Zelaya En Route to Dominican Republic

Manuel Zelaya Rosales went by car from the Brazilian embassy to Toncontin International Airport about 20 minutes ago and arrived at the airforce base there. He was accompanied by his wife, a daughter, Rasel Tomé and escorted by President Porfirio Lobo Sosa, fresh from his inauguration ceremony, President Colom of Guatemala, and President Fernandez of the Dominican Republic. At the same time, the other people within the Brazilian embassy who were Zelaya supporters left the embassy without incident, La Tribuna reported. At the airport was a large crowd organized by the Frente de Resistencia to see him off. Crowd photos showed that there were many thousand people gathered peacefully there. At the air force base the Zelayas and Tomé boarded a twin engine Embraer jet, which has just taken off for the Dominican Republic.

Update 2:35 pm PST: The spokesperson for President Alvaro Colom of Guatemala is denying that Colom attended Lobo Sosa's inauguration and accompanied Zelaya to Toncontin Airport as various Honduran newspapers have reported today.

Update 4:21 pm PST: Zelaya has arrived in the Dominican Republic. La Tribuna reports that General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez was at the Airport to see Zelaya off. "Political phenomena are one thing, another is the friends you keep," Vasquez Velasquez told the press.

Thanks to our good friends in the Honduran anthropological and historical research community for the photo reproduced here of the long line of marchers headed to the airport to see Mel Zelaya off.

More US spin on Honduras...

is brought to you by Voice of America, which starts its story from this morning with the following headline and tagline:

Honduran Congress Grants Zelaya, Coup Plotters Amnesty

Supreme Court also clears military of criminal charges; both moves seen as steps toward national reconciliation before President-elect Lobo takes office Wednesday.

Really? seen as "steps toward national reconciliation" by whom?

From the very first version of the US-inspired San Jose Accord, there has been a proposal for amnesty in the agreements that were proposed to end the coup.

Just as consistently, both sides in Honduras have rejected the call for amnesty. Some English-language commentaries suggested this was due to the fierce animosity between the two sides, and the desire by both to keep open the possibility for revenge prosecution.

But as we are seeing now, the issue for Hondurans is actually a good deal more complex than amnesty/no amnesty. Papered over in the VOA story is the continued uncertainty about the status of the additional bill of charges against President Zelaya, produced after the installation of the coup regime, which are not covered by this amnesty. The amnesty, as we noted in the previous post, is for specific identified crimes, those considered "political" or connected to them.

The debate in congress and the party-line split vote reveal major disagreement about the best way toward "national reconciliation" within the Congress itself.

What we are seeing in the spin given these moves by VOA is the US perspective. The US insists that Honduras go through a theatrical performance of enacting the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord even though that brokered compromise absolutely failed and is utterly irrelevant now. One hopes the US State Department doesn't suffer the illusion that Zelaya will not be prosecuted when he eventually returns to Honduras, because if so, they will likely be disappointed.

It is perhaps not too much to treat the VOA article as a proxy for how the US State Department would like to rewrite the story of the coup. From that perspective, two further things leap out.

First, in reporting on the shameless use of the Supreme Court as a mechanism to cleanse the Armed Forces of all responsibility for their actions on June 28, the VOA states that the Court found that the Armed Forces "acted to preserve peace in Honduras". That is certainly part of the court's argument; but by selecting that piece, and leaving out the part about the Armed Forces not acting out of "malice", the VOA gives a tweaked impression of the arguments being offered to justify the Armed Forces violating the Constitution as well as exceeding the Supreme Court warrant produced to justify their actions.

Bad enough that good intentions alone can clear the military of wrong-doing (thus creating a precedent for future interventions in government "to preserve peace". Are you listening, Pepe?) But perhaps it would be worth paying attention to the fact that the Honduran stakeholders feel there is something more involved: the question of whether people were motivated not just by their better angels, but by "malice". This is not a conflict that will be sanitized by formalized actions.

Which is, in essence, what the Congressional debate over "amnesty" showed. In our post from yesterday, we simply reported that the Liberal party abstained. The real story is more complicated, as Tiempo reported in the article we linked to in the previous post:

The Liberal Party abstained from voting because they could not come to agreement, since only 8 had defined a position (five against and three in favor), while among the rest there were diverse positions on the sense that it was necessary to know in depth the reach of the project [of amnesty], to socialize the decision more, to listen first to the Truth Commission and then consult the people in a plebiscite.

(For the public consultation observers out here, that would be consultar el pueblo en un plebiscito...)

In other words: the Liberal Party congress members are wary of how the Honduran public will react. As the party that occupied both sides in the coup, they have been burned the most by the political fallout. And they are worried about who this will affect, what the public will think about it, and how it will harmonize with the expected Truth Commission. Better to get the public to ratify it and relieve the political pressure.

And the second thing that leaps out in the VOA article: even to the bitter end, the English language media still think the real cause of this coup was a non-existent attempt to prolong the current Presidential term in office; as the last sentence of this meretricious piece of writing sums up the whole sordid seven months

Mr. Zelaya's opponents say he was ousted because he was trying to illegally change the constitution to extend his term in office. [emphasis added]

And VOA, like the US State Department, gives those "opponents"-- the architects of the coup-- the last word.

**********
[Nerdy word usage aside here: technically, the verb "socializar" has two meanings, the first to privatize something, as in State seizure of property, and the second

Promover las condiciones sociales que, independientemente de las relaciones con el Estado, favorezcan en los seres humanos el desarrollo integral de su persona

To promote the social conditions that, independently of relations with the State, favor in human beings the integral development of their persons.

The closest to the sense here would be that the Liberal Party congress members feel the need to promote the idea of amnesty among Honduran society, to introduce it as a social value that presumably they are not sure already exists. In other words, they are dubious that amnesty is part of the Honduran habitus.

How badly can the press distort Honduras news?

Infinitely, it would seem.

Late Tuesday, Reuters reports say, the Honduran Congress voted an amnesty for José Manuel Zelaya Rosales.

Reuters news wire headlined its story "Zelaya to exit Honduras in win for coup leaders". According to Reuters, Zelaya is headed into "exile" although the "political amnesty" voted by Congress would not affect "the criminal charges hanging over him".

Only one problem with this account: it isn't quite accurate.

As reported in a story posted at 12:24 AM (Honduras time) in Tiempo,

The National Congress last night approved amnesty for political crimes and the common crimes connected to them before and after the overthrow of President Manuel Zelaya, but did not include acts of corruption such as the use of State resoures to support the "cuarta urna" [campaign], nor violations of human rights such as homicides, tortures, and other outrages against demonstrators.

