Zelaya aide: Honduran coup talks have broken down

[demoleft]

Source: ap

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia – A top aide of ousted President Manuel Zelaya says talks to resolve the Honduran political crisis have collapsed because of the intransigence of the coup-installed government.

Patricia Rodas says the dialogue in the Honduran capital "has been definitively broken" because the interim government refuses to accept Zelaya's return to the presidency.

Rodas is the foreign minister of Zelaya's ousted government. She spoke at summit of several Latin American leaders in Cochabamba, Bolivia.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091017/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_honduras_coup

[bemildred]

1. Gee, who could have predicted this? nt

[L. Coyote]

2. No surprise. See how they stall, and stall, and kill more liberals, and stall and torture

So what was Bush's lame excuse for invading Panama and bombing the black ghettos into oblivion? Oh yeah, their leader was a criminal ...

[bemildred]

4. Yep. stall, stall, stall. nt

[L. Coyote]

3. Zelaya aide: Honduran coup talks have broken down (AP) – 10 minutes ago

Zelaya aide: Honduran coup talks have broken down
By JUAN CARLOS LLORCA (AP) – 10 minutes ago - http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jAkMGKIUDg_ngUiZboxQbYj5_DPwD9BCH3VO0


TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Negotiations to end the Honduran political crisis have collapsed because of the coup-installed government's refusal to accept ousted President Manuel Zelaya's return to power, a top aide of the deposed leader said Friday.

The announcement dampened hopes for a resolution to the three-month old conflict less than a week after the two sides returned to the negotiating table in a dialogue organized by foreign ministers from across the hemisphere.

"The process of dialogue ... has been completely broken," Patricia Rodas, the foreign minister in Zelaya's ousted government, told Latin American presidents meeting in Cochabamba, Bolivia. "The intransigence of the dictatorship led to the failure."

Her comments came moments after Zelaya rejected a proposal from interim President Roberto Micheletti that called for allowing the Supreme Court to decide whether the ousted president should be allowed to return to power.

"The proposal is completely unacceptable," said Victor Meza, a member of Zelaya's negotiating team. ...........

[Peace Patriot]

5. This is very bad! The repression, including suspension of all civil rights, & every kind of outrage

including unjust imprisonment, torture, rape and murder, will continue.

The Junta intends to hold an "election" in these circumstances, and the Honduran military has said that they "will not permit" a boycott of the election. To me that means they are going to use violence to force people to vote, and punish anyone who won't vote, or who deliberately invalidates their ballot, and crush anyone who dares to publicly protest this farce.

I think that only a UN peacekeeping mission can remedy this situation--protect the Honduran people, and help them restore their democracy. And I hope that's what Brazil is talking to Obama and Clinton about, in a reported "high level" Brazilian mission to Washington (reported yesterday) to discuss Honduras.

[The abyss]

6. Yeah, well of course they want the “talks” to collapse.

The bigger question is just where will the empire stand on this “announcement”?

Where can the empire afford to stand?

So many aspirations, so little time,

[L. Coyote]

7. Reuters: Honduras post-coup crisis talks deadlocked

Honduras post-coup crisis talks deadlocked = By Frank Jack Daniel
17 Oct 2009 00:55:31 GMT - http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N16369457.htm


* De facto leader Micheletti stands his ground
* Zelaya rejects proposal Supreme Court rule on his return (Recasts with talks deadlocked)

TEGUCIGALPA, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Talks to resolve a post-coup crisis in Honduras hit a deadlock on Friday, as de facto leader Roberto Micheletti resisted international pressure to reinstate toppled President Manuel Zelaya.

Negotiators for Zelaya refused a proposal by Micheletti to have the Supreme Court rule on his return to office. The court supported his ouster and is unlikely to restore him to power.

.....

Although Meza said the negotiations continued, the two sides have not substantially changed position in days. Zelaya is prepared to have his reinstatement made legal by Congress.

....

The negotiators repeatedly hurried out of the talks in an upscale hotel in the Honduran capital to consult with their leaders on Friday, while a small group of Zelaya supporters gathered outside, closely watched by riot police.

