Insulza Lays Down Ground Rules

José Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the OAS, said yesterday in a press release, that "the return of Honduras to the OAS will be possible only when the outcome of June 28 is overcome." He noted that the resolutions voted on by the OAS Permanent Council were still valid and in effect. These include the condemnation of the removal of the legitimate president of Honduras, unequivocally qualified as a coup d'état, a demand for the restitution of constitutional order, including the return of president Manuel Zelaya, the total rejection of the de facto government of Roberto Micheletti Bain and its actions, and the suspension of Honduras from OAS membership.

“We all want a prompt return of Honduras, a founding member of the OAS, to the heart of the Organization. But that will only be possible when this country reaches a true restoration of its democratic regime and the outcome of the coup of June 28 has been overcome....An election does not erase, on its own, the forced deposition of the constitutional President, his expulsion from the country and his seclusion, even today, under precarious conditions in the enclosed Embassy of a sister country.”

He then called on Porfirio Lobo Sosa to end the persecution of Manuel Zelaya Rosales and to break clearly and publically with the coup, to fully reestablish respect for human rights, and to work to create national unity in the period between now and his inauguration on January 27.

Insulza called for the immediate establishment of a government of National Unity, with the participation of Zelaya, to prevent Lobo Sosa from receiving his command from the hands of those responsible for the coup d'éat, the normalization of things around the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, and the full liberty of Zelaya to live in his country with "respect for his rights and without further persecution."

"No State or government of the hemisphere or world has recognized the government of Roberto Micheletti....We must reinforce....that in the Americas no one will again recognize a regime arisen from a coup d’état. "

Lobo Sosa said over the weekend on Mexico's Univision, that he thought it would be possible for Zelaya to live in Honduras as an ex-president after January 27 without persecution, and has repeatedly called on Micheletti and Zelaya to establish the unity government, but has taken no actions to repudiate the coup, for which his Nationalist Party was a complicit partner. Instead he has embarked, today, on a series of missions to visit various Latin American governments seeking recognition of his government as legitimate.