Explicitly listed as included in the amnesty were the following crimes:

Delitos de traición a la patria.
Delitos contra la forma de gobierno.
Sedición.
Terrorismo.

Abuso de autoridad.
Violación de los deberes de los funcionarios.
Desobediencia.
Usurpación de funciones.

Of these, traición, delitos contra la forma de gobierno, abuso de autoridad, and usurpación de funciones (treason, offenses against the form of government, abuse of authority, and usurpation of functions) are the specific crimes included in the petition against President Zelaya submitted to the Supreme Court, which should mean that the original arrest warrant against him is now moot.

But these are also the most likely crimes with which the de facto regime and other coup participants could have been charged. So the bill passed by Congress actually is at least as much about protecting the authors of the coup as about achieving some sort of reconciliation. The addition of sedition, terrorism, and disobedience, not part of the warrant against Zelaya raises the question, who exactly is being helped by this part of the new law?

Even more forcefully pushing the idea that everything is now just fine in Honduras, the Washington Post headlines its story "New Honduran leader to take office, ending turmoil".

How easy is that! all that unrest just melting away...

Too bad that coverage of the actual Congressional action exposes that as wishful thinking, even if we only take into account continued controversy within the elected national government (and ignore for the moment the existence of a well-organized Resistance sworn to continue advocating for constitutional reform).

Again as reported in Tiempo, the bill passed by the Congress drew not a single vote from the Liberal party, which abstained en masse, while the UD party members voted against it.

Congress member Marvin Ponce said that "practically, the golpistas are pardoning their victims". This was in reaction to the incorporation in the prologue to the bill of statements exonerating Roberto Micheletti, the members of Congress who illegally elevated him to power, and the Armed Forces from having violated the Constitution or committed a coup.

As UD party congress member Sergio Castellanos said, “congress members cannot self-pardon for the coup d'etat, they cannot pardon those who assassinated more than 100 persons, those that converted a city into a concentration camp."

The National party urged the Congress to act because it is what the international community has demanded as a condition to restart aid. Other parties remained unconvinced of the idea, with many suggesting Congress should wait for the truth commission mandated by the San Jose-Tegucigalpa Accord to "say what it was that really happened and who were the guilty parties".

So no, the inauguration isn't going to make the whole coup go away magically. No matter how much the English-language media try to cast Pepe Lobo as a charismatic leader destined to heal the nation.

The first sentence of the Post's story could have be describing the 2006 inauguration:

A conservative rancher is being sworn in as Honduras' new president...

Remember when it was Zelaya who was the new conservative rancher president? No? well, don't worry: neither does the amnesiac English-language press.

The Post continues:

The left-leaning Zelaya said he would accept that he was no longer president - but only the moment his four-year constitutional term officially ended Wednesday.

Um... OK: President Zelaya at least knows that he is no longer President when his term ends, even if the Post seems surprised by this. It would be nice if I were sure that the Post understands that he is still President now, even if he is kept prisoner by an illegitimate regime. Apparently, they were expecting maybe that Zelaya would insist he was still President? Noting that the November election was illegitimate isn't the same as arguing for the extension of his own term in office...

But even a broken clock is right twice a day. The Reuters story concluded

As a sign that Honduras is trying to erase memories of the coup, a Supreme Court judge cleared military leaders of any wrongdoing on Tuesday after prosecutors accused them of abuse of power for rousting Zelaya from his bed at gunpoint.

To "erase memories of the coup".

That does sound like a pretty good description of what the Court was hoping to accomplish.

Somehow, I don't believe that the Honduran people will actually be forgetting this past seven months anytime soon.

But at least the Supreme Court has relieved them of having to confront what has happened. Much better to suppress those memories and live in denial.

Lobo Will Accompany Zelaya to Airport

The Spanish website ABC reported late this afternoon that Porfirio Lobo Sosa will accompany Manuel Zelaya Rosales from the Brazilian Embassy to Toncontin International airport in Tegucigalpa after Lobo Sosa's inauguration. Lobo Sosa will be accompanied by President Fernandez of the Dominican Republic, and President Colom of Guatemala. Lobo Sosa said:

"Can you imagine beginning a government with a president in an embassy? Locked in there? Its not right; its not dignified for a president."

Lobo Sosa also assured the press that the wording on the safe-conduct had been vetted by public prosecutor and two justices of the supreme court, and that it had been made known to the new Congress.

Valenzuela to Attend Lobo Sosa Inauguration

The US Embassy in Honduras has confirmed that Arturo Valenzuela will arrive in Honduras today to attend Porfirio Lobo Sosa's inauguration tomorrow, La Tribuna reported today. Also attending will be José Fernandez, and Craig Kelly. Fernandez is the State Department's Assitant Secretary for Economics, Energy, and Business Affairs. Hugo Llorens, US Ambassador to Honduras, noted that Fernandez's presence "is an important message about the reestablishment of US-Honduras relations with respect to business, financial, development, and investment."

Later this afternoon, the Valenzuela and the US delegation, along with a Canadian delegation, will meet with Manuel Zelaya Rosales in the Brazillian Embassy to finalize Zelaya's plans for exit from the Brazillian Embassy tomorrow.

The Honduran Resistance Will Continue

In the weeks since the November election, the English language press has gone silent about the Honduran resistance. But that does not mean the Honduran resistance has disappeared. During a march in Tegucigalpa at the beginning of this month, Tiempo reported, some speakers called for the Frente to form a political movement or alternate political party. But this is not the main goal of the Resistance movement.

Inside Costa Rica reports that the National Resistance Front has called for marches on January 27 to protest the inauguration of Porfirio Lobo Sosa, whose projected administration is characterized as "the continuation of the dictatorship of the oligarchy." Anyone who was hoping that the inauguration of Lobo Sosa would end Honduran dissent will obviously find themselves disappointed.

The Frente stated that the goal of demonstrations is to "insist on the demand of a national constituent assembly, popular and democratic, to restore Honduras." This demand will not go away.

As in previous demonstrations in Tegucigalpa, the beginning point for the planned march there January 27 will be the Universidad Nacional Pedagogica. Marchers will apparently face increased security according to reports in pro-coup El Heraldo:

Álvarez affirmed that there will be strong security measures, with police and military agents, in ten cities of Honduras.

This presumably includes San Pedro Sula, the second-largest city in Honduras, site of a second march called for by the Resistance. Another report published by Heraldo, after describing security at the stadium where the inauguration will take place, commented that

It is planned to develop operations in the barrios and colonias of the capital, as well as in all the cities of the country. The Armed Forces have placed at the disposal more than 2700 members just for the capital. An equal number is that of the police.

Special operations will be developed beginning in the next hours on all the frontiers of the country.