The coup brought back memories of Central America's ugly past of civil wars and state-backed violence....

[timeforpeace]

8. This the same aide who was the only person claiming there were talks to reinstate him?

[EFerrari]

10. Have you been in a cave for the last hundred days?

That has always been what the resistance and the international community has demanded.

You keep posting this as if repetition makes it true even though several posters have shown you it isn't.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[excess_3]

9. election in Hondouras, November 29 .nt

[EFerrari]

11. No one will recognize the results. Not us, not the EU, not the OAS

and not the resistance.

[David__77]

12. The fascists will be wiped out.

But I definitely oppose a UN aggression against Honduras. The Honduran people do support every support in their revolutionary struggle for liberation, however, whether it is armed of non-armed.

[Peace Patriot]

13. BREAKING: Aide: Ousted Honduran leader giving talks 2 days

Source: AP

Aide: Ousted Honduran leader giving talks 2 days
(AP) – 56 minutes ago

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — A spokesman says ousted President Manuel Zelaya will give deadlocked negotiations two more days to resolve the Honduran political crisis.
Ricardo Martinez says "we are willing to continue the dialogue."

He spoke at a news conference shortly after Zelaya's foreign minister, Patricia Rodas, had called the negotiations collapsed. Rodas had told Latin American presidents meeting Friday in Bolivia that talks had broken down over the coup-imposed government's refusal to accept Zelaya's return to power.

However, Martinez later said Zelaya would give negotiators two days to break the impasse.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jAkMGKIUDg_ngUiZboxQbYj5_DPwD9BCHT4O0

[Vidar]

14. I admire Zelaya & wish him the best.

[Peace Patriot]

15. One sign of hope that I see is that a "high level" Brazilian mission arrived in Washington

yesterday for discussions on Honduras with the Obama administration. Brazil is hosting the elected president of Honduras, Mel Zelaya, in its embassy in Tegucigalpa--after Zelaya's dramatic return to his country a few weeks ago. The Honduran military has that embassy surrounded, to prevent Zelaya supporters from rallying in support of his restoration to his rightful office, and was harassing the embassy with tear gas, some other kind of poison that made everyone sick, and a high-pitched sound weapon. Brazil complained to the UN Security Council, which passed a resolution warning the Junta about harassing or violating Brazilian embassy territory. So, Brazil and its president Lula da Silva, are major players in attempting to get the fascist Junta in Honduras to stand down. It seems to me possible that Lulu and Obama have agreed on a plan to that end, and have suggested that Zelaya extend the talks.

What the Junta is trying to do is delay, delay, delay, to remain in control of government machinery, and continue martial law and the suspension of civil rights, until the so-called election that they plan to force people to vote in, in late November. One Honduran military general was quoted last week as saying that the Honduran military "will not permit" a boycott of the election--whatever that means. (Dragging people from their homes and forcing them to vote?) There are reports tonight of Honduran troops around all the main government buildings, and more troops moving toward the city. It is not clear why. They have shut down all protest and free speech/free assembly in the country already. Their goal has been to maintain this brutal clampdown, hold their farce of an election and try to sell that to the world as restored democracy.

However, it is Zelaya who has extended the talks with the Junta. The Junta is in a very untenable position, with only a few months remaining in Zelaya's term as president (he is termed out), and all the world condemning the Junta and boycotting Honduras. Why won't they restore Zelaya to his rightful office?

That is the sticking point in the negotiations. They won't let Zelaya resume his presidency, even for a few months. It is rather puzzling, actually. Last June, Zelaya proposed a national advisory vote on whether or not the Honduran people want to create a Constituent Assembly (constitutional convention) to revise Honduras' Reagan-era Constitution. Oscar Arias--the initial US-designated negotiator--has now said that Honduras' Constitution is the "worst in the world," and that, if they cannot hold a fair election in Honduras--which they obviously cannot--then the "only solution" is a Constituent Assembly, to revise this deficient document (--quoted in an article in The Nation by Greg Grandin, just published).

