Zelaya: US-brokered Honduras deal 'dead'
An accord that would allow the Honduran Congress to vote to allow Manuel Zelaya back into the presidency is 'dead,' the ousted president said. US Sen. Jim DeMint has said the US will recognize Nov. 29 presidential elections regardless of whether Zelaya is returned to office, which many nations around the world have demanded.

Assistant Secretary of State Thomas A. Shannon Jr. has suggested that the accord itself is enough to guarantee the fairness of the election. On Friday, Mr. Kelly would not be pinned down on the issue.

But the secretary general of the Organization of American States, José Miguel Insulza, said Friday that both sides should resume talks on a unity government “that should, naturally, be presided by he who legitimately holds the office of the president of the Honduran nation,” Mr. Zelaya.

The split between the United States and the rest of the hemisphere is likely to deepen as the election approaches and Mr. Zelaya’s reinstatement looks ever more unlikely.

The four-month Honduran political crisis appears to be over. Last week, Honduran officials signed an agreement to establish a provisional "unity" government and allow the Honduran Congress to determine the fate of Manuel Zelaya, who was removed as president in late June for constitutional violations. At first, some media outlets reported that the deal would automatically restore Zelaya as president, but that was inaccurate. Zelaya could be restored--but Honduran legislators will make the final call. The United States, which helped broker the accord, agreed to end sanctions against Honduras and recognize the legitimacy of its November 29 elections.

This represents a major triumph for Honduran democracy. The Obama administration had previously argued that the termination of U.S. sanctions and the acceptance of this month's Honduran elections were both contingent on Zelaya's reinstatement as president. At some point, the administration decided that Honduras should be permitted to make its own decision about the Hugo Chávez acolyte. If the Obama administration still believed that Zelaya's removal was an illegal "military coup" and an assault on democracy, it would not have endorsed an agreement that lets the Honduran Congress reject Zelaya's return to the presidency.

Zelaya, not surprisingly, is confused. He thought, understandably enough, that the U.S. government had taken his side. After the agreement was announced, he wrote a letter to the State Department demanding to know "if the position condemning the coup d'etat has been changed or modified." In all likelihood, the Honduran Congress will not reinstall him as president. An adviser to Roberto Micheletti, who became interim Honduran president after Zelaya's ouster, told Bloomberg News that "Zelaya won't be restored--I don't think so." But the agreement has nonetheless boosted Honduras's diplomatic standing. "Just by signing this agreement," the Micheletti adviser told Bloomberg, "we already have the recognition of the international community for the elections."

Implementation of the agreement will be monitored by a "verification commission," whose members will include U.S. labor secretary Hilda Solis and former Chilean president Ricardo Lagos. Again, it is important to remember that nothing in the agreement stipulates Zelaya's return as president. Honduran lawmakers will decide that issue themselves. They will base their decision partly on the opinion of the Honduran Supreme Court, which ordered the military to arrest Zelaya back in June. Even if Zelaya is restored, his term will end in January. A new president will be elected by the Honduran people on November 29 and inaugurated on January 27.

The Obama administration may have been persuaded to change its position on Honduras by a Law Library of Congress study that analyzed the legal circumstances of Zelaya's ouster. The study concluded that "the judicial and legislative branches applied constitutional and statutory law in the case against President Zelaya in a manner that was judged by the Honduran authorities from both branches of the government to be in accordance with the Honduran legal system." The study also found that Zelaya's exile to Costa Rica was unconstitutional, but that has no bearing on his legal entitlement to return as president.

The administration deserves credit for its reversal on Honduras, though it should have changed course much sooner. There was no "coup" in Honduras; rather, the country's democratic institutions exercised their legal authority to remove a president who had trampled the constitution and used thuggish mob tactics as part of a blatant power grab. U.S. sanctions against Honduras were never justified, nor did Honduras deserve to be suspended from the Organization of American States. Zelaya should not have been deported, but his removal from office was constitutional. Honduras never ceased being a civilian-led democracy. From the first minute it took office, the Micheletti government had constitutional legitimacy, despite being labeled as a "coup regime" by uninformed or ideologically biased critics.

Generally speaking, the U.S. media does not seem to appreciate the significance of what Honduras has achieved. To review: A Chávez crony launched an illegal attack on democracy, and his opponents used constitutional mechanisms to thwart his efforts. Honduran democracy survived. Authoritarian tactics were defeated. Free elections will soon be held. The country won't be transformed into another Venezuela.

All of this is worth celebrating.

Jaime Daremblum, who served as Costa Rica's ambassador to the United States from 1998 to 2004, is director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the Hudson Institute.

BRASILIA, Brazil -- Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya says he will leave the Brazilian Embassy in Honduras by Jan. 27, when his presidential term ends, according to an interview broadcast Friday.

Zelaya said in the telephone interview with Globo TV that he wants to leave soon but did not say where he will go. He has been holed up in the embassy in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa for three months under threat of arrest if he sets foot outside the building.

Zelaya's comments aired a day after Honduras' coup-installed government said he is free to leave the country, but not as president.

The top-ranking Brazilian official at the embassy also told Globo TV that Zelaya must leave by Jan. 27. Francisco Catunda did not say where Zelaya might go, saying only that it would be "another destination."

Officials at Brazil's presidency and at the nation's foreign ministry did not immediately return telephone messages left Friday seeking comment.

The State Department keeps slapping an ally.


Honduras will inaugurate president-elect Porfirio Lobo this week, two months after one of the world's most recently famous little countries held a successful democratic election. So we are left to wonder why the United States State Department is still trying to hammer anyone there who dared to participate last summer in the constitutional removal of President Manuel Zelaya from office.

The U.S. has formally recognized the November presidential election, and the State Department tells us it also recognizes the congress's second vote to remove Mr. Zelaya. So what's the problem?

It appears that State's pettiness still flows from the refusal of interim president Roberto Micheletti and his cabinet, from June to December, to cave to the U.S. demand that they reinstate Mr. Zelaya. In earlier acts of pique, State stripped the U.S. visas of Mr. Micheletti, his advisers and cabinet officials and even the entire Honduran Supreme Court. Last week it yanked more visas from members of the interim government.

Insofar as Mr. Micheletti is leaving office January 27, the only explanations for this pistol-whipping would appear to be: Don't mess with Uncle Sam's regional agenda, which since April's Summit of the Americas includes overtures to Hugo Chávez, Raúl Castro and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega.

A day after the latest U.S. slap, Mr. Micheletti said he'll withdraw from public appearances for the remainder of his term. "I am going home to my house, for the peace of the nation and because I do not want to be an obstacle to the new government," he said.

Meanwhile, also under pressure from the U.S., President-elect Lobo said last week he will let Mr. Zelaya go to the Dominican Republic despite legal charges pending against him. The U.S. has been lobbying for a "get out of jail free" card for Mr. Zelaya. Mr. Lobo no doubt wants the foreign aid tap turned back on, so this arrangement benefits both sides. Prediction: Mr. Zelaya will join the Chávez network to make constant trouble for the region's democracies. And his U.S. visa will remain intact.

The State Department has never explained its harsh treatment of Honduras, a democratic ally. And this latest bullying won't help U.S. credibility with other Latin leaders who might help us, as opposed to assisting the chavistas.

The tune of the State Dept has changed