In respect to the demonstrations, such as that programmed by the zelayists for the 27th of January, the police authorities reminded that, based on the Law of Co-existence, they should be notified with 24 hours of advance notice of the realization of the same and their trajectory.

(The Law referred to, for those who do not remember, was passed by the de facto regime in late October to restrict freedom of assembly that is guaranteed in the Honduran Constitution.)

What kinds of operations are planned for the barrios and colonias of Tegucigalpa-- far from the site of the ceremonial transfer of power, but the heart of the resistance that continued after the de facto regime imposed repeated curfews? what makes it necessary to deploy soldiers and anti-riot police in ten Honduran cities? If the new government were really so universally appreciated, what would be the need for continued repressive militarization?

Needless to say, confrontations with peaceful protestors by military and riot police would mar the attempt to portray the government of Lobo Sosa as the solution to the destruction of civil liberties by the de facto regime.

The decision on continued strategy, starting with the planned marches, was taken by the leaders of the Resistance last weekend. While El Heraldo would like to dismiss the Resistance marches as the work of "zelayistas", the National Resistance Front cannot be reduced to the supporters of any current political party or faction within one.

As reported by Prensa Latina, more than 80 leaders of the resistance, including Juan Barahona, Carlos H. Reyes, Rafael Alegría, Bertha Cáceres, and Carlos Eduardo Reina, conferred in Siguatepeque, a small city located on the main highway between Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. They reaffirmed the need to resist division along traditional lines of party loyalty, which have dominated Honduran politics.

While much of the English-language press has remained focused on the drama of negotiating a dignified exit for President Zelaya, and on the attempts to distance Lobo Sosa from Micheletti, it is arguable that what will ultimately be most significant for the possibility of effective political transformation in Honduras will be what happens with the Resistance.

On January 27, we will see whether the Resistance mobilizes a sufficiently visible presence to ensure that international media have to take note.

Carlos Lara: Amnesty Next Week

Carlos Lara, Secretary of the Honduran Congress, told a local radio station that an amnesty that allows Manuel Zelaya an exit from the Brazilian Embassy would be approved by Congress next week.

"The majority of the groups of Congressmen are in agreement.....There are, in some cases, differences; we don't think that an amnesty is necessary, but for the well being of the country, for peace and tranquility, we place this in front of whether or not we agree [with amnesty] and will approve it."

Lara made his announcement after a reunion of the leaders of the political parties in Congress. Congress itself takes up amnesty on Thursday.

Craig Kelly in Tegucigalpa

Tiempo reports that Craig Kelly arrived in Tegucigalpa at mid-day to meet at 4 pm with US Ambassador Hugo Llorens and Manuel Zelaya. According to the press, he will also meet with Roberto Micheletti at 10 am tomorrow morning. The Honduran online newspaper, Proceso Digital, reports that Kelly will also meet with Porfirio Lobo Sosa today. This is Kelly's fourth visit to Tegucigalpa since the coup.

Update 1:30 pm PDT: Phillip Crowley announced this afternoon that Kelly's visit is because the US is "weighing" its decisions about future relations with Honduras. Kelly's mission is to facilitate the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord compliance. Crowley told the press that Kelly was sent to "communicate clearly to the diverse sectors that there are still things to be done." Crowley indicated that the US needs to make some decisions about the nature of its relations with Honduras and future assistance. No statement on the State Department website yet.

Lobo's solution to inaugural illegitimacy...

is to deny that either Roberto Micheletti or President Zelaya has any role in the process.

As a story in Tiempo, published December 23, puts it:

The President elect, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, affirmed yesterday that the person who should hand over the presidencial sash next January 27, the day on which he will assume power, should be the president of the National Congress.

[El presidente electo, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, afirmó ayer que quien deberá entregarle la banda presidencial el próximo 27 de enero, día en que asumirá el poder, debería ser el presidente del Congreso Nacional.]

Most interesting is his rationale: he says that passing on the power of the presidency is legally the business of the legislature.

This is historically, technically accurate: see the surreal photo in the story in the Nuevo Diario, published January 27, 2006, showing then-congressional head Roberto Micheletti investing President Zelaya with the presidential sash.

But that isn't the whole story, of course. As coverage at the time emphasized, the acts of inauguration mark the passage of power from the previous president to the newly elected one.

Lobo still has this difficulty to solve: while he can duck being given the regalia of power by Micheletti, he still has to be deemed to be receiving power from the previous president.

So who is that? All of the world-- including those few governments that have declared the November elections legitimate-- recognize José Manuel Zelaya Rosales as the legal, constitutional president of Honduras. The Honduran Congress, whose president will place the sash of office on him, twice voted otherwise, asserting that Roberto Micheletti is now the constitutional president. Lobo himself may wish this would go away as a problem-- but it is hard to see how.

And in Honduras, the previous president is expected to give his support to the transfer of power, attending the inauguration. In 2006, the mere rumor that the departing president, Ricardo Maduro, would not attend the inauguration was newsworthy, so much so that the official coverage remarked on his presence:

The exiting Honduran president, Ricardo Maduro, who initially called into question his attendance at the investiture of Zelaya in response to rumors that he would be received with boos, finally confirmed his presence and assured that he would do it "with his head held high".

[El presidente hondureño saliente, Ricardo Maduro, quien en un inicio puso en duda su asistencia a la investidura de Zelaya ante los rumores de que sería recibido con silbidos, confirmó finalmente su presencia y aseguró que lo hará "con la frente muy en alto".]

What we have here is an attempt to argue that the symbolic investiture is the important thing. But pragmatically, practically, the transfer of power is what the symbols are supposed to represent. Power-- which we should remember requires control, authority, and legitimacy-- is what is at issue here, and where the next president's power comes from is going to remain a problem.

As an anthropologist, I know that symbols matter, so having Micheletti out of the picture frame is important. But politically, Lobo remains trapped with no acceptable answer to the question, whose power is he going to receive on January 27?

[Thanks to chela for the heads' up on this story that I might otherwise have overlooked in a comment on a previous post].

PS: The little trip down memory lane to find a photo of the investiture of President Zelaya in 2006 also produced this interesting tidbit:

Thousands of Hondurans filled the National Stadium in Tegucigalpa, with a capacity of some 40,000 persons, to witness the passage of command from the exiting government official, Ricardo Maduro, of the National Party, to Manuel Zelaya, of the Liberal Party, both conservatives.

Miles de hondureños llenan el Estadio Nacional de Tegucigalpa, con aforo para unas 40.000 personas, para presenciar el traspaso de mando del gobernante saliente, Ricardo Maduro, del Partido Nacional, a Manuel Zelaya, del Partido Liberal, ambos conservadores.

A useful reality check in the face of over a year of propaganda, leading up to, facilitating, and then justifying the coup d'etat.

