Negotiations on Honduras Continue

Negotiators for rival camps in Honduras’ standoff are reporting progress but it is still unclear what will happen.

As of now, representatives for ousted President Manuel Zelaya and for the de facto leader Roberto Micheletti say they have managed to agree on 60 percent of the issues.

The negotiations center around the San Jose Accord, which calls for Zelaya’s reinstatement until his term ends, as well as amnesty for him and for those who ousted him from power. The de facto government previously rejected this plan.

Zelaya  was trying to align himself with leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and seeking to illegally change the constitution to allow himself to seek reelection.

Police were forced to repel a violent group of pro-Zelaya demonstrators from the hotel where the negotiations were taking place.

The reports of advances in negations come after a diplomatic delegation left Honduras without resolving the stalemate.

Envoys of the delegation, sponsored by the Organization of American States, met with representatives of both sides, as well as Roberto Micheletti. He criticized the diplomats for failing to understand why Zelaya was forcibly removed from office. Micheletti also criticized the suspension of aid to the Central American nation.

The two groups have yet to agree on the core issue of whether Zelaya will return to power ahead of the scheduled November 29 presidential election.

Union leader Juan Barahona, one of Zelaya’s top three negotiators, told a rally of hundreds of the president’s followers that the joint cabinet, if accepted, would be comprised of ministers from both governments.

The Zelaya camp, he added, opposed amnesty because such a move would mean “amnesia, forgetfulness and forgiveness, and we cannot condone the coup.”

“If after all of this, they say that there is not going to be ­reinstatement [of Zelaya], what difference does it make if we made progress on anything else?” Barahona said. “Tuesday, we are going to get at that key point in detail. If on October 15 we do not have a deal, the talks will have failed.”

The formation of a national unity government and amnesty for crimes linked to the events of last June were two key points of the San Jose reconciliation agenda set out in August, whose central tenet calls for Zelaya’s return to office.

The discussions came ahead of a three-day pause that prolongs the uncertainty of resolving the political crisis that has paralyzed the impoverished Central American country since late June.

The resumption of talks tomorrow will come just two days before the Thursday deadline given by the Zelaya camp for his unconditional return to power.

Ousting Zelaya was the lawful and correct way to proceed because the Honduran Constitution may be amended in any way except three. No amendment can ever change (1) the country’s borders, (2) the rules that limit a president to a single four-year term and (3) the requirement that presidential administrations must “succeed one another” in a “republican form of government.”

In addition, Article 239 specifically states that any president who so much as proposes the permissibility of reelection “shall cease forthwith” in his duties, and Article 4 provides that any “infraction” of the succession rules constitutes treason.

The rules are so tight because these are terribly serious issues for Honduras, which lived under decades of military rule.

The Americano / Agencies

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