Zelaya's Constituent Assembly proposal--which would have been only an advisory vote, and would have then gone to Congress for consideration--was the Junta's stated reason for shooting up Zelaya's house, kidnapping him at gunpoint, putting him on a plane with blackened windows (which stopped at the US air base in Honduras for refueling) and exiled him to Costa Rica (left him on the tarmac in his pajamas)--a violation of a specific provision of the Honduran Constitution which forbids exiling any citizen. The Constitution limits presidents to ONE four-year term--a provision that prevents any president from achieving sufficient power to challenge the "ten families" who rule Hondurans like a private fiefdom and the untoward power of the military. (And we can be sure that that's why Reagan's henchmen wrote it that way.) The Junta claimed that Zelaya wanted to change the Constitution to extend his own term of office. But he never said any such thing, and the resolution that he proposed contained not one word about term limits, could not have benefitted him in any way, and it would have taken years for a constitutional re-write to be completed, voted on and enacted, with participation of all segments of Honduran society.

Another provision of this Constitution ("the worst in the world") forbids anyone from ever talking about changing the one-term limit provision! The Junta LIED to the public that Zelaya had broken this law--they called it "treason," for godssakes--but, even if he had said that, so what? That shouldn't be a crime. And if the Honduran Supreme Court had any respect for the Constitution's guarantee of free speech, they would have declared that provision unconstitutional long ago.

One more very important thing: The proposal for a Constituent Assembly was coming from the teachers' union, and other labor unions, and from other grass roots groups and human rights activists, and has widespread support in Honduras. It wasn't just Mel Zelaya's idea!

So this is what the Junta fears--a challenge to their unfair power by the poor majority--in one of the poorest countries in Latin America. The poor found a champion in Zelaya, who was born to the upper class but, like FDR, "betrayed his class" and had begun implementing measures to relieve poverty, such as raising the minimum wage--and championing their proposal for fundamental reform. The Junta--backed by rightwing politicians in the US (and probably by Bushwhack moles in the Pentagon, the State Dept. and the CIA)--found this intolerable.

The country is at an impasse tonight--with more Junta violence against the people of Honduras an imminent threat--because this Junta believes that it can hold out and retain oligarchic power.

[Peace Patriot]

16. The BBC also reporting a 2-day extension of the talks by Zelaya...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8311893.stm

And--at last! at last!--somebody in the corpo/fascist media--after repeating the Junta's slander on Zelaya (that he wanted to extend his term limit)--explains that the resolution that he proposed COULD NOT HAVE DONE THAT!

Finally!

[Peace Patriot]

17. Ousted Honduran leader sets Monday deadline on counteroffer

Source: CNN

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (CNN) -- Representatives of deposed President Manuel Zelaya said Friday that the interim government of coup leader Roberto Micheletti has the weekend to decide whether to accept their proposal to resolve the leadership crisis.

"President Zelaya has decided to wait until Monday to find out if they accept the proposal, which includes a consult with the Supreme Court," said Ricardo Martinez at the Hotel Capitalino in the capital city of Tegucigalpa.

Zelaya's proposal would give the decision about resolving the crisis to the Congress, he said. If no agreement is reached by Monday, "then the dialogue is broken," he said.

His comments came seconds after Micheletti's representatives said the two sides had resolved most of their disagreements and would continue to work.

"We have total and absolute will to continue," Vilma Morales told reporters. "Today, we handed over a proposal that was received by the representatives of ex-President Zelaya for their analysis. Today, this afternoon, half an hour ago, they gave us a counterproposal, which we will analyze and study."

Arturo Corrales, another Micheletti representative, said both proposals represented advances toward a solution and vowed that the two sides would be "in permanent communication" over the weekend.

"The dialogue is not suspending," he said.

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/10/16/honduras.zelaya/

---

AFP - 8 hours ago

Honduras crisis talks continue past deadlines

TEGUCIGALPA — Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya threatened to break off talks on resolving the political crisis here if agreement is not reached with the de facto government by Monday.