Llorens Visits Zelaya

US ambassador Hugo Llorens paid a surprise visit to president Manuel Zelaya Rosales in the Brazilian embassy late yesterday. According to Rasel Tomé, a Zelaya spokesperson in the embassy, Llorens came to talk to Zelaya because Llorens is about to take a Christmas holiday, and to get Zelaya's official position on leaving the embassy. Tomé says that Zelaya made it clear that he was president until January 27, and that he would not leave the embassy under conditions that didn't acknowledge that (that is, the conditions proposed by the de facto government). Tomé added that "we continue working to bring about a dialogue in a neutral place and to resolve this crisis with dialogue."

Lobo "WIlling" To Talk To Zelaya

Porfirio Lobo Sosa stated today that he was willing to talk to Manuel Zelaya in the Dominican Republic, or in the Brazilian embassy, or wherever, in search of a solution to the political crisis in Honduras.

"There is the total and absolute will to talk, but what is lacking is to see a way that the actual authorities [the de facto government] aid and facilitate, in what is possible....the exit of Manuel Zelaya so that I can go talk with him wherever, I have no problem....but we leave it to the authorities to resolve...the administrative decision on how he will leave is not in my hands."

He later added:

"The leaving of ex-President Zelaya is not in my hands; this depends on the Honduran authorities, and as is logical, I will do all that I can to the extent that I can to influence so that they do what most suits the national interest....I am the president of the Hondurans, that they elected the last Sunday in November, and I have to be careful to not act irresponsibly."

Lobo will do "what he can" but no promises since everything depends on the de facto government. Remember first that Lobo Sosa supports the coup, and therefore acknowledges the legitimacy of the de facto government, however much it stands in his way. Micheletti has little reason to cooperate with Lobo Sosa; they are of different political parties. Lobo's own Nationalist Party introduced the resolution in Congress to reaffirm the Congressional decree where Congress removed Zelaya from office, without the constitutional authority to do so; the coup redux if you will. He can call for those things that he has that will make international recognition possible, but he cannot make them happen, even within his own party.

All of this adds up to little room to maneuver for Lobo Sosa. He's fairly powerless in the current situation, and will not have much more power come January 27. The time in which he could have acted was prior to the November elections, when his leadership towards a resolution of this problem would have meant something, but that would have put his election at risk. Now his only choice is to be a powerless president, as his statements and actions continue to demonstrate. He's stuck with whatever shell of an economy Micheletti leaves him, without a guarantee of international recognition beyond a few countries, a weak position as president-elect and likely an even weaker president.

Update 9:15 AM PDT: Lobo Sosa made it clear this morning that his only roll is to "suggest" what needs to happen, not to make it happen.

"The only thing that remains for me is to suggest or ask that they facilitate the talk that is important for Honduras, to end this thing once and for all, to not begin this new government trapped in this problem."

Dear Porfirio Lobo Sosa, do you really think Micheletti is going to make it happen, to resolve the problem for you? I don't.

Dominican Meeting Cancelled

Porfirio Lobo Sosa and Manuel Zelaya Rosales will not meet in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic on Monday. Both Zelaya and Fernandez pronounced the effort dead. Fernandez said the de facto government of Roberto Micheletti placed too many obstacles to obtaining the safe conduct for Zelaya. The Dominican government issued a communique which read in part:

"The willingness to begin dialogue this week was reiterated by President Fernandez, as much as by Zelaya and the candidate elect, but the de facto government insists on conditioning Zelaya's leaving the Brazilian Embassy as political asylum."

Yesterday, a spokesperson for Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom, announced that if the de facto government issued a safe conduct for Zelaya to meet with Lobo, then Guatemala, which up to now has rejected the elections in Honduras, would recognize Lobo Sosa as "the legitimate president of Honduras." The spokesperson alluded to the possibility that other countries would also make this concession if the safe conduct was forthcoming.

Still, the de facto government announced yesterday that Zelaya was free to seek "territorial political asylum" but that it could not be in any Central American country, and he would first have to sign a piece of paper acknowledging, among other things, that Congress had removed him from office. Milton Mateo, a spokesperson for the de facto Foreign Minister, Carlos Lopez Contreras, told the AP that:

"It has been decided at the highest level of government: it will be a territorial asylum and cannot be in any country touching on Honduras, that is in Central America."

The reason they want him to seek political asylum is that under the Caracas Convention of 1954, someone seeking territorial asylum cannot involve themselves in confrontations with the government in their home country. This would remove Zelaya as a "threat" to the de facto government and let them get their propaganda out.


Peruvian President Alain Garcia immediately suggested that Lobo meet with Zelaya in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.

"Lobo should talk with Zelaya to find out what terms Zelaya would accept for a recuperation of his political dignity, or at least to give the impression that he knows how to dialogue. To turn your back on him is less democratic"

Meanwhile, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, returned to Honduras after visiting the United States. He announced, on return, that he would establish the truth commission called for the the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord, during the first quarter of 2010, as the Accord requires.

In a surprise move, Ricardo Maduro, former president of Honduras, called on Congress to declare a general amnesty for political crimes, including those committed by Zelaya and Micheletti.

"Its a tragedy to leave open the wound, in the sense that constitutional violations can be used by any future government to reopen this wound, to re-separate the Hondurans, and to use it for political persecution, be it against President Zelaya or against President Micheletti and theirs, it appears to me that we need to close now this wound."

He called on Congress to do it now.

Zelaya, Lobo Agree To Meet

EFE reports, along with many other sources, that Porfirio Lobo Sosa and Manuel Zelaya Rosales have agreed to meet Monday to try to put an end to the political crisis in Honduras, announced Dominican President Leonel Fernández. The meeting will take place in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. President Fernández said:

"We hope that with this decision, there will be no difficulty for President Zelaya to leave Honduras and that there won't be any conditions or obstruction on the part of the de facto government so that he can travel to the Dominican Republic.....If the president elect is in agreement to support this dialog, if this is demanded by the international community there should be no impediment."

Roadblock

The chaos of information surrounding the trip Manuel Zelaya planned to take to Mexico has settled, and the story is now fairly clear. It is true that Mexico offered, and both Manuel Zelaya and the de facto government of Honduras initially accepted, that Zelaya would leave the Brazilian embassy with a safe conduct (solicited by Mexico, not Zelaya) and then reside in Mexico as an honored guest for some period of time.

Why it fell apart is instructive. It fell apart because Zelaya would not sign a declaration authored by the de facto government. Carlos Lopez Contreras, the de facto Foreign Minister, said

"There was an understanding that Zelaya would subscribe to a declaration...that he respected the Guaymuras pact, and respected in a like manner, the decision of the National Congress in the sense that it confirmed the end of his mandate."

