Honduran president Manuel Zelaya met yesterday with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, their first meeting since Zelaya was overthrown in a military coup on June 29. The principal outcome of the meeting was Zelaya's agreement to accept the mediation of Costa Rican president Oscar Arias in the search for a peaceful resolution of the Honduran political crisis. As is widely known, Arias won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his efforts to bring an end to the Central American civil wars.
Arias got involved in the discussions after Honduran soldiers murdered an unarmed protester awaiting Zelaya's effort to return to Honduras on Sunday. Coup president Roberto Micheletti was also affected by the military's brutality, dispatching a team of negotiators to Washington and softening his rhetoric towards Zelaya.
More on the flip
While no one is prejudging the outcome of the face-to-face discussions between Zelaya and Micheletti, the most likely outcome is that Zelaya will be restored to office, he and the coup plotters will be given amnesty for the myriad crimes all have committed, and immediate plans to reform or replace the constitution will be dropped.
Several days ago, Micheletti floated the idea of early elections as a part of the resolution of the crisis, and the Spanish-language press -- though not the New York Times -- is reporting that Zelaya is open to the idea. Here's Madrid's El Pais (link in Spanish, my translation):
Hours before the interview [between Zelaya and Clinton], a high official in the Obama Administration stated that one option was to try to reach a compromise between Zelaya, interim president Micheletti, and the Armed Forces so that the deposed president could return and finish his last six months in office with limited and clearly defined powers. In exchange, Zelaya would abandon his efforts to change the Constitution to achieve his reelection. Yesterday, after the meeting with Clinton, Zelaya said he did not discard early elections as a possible solution to the crisis.
As I pointed out on Friday, when Micheletti first proposed this idea, there are serious constitutional problems with holding early elections, because the Constitution expressly prohibits any change in the presidential term of office. Article 237 establishes a four year term and fixes January 27 as the inauguration day for the president. Article 374 prohibits any change to Article 237. Now, it is true the constitution doesn't set election day, but it is hard to see how changing the date of the election without changing the date of inauguration is going to resolve the crisis. And changing inauguration day is expressly prohibited by the Constitution.
In other news, the abject clown who deigns to call himself Honduran Foreign Minister has been forced to issue a personal apology to President Obama:
Enrique Ortez says the letter expresses "his most profound apologies" for "an unfortunate comment."
Some may recall that Ortez had referred to Obama as a "negrito" who did not even know where Tegucigalpa is. Not everyone agrees with me, but I translate "negrito" here as the "n" word. Ortez, always an idiot, claims the remark was not intended to offend. However,
Ortez also read a statement in Spanish from U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens that said: "I express my profound indignation for the unfortunate, disrespectful and racially insensitive comments made about President Barack Obama."
Kudos to Llorens, who though he may have been appointed by George W. Bush seems to have been playing a dignified role throughout the crisis.