined ALBA. South America has formed a "common market" (UNASUR), which is dominated by leftist governments (as is the OAS--a reflection of the overwhelming leftist trend in Latin America). UNASUR could extend into Central America and create one of the most powerful trade blocks in the world. It is absolutely in the interest of small countries like Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, to join with bigger, social justice friendly powers like Venezuela and Brazil. But with "limited powers" for Zelaya (whatever that may mean), and elections pending in November (in which he cannot be a candidate), all these new and positive relationships may be severely retarded if not stopped altogether, and it is an open question whether or not--given what the coup has done so far--the left can mount a good candidate and get him or her elected, along with a good national legislature. They've killed several activists already. They've jailed over a thousand political prisoners. They've basically shut down the media. (Only the pro-fascist media is allowed to broadcast.) How can all this be remedied in the three months between now and November, even if the lifting of martial law began today?

Negroponte and pals have created a fascist state, and, even with international election monitors, they will be running the election. So everything that Zelaya has done, in foreign policy, to the benefit of Honduras, could be undone. The rich elite in Honduras is an insular, inbred crowd, much like the rich elite in Venezuela and in Bolivia. They have their land and their paychecks from the US and their offshore bank accounts. They benefit from the impoverishment of their poor countrymen and women. They are happy with being paid whores of the US. They want to give nothing back--not in education, health care, local infrastructure--nothing. They are not patriotic. They are RICH. They leech off their country and off of us. They have no vision. That is how Honduras will continue to be run, if Zelaya returns with "limited powers." And that will be a victory for the Bushwhacks.

These three triumphs of the Bushwhacks in Honduras may not last long. As I said, the trend in Latin America is overwhelmingly leftist-democratic and pro-social justice. The only way that a rich elite can resist it is with bloody repression, as in Colombia. And I don't think that such a regime could survive long in Honduras, even with tacit Obama administration support, and despite Honduras' history. They've tried to turn it into Colombia, but I don't think they can.

[flamingdem]

4. It's interesting to listen to the leaders on Radio Progreso

They're very clear that they want a constitutional assembly and that this is not just about Zelaya.