They want Manuel Zelaya to recognize their authority and give up his claims to authority, to give them legitimacy. He shouldn't, and he won't. As he said last night,

"I could be here 10 years, I have my guitar."

Indeed, he played his guitar for those listening to Radio Globo last evening.

Why is this a roadblock? Porfirio Lobo was given homework by Oscar Arias and Ricardo Martinelli on Tuesday, which included getting Roberto Micheletti to step aside, since it will be fatal to Lobo's case for international recognition for Micheletti to be the one handing over power. Micheletti has more than once said he won't resign until and unless Zelaya also renounces as president. Stalemate.

President Zelaya Heading for Mexico?

El Tiempo confirms reports from other media, including Telesur, that President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales is leaving Honduras and will be welcomed in Mexico.

Reuters has a report saying the same, from 22 minutes ago, citing "a politician close to Zelaya", saying

He is going to leave the country today for abroad. He is leaving of his own will.

Telesur and Tiempo identify their source as Enrique Flores Lanza.

Tiempo and La Tribuna report that the Honduras Chancellor has already signed a safe conduct for a car from the Mexican embassy to pick up Zelaya, his wife, and two children, and convey them to Toncontin airport where a plane from Mexico, sent for them, landed at 7 pm. Tegucigalpa time.

Flores Lanza said that Zelaya would establish his family in Mexico, then go to Havana for the ALBA summit.

Update: Radio Globo is broadcasting an interview with President Zelaya in which he states that he has not sought asylum in any country.

Telesur has updated its coverage with a story that is headlined Zelaya confirms that he has not asked political asylum of any country.

It reads:

The legitimate president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, confirmed exclusively to teleSur that he has not asked for political asylum of any country in the world and clarified that in case of an eventual exit from his nation it will have to be within his role as President of the hondurans.

El presidente legítimo de Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, confirmó en exclusiva a teleSUR que no ha pedido asilo político a ningún país del mundo y aclaró que en caso de una eventual salida de su nación tendría que darse dentro de su calidad de Presidente de los hondureños.

The English-language media are reporting this as a story of going into political exile. Zelaya's own statements, and those of Flores Lanza, emphasize that he is leaving Honduras in order to carry on his work as president by attending the ALBA meeting.

President Zelaya, on questioning, has said he is not going to confirm plans as he does not have firm agreements yet giving him permission to travel.

The Mexican government limited its comments to Tiempo to confirming that a Mexican airplane is on the way to Tegucigalpa.

The Washington Post reports that a spokesman for the de facto regime's Foreign Ministry, Milton Mateo

says the safe-conduct pass was signed and would be delivered to the Brazilian Embassy.

Meanwhile, Zelaya is playing guitar live and singing on Radio Globo...

Update: El Heraldo minute-by-minute column says the Mexican plane has diverted to either San Pedro Sula or Comalapa, El Salvador.

Update (7:25 Pacific): A report on Proceso Digital says that at the last minute, the Micheletti government suspended the approval of the safe conduct.

Update (8:17 Pacific): La Prensa reports that the de facto government declined to issue the safe conduct requested by the Mexican embassy after Zelaya announced he was not seeking asylum. Carlos Lopez Contreras said "it lacked the appropriate legal requirements in not specifying the type of asylum they would give him." Previous press reports had quoted a spokesperson for Lopez Contreras as confirming the safe conduct had been issued.

Further details are provided in a story in the Mexican newspaper Diario de Yucatan. It makes clear that the point of disagreement between the parties was a demand by the Micheletti government that Zelaya leave for Mexico as a "political refugee" (asilado).

Daniel Ortega is quoted as saying that

the de facto Honduran government proposed to Zelaya "that he take political refuge, that he leave the embassy of Brazil... and that he go to Brazil or another country as a political refugee, but he (Zelaya) said that he did not accept the status of political refugee, because he continues being the president of Honduras".

"Disappointing" vote by Congress "broke" Accord

The Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord committed both the faction of Roberto Micheletti and the legally elected president of Honduras, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, to a series of steps that, as has been noted at length here and elsewhere, was fatally flawed by the lack of a sufficiently clear timeline and an undefined mechanism for the formation of the expected "unity" government.

The US government, after it committed itself to recognizing the outcome of the election whether or not Zelaya was restored by the proposed vote in the Honduran Congress, has been held awkwardly to the transparent fiction that the Accord never was intended to imply a vote on Zelaya's restitution had to take place before the elections.

So immediately after the election, the Honduran Congress chose, for whatever reason, not to vote on a straight motion whether or not to restore President Zelaya, but rather, decided to turn the clock back to June 28 and re-enact the passage of the decree through which they claimed to install Roberto Micheletti as replacement president.

Where does that leave things?

Speaking for the US, Arturo Valenzuela said

We're disappointed by this decision since the United States had hoped that Congress would have approved [Zelaya's] return.

He also, remarkably, reiterated that the US continues

to accept President Zelaya as the democratically elected and legitimate leader of Honduras

and that

the status quo remains unacceptable.

In response to questioning after Valenzuela's statement, unnamed Senior Administration Officials expanded on this theme, noting that the November 29 voting

we have always felt, was an important step to the solution of the problems of Honduras, but not a sufficient one, because the restoration of the democratic and constitutional order had to go by additional measures... [emphasis added]

These "additional measures" explicitly included

this vote that the Congress was supposed to take on the restoration of Zelaya...[emphasis added]

Translation: the US expected a different vote than the one they got. What kind of vote? well, I am glad you asked:

That's why we were disappointed. And the fact that the Congress, in fact, did not vote President Zelaya back into office...

And about the unacceptable status quo, the same unnamed officials said

the absence of democratic and constitutional order is the unacceptable status quo

and

we continue to accept President Zelaya as the democratically elected president of Honduras.

For his part, Ricardo Lagos, the former Chilean president who had the bad experience of being part of the all-too-briefly functional "verification" commission, went further. As reported in El Universal of Venezuela, speaking on CNN En Español Lagos said

the refusal of the Honduran Congress to restore the overthrown president Manuel Zelaya "breaks" the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord and will make international recognition "more difficult"

Lagos puts the blame for the breaking of the accord squarely on the de facto regime and the Honduran Congress:

The decision "finishes breaking the accord between the (interim) government and Zelaya..it began to be broken [when] one of the parties thought that he could constitute [the unity government]" in a unilateral form...in reference to the regime of Roberto Micheletti.

Most important, in this interview, Lagos said that

in his reading, the vote on the part of Congress about the situation of Zelaya foressen in the Tegucigalpa Accord carried "implicitly" an "elegant form to restore" the overthrown official.

