ARIAS TO PROPOSE A RECONCILIATION GOV'T. IN HONDURAS

[magbana]

"Mediator to propose reconciliation gvt in Honduras

By JUAN ZAMORANO (AP) – 1 hour ago

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — The mediator in Honduras' political crisis said he will propose a national reconciliation government during the next round of talks, while ousted President Manuel Zelaya prepared a second bid to return home to reclaim power.

Negotiations to end the standoff over a June 28 military-backed coup have increasingly come under fire, with Zelaya's supporters saying they will declare them failed if he is not reinstated during Saturday's talks and Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez criticizing them as a U.S.-backed trap.

Zelaya's foreign minister, Patricia Rodas, said late Thursday that the exiled president was en route to Honduras to set up an alternative seat of government somewhere in the country from which to wage a "final battle" against coup leaders. Interim President Roberto Micheletti has vowed to arrest Zelaya if he returns.

Zelaya himself, speaking from Nicaragua, told Venezuelan state television late Thursday that the weekend talks hold out a moment of hope for a solution, but said he was keeping up preparations for a return.

"I am preparing various alternatives: by air, by land, and others," he said.

In Honduras, scores of his supporters, meanwhile, gathered to block the main highway connecting Tegucigalpa to the Caribbean coast Friday.

With fears of conflict rising, the chief mediator, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, acknowledged the urgency of getting a deal quickly, saying that "we must remember that time is gold."

"I am going to propose various ideas (at the talks); for example installing a government of national reconciliation, a coalition of key ministers such as of finance, security, the interior or government. I'll see if we can talk of amnesties and for whom," Arias said in an interview with the radio program, Nuestra Voz.

Arias, who won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for helping end Central America's civil wars, said a proposal to advance Honduras' elections from the scheduled November date was not considered necessary.

Delegations representing Zelaya and Micheletti are expected to join the second round of talks Saturday in Costa Rica under Arias' guidance, but hopes for a resolution appear slim.

When he was last seen in public, Zelaya vowed to return if Saturday's talks don't immediately result in his reinstatement and he said Hondurans have a constitutional right to launch an insurrection against an illegitimate government.

Rodas reinforced that, saying Zelaya's delegation has nothing to negotiate. It will simply demand that the "illegal regime surrender peacefully," and if it doesn't, Zelaya's side will declare the mediation to have failed, she said.

Micheletti, the former congressional leader who was sworn in to serve out the final months of Zelaya's term, offered Wednesday to step down if there were guarantees that Zelaya would not return to power.

Arias rejected that proposal, saying the reinstatement of Zelaya was necessary.

But Micheletti on Thursday repeated his refusal to consider Zelaya regaining the presidency.

"If he comes and presents himself to authorities, he is welcome in our country. But if he comes with the intention of starting a revolutionary movement then he will find a people disposed to do anything," Micheletti said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged "a peaceful, negotiated resolution" and said all involved should "refrain from actions that could result in violence."

Zelaya's supporters have not said how Zelaya would return or when he planned to enter the country.

"Our president will be in Honduras at some point and some moment. He is already on his way. God protect him and the people of the Americas who are with him," Rodas told reporters in La Paz, Bolivia, where she joined a meeting of leftist presidents.

"The establishment and installation of an alternative seat of government will be to direct what I will call the final battle" against leaders of the coup that toppled Zelaya, she said.

If Zelaya does try to re-enter Honduras, it would be his second attempt since masked soldiers shot up his house and flew him to Costa Rica in his pajamas early on June 28. His first attempt was thwarted July 5 when military vehicles on the runway blocked his Venezuelan plane from landing in Tegucigalpa.

The Supreme Court had issued an arrest warrant for Zelaya before the coup, ruling his effort to hold a referendum on whether to form a constitutional assembly was illegal. The military decided to send him into exile instead — a move that military lawyers have since acknowledged violated the constitution.

Associated Press writers Carlos Valdez in La Paz, Bolivia, Freddy Cuevas in Tegucigalpa, Marianela Jimenez in Costa Rica, and Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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[magbana]

1. The last sentence of an article

that can be found at: http://english.eluniversal.com/2009/07/17/en_pol_esp_mi... says Micheletti rejected a reconciliation gov't. proposal.

[Peace Patriot]

2. "...he is welcome to OUR country." Wow! What nerve!

"'If he comes and presents himself to authorities, he is welcome in our country. But if he comes with the intention of starting a revolutionary movement then he will find a people disposed to do anything,' Micheletti said."

Zelaya is not just a Honduran, he is the elected president of Honduras. The coup has no legitimacy--at all. They merely have power. Their coup has been condemned by everyone in the world. They are not the "authorities" in Honduras. They are usurpers.

"...welcome in OUR country." ??!! Sheesh!

Whatever Zelaya proposed for a vote of the people--even if it had been illegal, which it clearly wasn't--there are proper ways to oppose it, challenge it, stop it. Hell, the Honduran oligarchy has control of the courts, the national assembly and all the wealth, including US taxpayer largesse. If they had a beef with Zelaya, why didn't they take it to court, or before the national assembly, and have a fair hearing from his side and from theirs? They didn't even bother to cook up an unfair hearing--they shot up the presidential palace and dragged him from his bed at gunpoint! What does that say about the legitimacy of their beef with Zelaya, and the legitimacy of the coup government they replaced him with? They can't take criticism. They can't afford a fair hearing or open debate. They immediately shut down the media to prevent it.

I think that this rich elite in Honduras is sick, like the rich elite in Venezuela and in Bolivia. They really think it is "THEIR" country. The "little" people--the vast poor majority--don't count. They are an insular and inbred group of parasites. As in Venezuela and Bolivia, they have done absolutely nothing to improve their countries. Education is neglected, health care, local infrastructure. Their idea of enterprise is a foreign-owned sweatshop. Much like Bushites, they don't create anything--they live off of others' creativity and labor, and give nothing back. "OUR country." Unbelievable.

[Judi Lynn]

3. That's so ugly. If anyone has the right to think of Honduras as "ours," it's the people whose

entire family tree is planted firmly in the Americas! The same people Micheletti and his ilk use for sustenance itself, yet aspire to keep totally helpless and broken.

At least Zelaya's family history in Honduras goes back 400 years. It's very doubtful Micheletti can say the same!