The Puppet Master Pulls The Strings

If there was any doubt that the United States is orchestrating the political choreography going on in Honduras right now, it should be put to rest. Arturo Valenzuela, representing the United States at Porfirio Lobo Sosa's inauguration, told the press today that the United States has not made any decision about restoring aid to Honduras yet. "We haven't made any determinations yet," said Valenzuela. "The new president of Honduras has taken the country in the right direction," Valenzuela added after Lobo Sosa talked both about establishing a government of reconciliation, and establishing a truth commission in his first 100 days in office, both of which Valenzuela called "essential elements" to the restoration of democratic order in Honduras. "Things are moving pretty much in the right direction."

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.

Brazil and US: "Small Differences"

Marco Aurelio Garcia, advisor to Brazilian President Lula, said that there were "small" differences between the US and Brazil on Honduras. Garcia spoke after meeting with Arturo Valenzuela, Assistant Secretary for Western Hemispheric Affairs. When asked what those differences were, he explained that the differences were over the effects of the November 29 election, but that both countries agreed the elections were not a sufficient condition for the return to normalization of democracy.

Garcia said:

"We believe, there is an accord, that the de facto president Micheletti needs to leave; and it would be fundamental, also, that they concede a safe conduct or other instrument that would permit President Zelaya to move forward."

Valenzuela, in contrast, spoke in generalities about Brazil-US relations when asked about the differences between the US and Brazil on Honduras:

"Really, we agree on some fundamental aspects of our relations and have similar points of view on many of the hemispheric affairs."

Valenzuela met with Garcia instead of Brazil's Foreign Minister, Celso Amorim, in part because of resentment over Clinton's Friday warning to "nations that flirt with Iran". Garcia said "that wasn't a warning for Brazil; if that was a message, it was mistaken."

Some of the press coverage is spinning this as a change of position by Brazil, but I don't see it. What's interesting is that it is Garcia who is reporting to the press on what their points of unity are. Valenzuela is silent in nearly all of the press coverage, and when he is quoted, says next to nothing of substance.

If Garcia's statements are representative of the agreement between Brazil and the US, wouldn't it be a stronger message if Valenzuela at least echoed it? If Valenzuela, or Clinton, were the ones calling for Micheletti to leave power, for the issuance of a safe conduct, would it not be more effectively received in Honduras? But we, as a country, remain mute, and let our "partners" do the heavy lifting. What are we actually saying to Micheletti? Not surprisingly, the State Department remains mute on that subject as well, but I'm willing to bet that its not this.

Valenzuela To Visit Mercosur Countries

The State Department announced today that Arturo Valenzuela would visit the 4 Mercosur countries, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay next week. During the visit he will "discuss bilateral and multilateral themes of mutual interest," according to the State Department spokesperson Charles Luoma-Overstreet.

While there's no official announcement yet on the State Department website, its not a stretch to think that this visit will center on trying to persuade these countries to come around to the US point of view of Honduras, as one of its goals. Monday these four countries issued statements indicating they would not recognize the results of the November 29 Honduran elections, nor would they recognize a Lobo Sosa administration this coming January. Valenzuela, on Univision over the weekend, said the US would recognize Lobo Sosa as the legitimate president of Honduras once inaugurated.

"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.

Please Brief Valenzuela

Will someone please bring Arturo Valenzuela, the State Department's new Assistant Secretary for West Hemisphere Affairs up to speed on the Honduran election history? He seems to not know the history surrounding this election. Today in his press conference, he said:

In fact, the primaries were held in November of last year in each of the major parties. The vice president, Santos, resigned. He was Zelaya’s vice president. He resigned as vice president to run for office. He competed in primaries in November of last year.

In fact Elvin Santos did NOT compete in the primaries last November. He was ruled ineligible by the Supreme Election Tribunal. I'll refer you to a previous post from August this year for all the details since it involves constitutional amendments.

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal ruled in August 2008, that Santos could not be inscribed in the primary election as a presidential candidate because he was still the Vice President, and he then had to install a puppet candidate, Mauricio Villeda Bermudez, as a placeholder. He resigned as Vice President on November 18, 2008, just before the primary election, but it was not until December 17th, after his stand-in had won the primary election, that Santos's resignation was accepted by Congress, and the TSE ruled that as long as he resigned at least 6 months before the election he could run. Villeda Bermudez was convinced to withdraw his candidacy in favor of Santos. That's how Santos became a presidential candidate. He did not compete in the primary election.

Valenzuela also seems not to know that two of the magistrates appointed to the TSE this time were at the time of their appointment holding political office in violation of the constitution, which of course caused a stir in Honduras but was no impediment to their appointment.

There seems to be much deep background about the Honduran elections that Mr. Valenzuela doesn't appear to know. Will someone please brief him?

Valenzuela Dreams

Arturo Valenzuela represented the United States at the closed session of the OAS today. In it, he openly broke with the majority of the OAS representatives by urging them to accept the results of the November 29 elections in Honduras. Only Panama and the US spoke in favor of recognizing the elections.

It appears that Mr. Valenzuela is something of a dreamer with an active fantasy life. EFE reports (and again there are as yet no English language sources) that Valenzuela said the Micheletti's little vacation opened a space that should help expedite the formation of a unity government.

"We value this step and urge that it facilitate the formation of a national unity government, such as is established in the accord of October 30."

Exactly how does this expedite the formation of a unity government? What actually does Valenzuela think has changed? Micheletti is still in charge of the de facto government. Its not as if anyone else is now calling the shots.

I'm sure Mr. Valenzuela knows that Micheletti's "vacation" does not actually open any space for anything to happen in Honduras, but I guess he can dream....

....but that's not how foreign policy should be made.