Or to put it another way: Lagos, like most readers, thought the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord called for a vote on restoring Zelaya as a way to give Congress a face-saving means to redress their original actions.

So, the US and Lagos are in harmony and both consider what the Congress did an unfortunate, even disappointing, waste of the opportunity provided in the Accord. Right?

Well, not so fast. The US manages to add yet another twist to its already contorted position. Valenzuela added to the remarks quoted above the qualification that

the decision taken by Congress, which it carried out in an open and transparent manner, was in accordance with its mandate in Article 5 of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord.

Let us pause to think about the implications here.

The US does not recognize the coup of June 28 as legitimate, and continues to consider Manuel Zelaya the only legitimate president of Honduras (while looking wistfully ahead to the end of January and a new inauguration as their new solution).

Yet the framework now transparently identifiable as forged by the US-- despite the thin veil of Costa Rican mediation cast over it by the use of Oscar Arias as a conduit-- has had one real result: it gave the Honduran legislature a chance to reaffirm the very same unconstitutional actions whose outcoes the US says it still does not recognize.

Quite a powerful tool, that Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord: it apparently cleanses constitutional rupture and makes it something the international community has to accept-- because it was transparent.

But then, so were the events of June 28. They were transparently a coup d'etat.

Yet, the US argues that the exact same decree that was illegitimate on June 28 is legitimate in December because it was enacted in response to the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord.

What a powerful thing that Accord turned out to be: it supercedes the Constitution of Honduras and whitewashes a universally condemned coup.

Couping The Coup

Congress committed another unconstitutional act when it voted this evening on a motion to again ratify its Decreto 141-2009, which removed Zelaya from office (not a power granted them by the constitution) and installed Mr. Micheletti as de facto president. The motion was introduced by the Nationalist party, which held a meeting this morning and agreed to vote as a block of 55 votes in favor of this motion. They only needed 9 Congressmen from another party to join them to block the restitution of Zelaya, but in fact the measure had substantial support from members of the Liberal Party as well. At 7:11 pm Tegucigalpa time, a simple majority of the Congressmen had voted for the motion, with the vote continuing.

The Honduran Congress today thumbed its nose at the rule of law, at the US State Department, and the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord.

Update: 8:48 PM Tegucigalpa time: 92 votes for the motion, 11 against so far.

Update 9:30 PM Tegucigalpa time: 110 votes for the motion, 14 against.

Final vote: 111 votes for the motion, 14 against, with 3 Congressmen absent.

What has the Supreme Court really said?

One of the main developments this week was the long delayed conveyance of the Supreme Court's opinion about the issues surrounding the possible restoration of President Zelaya.

Greg Weeks is one of the few to have commented on the coverage in Honduran papers of the transmission of a report by the Honduran Supreme Court to the Congress. His summary, based on an article in the pro-coup La Prensa, concludes that the court report (which has not been released) says

Zelaya cannot be reinstated unless he faces the pending charges against him

And that this

means that Congress, which had been planning to vote on his reinstatement on December 2, won't be able to do so without contradicting the court.

Now, the report itself is not released, so any conclusions we can draw are dependent on reports in the press. So let's look at what the article Greg Weeks cited tells us (a full translation follows for those who want to check my work).

The La Prensa report is similar to others, and in particular, the direct quotes from the CSJ seem invariant even when other reports expand on the themes.

Focus in particular on what members of the court actually said.

The president of the CSJ, Jorge Rivera, declared that the Court "did not go deeply nor touch the base" of the question of the restitution or not of Zelaya, because it has cases pending against him...

He reaffirmed that Zelaya should submit himself to justice, although he reiterated that the CSJ did not pronounce in its report whether he should be restored or not.

(Another report expands on this point, quoting justice María Edith López Rivera “we cannot give an opinion because there still are legal cases pending in the Supreme Court of Justice”).

Just to underline this point, the report notes that

With the opinion of the CSJ, the National Congress now possesses the four reports that it solicited from the organs of State to base its debate, although it has clarified that those reports are not binding and that the decision about Zelaya only depends on the congressmembers. (emphasis added)

In other words: not only did the Supreme Court disclaim defining whether Zelaya could be restored-- since they would prejudice pending cases-- the National Congress has separately said that the reports it asked for were not binding on it.

Reports claiming something different based on quoted sources (as opposed to interpretations by the reporter), is a comment attributed to the spokesman of the court, Danilo Izaguirre:

"It is the same as what the Court said on the 21st of August, while he has pending reckonings with justice he cannot return to power".

This is the comment, clearly in response to an unreported question, that the English-language media, such as the AP, have played up.

But it directly contradicts what the justices themselves are quoted as saying while delivering their report to the National Congress.

Indeed, this was not what the August 21 Supreme Court opinion said; instead, like the present statements, it limited itself to insisting that the existing legal cases would have to be pursued if President Zeaya were restored:

In relation to the return of the citizen Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales to the Presidency of the Republic, until the conclusion of the present governmental term, the 27 of January, it should be taken into account that as has been mentioned previously, there exist penal actions presented by the Attorney General of the Republic; in consequence and in strict legality as long as there do not exist other applicable legal dispositions he cannot avoid having to submit himself to the established proceedings in the penal processual code.

So, what the Supreme Court said then and repeats now is that President Zelaya will have to have his day in court-- the day in court he was denied by being forcibly expatriated on June 28.

Then why is the impression being given that the CSJ report constrains Congress (when the pro-coup press states clearly the reports it solicited are not binding on it) and that the CSJ made a recommendation about restoral (when the CSJ members said it isn't offering such a thing because there are cases open against Zelaya before it-- which would be prejudiced by the court making public statements now)?

In reply, we can note three contributing factors:

(1) some reports (for example, this one from the AFP) say the CSJ reached judgments on the charges against Zelaya. This repeats the original big lie tactic of the first days after the coup, when people claimed-- equally falsely-- that the bill of charges dated June 26 was a verdict by the court, rather than being the accusations submitted for its judgment.

(2) most reports (like this one in elPeriodico de Guatemala) claim that the Supreme Court told the National Congress that Zelaya could not be restored. This one can only be explained as a form of spin, given the explicit disclaimers by the court. It is often combined, as in this example, with misrepresentation of the June 26 Supreme Court order, claiming it ordered Zelaya's removal from office rather than his detention and deposition for the case brought against him.

(3) more broadly, people continue to be confused about the implications for a sitting president in Honduras of having legal charges placed against him. It would be helpful for people to review previous posts here about immunity, impunity, and impeachment, but the bottom line is, there is no impeachment because there is no immunity from prosecution; but like any other citizen, the president has a right to due process, including the presumption of innocence.

