""Exile and Return": Unpublished Column of Anibal Delgado Fiallos

The author, an economist and university professor, and as his column shows, not a supporter of President Zelaya, writes (my translation):

This article, corresponding to my weekly column on Thursday in the newspaper La Prensa, was not published today [July 2]. I ask that you circulate it.

Exile and Return

Despite my differences from President Zelaya and his project of the "Cuarta Urna", I could not be less than indignant when I knew that he had been captured, extracted from his house and expelled from the country; it was a coup d'etat at a moment in the history of America where no one expected that an event of this nature would occur.

No citizen deserves such treatment; the Constitution proclaims that the residence is inviolable, that no Honduran can be expatriated, and that no person can be detained or made prisoner, except in those cases that the Law determines, and by virtue of a written order from a competent authority.

I think that the legislative session of Sunday the 28th was marred by this sinister act that preceded it and that this is what motivates the repudiation of the international community; no one has been able to explain to me why a constitutional solution had to take place by such a despicable act.

I reckon that the president had fallen into excesses in his proposal to drive at a gallop a project that he never was able to explain with total transparency, nor overcome the great resistance of important sectors of society, but a coup de'etat should never be considered as an option.

Dialogue and intelligent consensus would have avoided grave outcomes, but there was no ability to avoid the confrontation in those dramatic moments when confusion and anguish gripped the spirit of everyone.

Undoubtedly now the political position of President Zelaya has been strengthened and on his return to power, which is almost certain to occur, he will have to use it to, on new grounds, activate the mechanisms of dialogue with international accompaniment to assume a new conduct and consensus about the factors that generated the crisis.

I see the problem not in the ideas of change, citizen participation or popular consultation that are correct, but on the relevance of a new Constitution whose ideological definitions no one knows, the transparency of the strategies and the suitability of the team promoting the project.

In what concerns me I should assume an ethical position within the active dissent: condemn the coup and unite with the sectors of the population that demand the reinstallation of don Manuel Zelaya in the presidency of the Republic.

I predict that the government of Mr. Micheletti will be very transitory because he will not defeat two obstacles: the growing popular discontent and the pressure of the international community, that not only affects commercial relations but also extends to sports, and in Honduras that is serious.