Earlier deadlines set by Zelaya came and went on Friday as negotiators pressed ahead with deadlocked talks on the key question of whether the deposed leader would be reinstated and how that would be decided.

"We firmly maintain our proposal and President Zelaya gives a new extension until Monday. We are awaiting a response, otherwise the dialogue is broken," Ricardo Martinez, Zelaya's tourism minister, told reporters.

(SNIP)

Negotiators have said they have reached agreement on most of those points, but Zelaya's reinstatement remains the final, toughest stumbling block to a settlement.

"We're going into the last phase," said Vilma Morales, the spokeswoman for Micheletti's negotiators.

(MORE)

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5glSxS9ppRPl2o5ZgCdXdvPuQkawg

-----

BBC - 02:01 GMT

Ousted Honduras head has deadline

In Honduras, ousted President Manuel Zelaya will give talks with the interim government two more days to reach an agreement, his spokesman says.

(MORE)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8311893.stm

-----

AP-9 hours ago

Aide: Ousted Honduran leader giving talks 2 days

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — A spokesman says ousted President Manuel Zelaya will give deadlocked negotiations two more days to resolve the Honduran political crisis. // Ricardo Martinez says "we are willing to continue the dialogue."

(MORE)

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jAkMGKIUDg_ngUiZboxQbYj5_DPwD9BCHT4O0



---------------------------------------------------------------

The reason I'm citing so many news article, above, is that someone at DU combined my original AP post, that the talks are continuing, with demoleft's post of EARLIER news that the talks were broken off, and placed my post below it in that thread. DU'ers therefore could not tell at a glance in LBN what the latest news is--that THE TALKS ARE CONTINUING THROUGH MONDAY. Further, both sides have agreed to the continued talks (as this CNN news story reports).

Here is the confusing combined thread...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4107197

The AFP story is almost impenetrably hostile to President Zelaya--as it has been all along--painting him as the obstructionist in the talks, when it is his opponents who have troops in the streets ready to bash heads if they don't get their way. Lower down in the article it, too, says that both sides have agreed to continue through the weekend.

[Judi Lynn]

25. Thought you might find this interesting:"Honduras: cocaine flights surge in wake of coup"

Honduras: cocaine flights surge in wake of coup

The number of planes smuggling cocaine through Honduras has surged since the US suspended drug cooperation after the June coup d'etat, the de facto government's drug policy chief Julián Arístides González said Oct. 13. Honduras lost $16.5 million of US military aid after the coup. In the last month alone, de facto authorities say they have have found 10 planes abandoned on runways and remote highways, compared with just four last year. "These are the facts, the flights have intensified," said Arístides, head of the National Directorate for the Struggle Against Narco-traffic (DNLN).

Before the coup, the US loaned helicopters to the Honduran air force and provided the navy with fuel and logistics for interception patrols. "Since the substitution of the president this has been suspended, we don't have the support that was so important given our lack of technology," Arístides said. He added that nearly all the planes found were painted with Venezuelan registrations.

On Oct. 12, Arístides took local reporters on a tour of an airstrip in Raya community of Olancho department, where he said a Venezuelan "narcoavioneta" had been discovered. Authorities are said to be searching for more airstrips in the region.

"It is the population of the United States that will suffer, because the more drugs that arrive in Honduras, the more drugs can arrive in the United States," he said. (Reuters, Oct. 13; La Tribuna, Tegucigalpa, Oct. 12)

http://www.inteldaily.com/news/143/ARTICLE/12262/2009-10-16.html
.
http://outinc.ca.nyud.net:8090/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/girl-shrugging.jpg http://www.bestfitbusinessmgr.com.nyud.net:8090/images/shrugging.jpg

http://www.bergproperties.com.nyud.net:8090/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/bush-shrugging.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_2XwUk5QndYU/Se_R6gmlN0I/AAAAAAAAA58/HlfnMlE3Di0/s400/SarahPalinShrugging.jpg

[L. Coyote]

18. A Fair Plan For Honduras = By James A. Baker III

From the guy who had a "Fair Plan for Florida 2000" known as the Bush Junta:

A Fair Plan For Honduras
A Lesson from Nicaragua Could Solve This Crisis
By James A. Baker III
Saturday, October 17, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/16/AR2009101602728.html?hpid=opinionsbox1


As the Honduran daily newspaper El Heraldo proclaimed in a recent editorial, "the current situation is untenable." And it threatens to grow worse. Unrest and protest are mounting as Honduras's constitutional crisis continues. Matters will only deteriorate if the international community refuses to recognize the results of the coming Honduran elections, scheduled for Nov. 29. In the United States, the crisis risks reawakening the divisive domestic political debates between the left and right that were the rule before 1990.

.... a free and fair election in Honduras would go a long way toward resolving the constitutional crisis there -- but only if Hondurans are not forced to repudiate their country's rule of law, ....

Non-interference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign country is a cardinal principle of the U.N. Charter. In keeping with it, we should defer to the Hondurans' interpretation of their constitution. This calls for Micheletti to serve as interim president until the expiration of his term in January, ........

[Peace Patriot]

20. Ah, Mr. Fixit gonna fix Honduras! YIKES!!! nt

[Judi Lynn]

24. No doubt this clown will want to go there and help out, as he did during the Florida

vote re-count in 2000. What a blessing he always is.

[Vidar]

21. Unfortunately this isn't a surprise.

[L. Coyote]

22. Violation of Law Seen in GOP Legislators' Support of Honduran Coup

Violation of Law Seen in GOP Legislators' Support of Honduran Coup
Oct 16th, 2009 6:57 AM
BETWEEN THE LINES Syndicated Radio Newsmagazine
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/10/16/18625626.php


Interview with Brendan Cooney, writer and anthropologist, conducted by Scott Harris

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R- Fla., holds a copy of Honduras' constitution during a press conference with Honduras'coup- installed President Roberto Micheletti in Tegucigalpa, Oct. 5

As the stalemate continues in the international effort to return the overthrown Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya to power, a parade of Republican legislators have traveled from Washington to Honduras to support the coup government. Nine GOP members of the House and Senate, including Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida have flown to the Honduran capital Tegucigalpato support the defacto coup government's president Roberto Micheletti. The lawmakers stated they believe the coup that ousted Honduran President Zelaya was justified because of his stated intent to hold a non-binding referendum on changing the nation's constitution, which they argue could have removed presidential term limits, a fact disputed by many observers. Since the June 28 coup d'etat, the Honduran police and army have arrested more than a thousand pro-Zelaya supporters, killed an estimated 14 civilians, suspended civil liberties and shutting down opposition newspapers, radio and television stations.

The Republicans' embrace of the coup government in Honduras, has staked out a position that justifies any action they see as working against the influence of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his socialist agenda in Latin America. But with their actions, they are deliberately undermining the Obama administration's and universal international efforts to isolate the Michelletti regime and to push for a negotiated return of Zelaya to office before the scheduled Nov. 29 Honduran presidential election.

...........

[L. Coyote]

23. Leftist LatAm bloc urges world to reject election in Honduras

Leftist LatAm bloc urges world to reject election in Honduras
By Paola Flores, AP - 17th October 2009, 4:51pm
http://www.edmontonsun.com/news/world/2009/10/17/11436806.html


COCHABAMBA, Bolivia — Leaders of a bloc of leftist Latin American governments urged the international community Saturday to reject the presidential election planned by Honduras’ interim government next month.

The leaders of the Boliviarian Alternative group also denounced Colombia’s plan to give the U.S. military expanded use of bases in that South American nation, calling it a threat to the region’s security.

In a joint statement issued at the end of the two-day ALBA meeting, the leaders criticized the coup-installed government in Honduras and urged the world’s nations to continue pressing for the reinstatement of ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

“No electoral process held under the coup-installed government, or the authorities that emerge from it, can be recognized by the international community,” the statement said. It added that “it is fundamental to drive a diplomatic offensive and to promote forceful actions for the total re-establishment of the constitutional” order in Honduras.

.............