That makes the insistence of the CSJ, both in August (in its comments on the original proposed San Jose Accord) and now on reminding people that there are charges pending a little confusing. There is nothing in the legal procedures for trying a high government official that suggests he or she can be, or must be, removed from office while under prosecution-- that would require a presumption of guilt, and would seem to be a denial of due process.

But maybe this is one of those places noted in international studies where the Honduran legal system has not yet caught up with the change, made relatively recently, that introduced the presumption of innocence. Before then, a person accused of a crime had to prove his or her innocence-- and that would have made staying in office tricky.

So: we would repeat our conclusion of August here: the Supreme Court really said nothing new; and nothing that would prevent President Zelaya being reinstated. What they have noted, acting to represent their branch of government, is that he faces trial on charges. Since there is no amnesty in the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord, this obviously an accepted condition of possible restoral. Even if the legal cases were to proceed and reach a conviction, and that conviction were upheld on appeal, until conviction, the accused is innocent-- and could carry out his legal duties.

Oh, and the reported remarks of court spokesperson Danilo Izaguirre? assuming he was not misquoted, he was engaging in interpretation of the report, interpretation the court members themselves refrained from publicly. That interpretation presumably is based on the assumption that President Zelaya would have to be suspended from the exercise of office during trial.

The revised Penal Processual Code, Decreto 99-9-E (published in La Gaceta May 20, 2000, and effective February 20, 2002-- and therefore in use just a little more than seven years) actually has something-- well, really, everything to say-- about this, in its Title VI. This concerns measures that can be taken to ensure that the defendant is available for trial. Article 172 requires that there be sufficient reason to think someone might flee before any of the listed measures are adopted. (Remember the claim that Zelaya needed to be seized in a raid due to fear he would flee? this is why that claim was made.) Article 173 lists the available methods to ensure the defendant will not flee (or destroy evidence, a second rationale allowed). The courts can adopt "one or more" of the listed methods, which range from imprisonment to detention at home to monitoring by an officer of the court and/or periodic reporting to the court.

Number 12 on this list is

Suspension in the exercise of office, when an offense is attributed against public administration.

This is, so far, the only provision in the penal code that we have found that would imply an inability by an accused government official to remain in office while the case against him or her was heard. We could charitably assume that the conclusion Izaguirre is drawing-- against the explicit declarations of the Supreme Court justices-- is that Zelaya will not only have to undergo trial, but would need to be suspended from exercise in office. But that conclusion anticipates, and thus prejudices, any actual legal proceeding.

Which, we would remind readers, could also result in a verdict of innocent-- or else the claim that the court system is fair is entirely empty.

Whether Izaguirre also is suffering from confusion about what the procedure would have to be; or was expressing an opinion that being tried would require the president to step down; treating Izaguirre like the authoritative voice, in the face of the statements of the court justices themselves, makes no sense.

*******CSJ: Zelaya should submit himself to justice*****



The Supreme Court of Justice, CSJ, affirmed that the ex president Manuel Zelaya should submit to the trials that he has pending, which would impede the National Congress from restoring him the 2nd of December without violating the law.



A commission of four magistrates, headed by the president of the Judicial Power, Jorge Rivera, arrived yesterday at 11 AM at the Legislative Palace to turn over their report about the fifth point of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord, that establishes the power of Congresss to decide whether to turn back the officeholding of the Executive to its state before the 28th of June.



In the opinion delivered to Congress, which on this coming December 2nd will debate whether or not to restore Zelaya, the CSJ reaffirmed the criteria that it issued the past 21 of August.



The magistrate Jacobo Cálix affirmed that 14 of the 15 magistrates arrived at a consensus on the document delivered to the Legislature and the the same conforms to the Constitution of Honduras and its legal framework, but he did not specify who voted against it nor why.



The president of the CSJ, Jorge Rivera, declared that the Court "did not go deeply nor touch the base" of the question of the restitution or not of Zelaya, because it has cases pending against him, but that it did contribute "the elements so that the decision could be taken".



He affirmed that the report was based "on all the deeds that were committed before the 28th of June and what has been provoked later".



He reaffirmed that Zelaya should submit himself to justice, although he reiterated that the CSJ did not pronounce in its report whether he should be restored or not.



Rivera delivered the document in the office of the secretary of the Congress together with a commission of magistrates, without specifying its content because, he said, the deputies should know it first.



"The honorable National Congress now has available the information to analyze the general context of the official and public actions of the citizen José Manuel Zelaya Rosales that will permit them to assess if the same were realized in conformity to that imposed in the Constitution of the Republic of a legal order" indicated the CSJ in a communique.



CN has the 4 reports



With the opinion of the CSJ, the National Congress now possesses the four reports that it solicited from the organs of State to base its debate, although it has clarified that those reports are not binding and that the decision about Zelaya only depends on the congressmembers.



The Public Prosecutor, Attorney General of the Republic and the National Commissioner of Human Rights, Ramón Custodio have already delivered their opinions.



The Supreme Court indicated in August, in relation to the return of Zelaya to power, that "there exist penal actions presented against him by the Attorney General of the Republic".



Therefore, it said then, "while there do not exist other applicable legal requirements, he cannot avoid that he would have to submit himself to the proceedings established in the penal processual legislation".



Zelaya has an order of capture for offenses of which he was accuses in relation with the popular poll that he intended to celebrate June 28 to promote a Constituent Assembly, when he was deposed by the National Congress, that designated Roberto Micheletti in his place.

Elections: reject, accept, or other?

In his usual thought-provoking way, boz offers a counter to the more widespread progressive position on the upcoming Honduran elections, outlining

the case for not rejecting elections in Honduras (note the double negative is on purpose), even if elections are not an ideal solution.

His argument has the following points (and I urge others to read them before reading the rest of my post; go ahead, I can wait): moving on; new leadership; beyond the presidency; don't prejudge; most Hondurans want elections; imperfect elections recognized all the time; and, for my purposes, the money paragraph:

Better than the alternative. Canceling or postponing elections is a serious action. If they're canceled, and the de facto government refuses to reinstitute Zelaya, then what? Micheletti remains as president? New president is named by Congress? Assuming the coup government won't let Zelaya return, the options other than elections are worse than holding an imperfect election. Those options definitely lead away democracy, while elections at least open the possibility for reestablishing democracy.

I want to suggest that whatever the merits of the other points, this one misses another possibility: maybe there are more than two alternatives; more than the two bad choices of recognizing an election conducted under extreme repression and violation of the rule of law, or rejecting it and with it the possibility of a future resolution for the innocent millions.

Zelaya and his government have suggested one such alternative, which boz rejects. That would involved rescheduling the election, allowing the outcome of congressional consideration of reinstating the president to precede the election. The main legal problem with rescheduling the election for sometime between now and the mandated inaugural date in January is that it violates the constitution, but not a clause that is unchangeable. The main pragmatic problem with rescheduling the election for later is that it is expensive. But this is surely something the international community could help with.

