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.

Mercosur Disavows Honduran Elections

The 38th Mercosur summit, held in Montevideo, Uruguay, has issued a statement Monday disavowing recognition of the Honduras elections. The presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Venezuela, which is seeking membership, "reaffirmed their strongest condemnation against the coup" of June 28 against Honduras' constitutional President Manuel Zelaya." Bloomberg reports the statement said:

“In light of the failure to restore President Jose Manuel Zelaya to the position for which he was democratically elected by the Honduran people, we want to express our total lack of recognition for the Nov. 29 elections held by the de facto government, which were undertaken in an unconstitutional, illegitimate and illegal atmosphere.”

The elections were held ""in a climate of unconstitutionality and illegality, being a strong blow to the democratic values of Latin America and the Caribbean."

Mexico was observing at the Mercosur summit. The Mexican Foreign Minister, Patricia Espinoza, said "the elections in Honduras are a necessary but not sufficient condition for the normalization of the democratic life in Honduras." She told the summit that Zelaya needed to be returned to power, and called for an end to the harrassment of the Brazilian Embassy.

Mercosur joins the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA in Spanish) in not recognizing the elections.