But boz's concerns with this involve neither of these, but rather, a purely political issue: what happens if the congress does not vote to reinstate Zelaya?

Under the terms of the (now-repudiated) Tegucigalpa/San Jose Accord, this was a risk President Zelaya accepted, so at that point, if he objected, it would be reasonable for the international community to change their position on the elections.

I think there should be no mystery about what would happen in this hypothetical scenario: the negotiation for the unity and national reconciliation government would have one fewer option for who should head the government, being forced to choose between Micheletti or a third party.

(This is, for me, one of the main reasons proceeding with forming that government before the decision about Zelaya is made makes no sense. If we accept that a unity government is negotiated between the parties, not imposed by one on the other, then one of the things up for negotiation is who would head it? a decision on Zelaya was therefore critical since without that, how would negotiators know if he would be accepted as head? for that matter: how do you ask prospective cabinet ministers to serve in a government whose head they do not know?)

Now, as I said, the call for postponing elections is one alternative to recognizing the November 29 exercise or rejecting it. The constitutional issues are open to solution by passing a congressional amendment to allow a delay in this year's election. But let's accept that getting Congress to do this is even more unlikely than getting them to vote on restoring Zelaya in advance of the election (which I personally think they are reluctant to do not because Zelaya could disrupt the election, but because voting on the record could be used against them in the campaign).

I still have problems with boz's suggestion that we accept an imperfect election and the will of the (slim) majority of the Honduran people, and get on with an election so new leadership can be put in place; and accept the (counter-factual) assertion that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal is independent of the Micheletti government; and acknowledge that the candidates running were all selected prior to the coup (ignoring the barriers placed in the way of many candidates by the imposed restraints on civil liberties) and that there are local and congressional elections at stake as well as the presidency.

I do not see that what follows is that accepting the November 29 elections under the de facto regime will actually accomplish what he hopes they will:

New people make it more likely we can move past the ugly politics of the last five months.

Unfortunately, the two major candidates still in the race are by no means "new people". Each is closely tied to the coup, and either will suffer from the legacy of his participation in government before and after June 28. The coup will remain a spectral presence in Honduras long past January 2010, just as previous coups continue to shape the attitudes of the people.

I think there is a fundamental contradiction in the utopian hope boz expresses that

elections at least open the possibility for reestablishing democracy.

Depends what we mean by "democracy": and it is this very thing that has been at issue in the Zelaya administration's attempt to move from a rigged representational democracy to a democracy with broader popular participation.

Elections held under an illegal government taint the outcome for a considerable proportion of the population: and yes, the number who do not want elections is a minority, but it is a large minority.

Democracies are at their best concerned with ensuring that even minorities believe that the process that brought political opponents to office was fair. And I think there is no doubt that for those who oppose the de facto regime and want to see the president who was elected in 2005 restored to complete his term in office, the very notion of democracy has been damaged in ways that a recognizably more-imperfect-than-normal election will not heal.

So here's another option to add to the either/or of recognizing/rejecting the November 29 elections: if we agree that international observers will make little difference on the ground; and accepting that the de facto regime will play out this election no matter what; and acknowledging that the TSE will validate election results that a large number of Honduras will think resulted from fraud, no matter what else happens; there is still a kernel of truth to this one sentence in boz's post:

I think dealing with Lobo or Santos once they have been elected by a majority of Hondurans will be easier than dealing with Micheletti.

Yes. So why not wait until whoever is "elected" in November is inaugurated in January before making any moves to recognize the government?

Recognizing the elections of November legitimates the de facto regime and whitewashes the coup d'etat of June 28.

This would weaken, not strengthen, any claim to democratic representation that might be made by the president-elect.

Meanwhile, it does absolutely no harm to that future Honduran government-- and much potential good-- if they remain unrecognized between November and January. The international community could use that time to discuss what conditions would need to be met by the (now safely elected) government of 2010-2014 to ensure that Honduras merits re-admission to the OAS, and acceptance as a legitimate state. And the lack of recognition of the de facto regime could allow the next government to move away from the authors of the coup in a clearer way. Think of the rhetorical power that might come if the person declared the winner of the November election condemned the coup d'etat that cast doubt on his election.

Among the issues I would like to see on the table in such a scenario would be acknowledging that the coup d'etat was extra-legal; dismissal of the politically motivated prosecutions of opposition government officials that has ramped up under the de facto regime from an already unacceptable level; and repudiation of the militarization of society that has led to deaths, beatings, and intimidation for thousands of Hondurans-- a minority, yes, but a minority that deserves protection under the law, and a minority that disproportionately represents sectors such as social activists, gender rights activists and people of alternative sexual status, indigenous leaders, and union activists.

As long as we are engaging in hypothetical arguments about possible routes to democracy, I prefer one that does not include ever giving Roberto Micheletti and those propping him up, including the military, the imprimatur of the international community.

Micheletti Fools State Department

RAJ and I wondered last night as we drove home, who the intended audience for Micheletti's rather empty gesture was. To refresh your memory, what Roberto Micheletti offered to consider doing was step out of the public spotlight for a week, but first, he would have to consult with everyone. Its a hollow offer because its only an offer to step out of the public spotlight, not to step aside from office. As his Minister of the presidency, Rafael Pineda noted, "he will only absent himself from public functions, not necessarily from the responsibilities to administer the interests of state."

We couldn't see an internal audience for Micheletti's statement, so assumed an international audience was intended. Indeed, because of the way the statement was crafted, using subjunctives, we wondered who would be suckered into thinking he was actually leaving the presidency for 8 days?

Manuel Zelaya called it a "maneuver for misleading fools." The Brazilian Chancellor, Celso Amorim, said of Micheletti's proposal "from a legal point of view, he never should have been in the government." But the US State Department took the bait. Robert Wood, a State Department spokesman, said today, "We welcome that he is going to take a leave of absence and expect its prompt implementation. This will allow some breathing space for the process in Honduras to go forward." Sigh.

Update 3:00 PM PDT: Apparently I'm right. The State Department was fooled by Micheletti's statement into thinking he was abdicating control of the government while he was "absent". Here's the exchange from today's daily press briefing that provides the damning evidence of their ignorance:

QUESTION: And who runs the country while Mr. Micheletti is on vacation?

MR. WOOD: That’s a good question. I don’t really know the answer to that. I’m sure there is one and I’ll try and get one.

The answer Mr. Wood, is that Roberto Micheletti runs the country while he's on this so called "vacation". I refer you to the statements of his Minister of the Presidency, quoted above.