politics | Honduras update (Reply)

CIP Americas says Agreement to End Honduran Coup Marks Victory and Challenge

Last night, Oct. 29, Honduras' de facto regime finally agreed to allow Congress to vote to "restore full executive power prior to June 28." Conceding to international and national pressure, the Honduran coup appears to be facing its final days.
If the agreement brokered this week holds, the Honduran resistance movement will have turned the ugly precedent of a modern-day military coup d'etat into an example of the strength of nonviolent grassroots resistance.

The Victory
The points of the agreement are the same ones that the de facto regime has rejected since talks began in San Jose, Costa Rica. By last week, there was supposedly agreement on all points except the reinstatement of Zelaya.
Although the decision to restore Zelaya to power must receive a non-binding opinion from the Supreme Court and then be approved in Congress, it appears to be a done deal. Zelaya's team reportedly had the support of members from the UD Party, 20 members of the Liberal Party, and more recently the support of the National Party to revoke the decree that was issued to justify his removal from office. That decree was originally accompanied by a forged letter of resignation that was immediately denounced.
President Zelaya expressed "satisfaction" at the agreement. Zelaya's negotiating team had agreed long before on the terms of the revised San Jose Accords, and negotiations were hung up on the coup's refusal to allow reinstatement of the president. The leader of the de facto regime, Roberto Micheletti, issued a statement Thursday night saying, "I am pleased to announce that a few minutes ago I authorized my negotiating team to sign an agreement that marks the beginning of the end of the political situation in the country."
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Al Giordano disagrees a bit:
Reports of a Deal in Honduras Are Premature

US officials and commercial media organizations are popping champagne corks prematurely over a reported US-brokered “deal” to return Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to (limited) power, but the two sides that reportedly signed the agreement already disagree over what exactly it says.

Reuters reports that coup “president” Micheletti has agreed to step down:

”I have authorized my negotiating team to sign a deal that marks the beginning of the end of the country’s political situation,” Micheletti told reporters on Thursday night.

He said Zelaya could return to office after a vote in Congress that would be authorized by the country’s Supreme Court. The deal would also require both sides to recognize the result of a Nov. 29 presidential election and would transfer control of the army to the top electoral court.

If approved by Congress, Zelaya would be able to finish out his presidential term, which ends in January. It was not clear what would happen to other elements o f the agreement if Congress votes against Zelaya’s restoration.

(Bold type mine, for emphasis.)

But Micheletti’s claim that a Congressional vote to restore Zelaya would require Supreme Court authorization is a flat out lie, according to a source with Zelaya inside his Brazilian Embassy refuge in Tegucigalpa: “That is what the golpistas have put out, but that is NOT the accord… The Supreme Court gives its non-binding opinion to the Congress, but the key is that all of this takes time, time that the golpistas want to keep taking.”

While there is some healthy distrust already over whether Congress will gin up on its end and really vote to restore Zelaya, that probably will be easier to accomplish than many believe. Two words: Pepe Lobo. The National Party candidate for President, Lobo is leading in the polls. He obviously wants very much for the November 29 “elections” to become internationally recognized elections. His party holds 55 of 128 seats in Honduras’ unicameral legislature, just ten short of a majority. There are at least 22 Liberal Party members that have publicly indicated they want Zelaya back as president, plus 11 minor party legislators most of whom are likely to go along with such a deal. Faced with such a patchwork majority, look for most of the 62 Liberal Party members in Congress to fold and go with the flow. The Congressional vote is not likely to prove a stumbling block to implementing this agreement.
PDF of agreement signed in English and Spanish at the link

Big Gun: US Labor Secretary Hilda ?

Solis Heads to Honduras Tuesday

With the agreed-upon November 5 deadline for restitution of Honduras President Manuel Zelaya approaching, the White House has just sent in a big gun. US Labor Secretary Hilda Solis - arguably the most progressive member of the Obama cabinet - was appointed today to be one of four members of the "Verification Commission" that is charged with making sure all sides comply with last Friday's agreement signed in Tegucigalpa to end the coup d'etat.
The agreement's timeline is clear as day:

October 30, 2009
1. Signing and entrance of the Accord into effect.
2. Formal delivery of the Accord to Congress for the effects of Point 5, “Regarding the Executive Power.”
November 2, 2009
1. Formation of the Verification Commission.
After the signing of this Accord and no later than November 5
1. Formation and installation of the National Unity and Reconciliation Government.

Other members of the verification committee are former Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, President Zelaya's UN Ambassador Jorge Eduardo Reina Idiaquez and coup regime lackey Arturo Corrales Alvarez, who will no doubt be outnumbered by the other three if he tries to join the anti-democracy extremists of the coup regime in stalling implementation of the agreement.
Lagos is a particularly interesting addition to the Verification Commission. In 1972, Chilean President Salvador Allende nominated him as ambassador to the Soviet Union and Congress refused to vote on his nomination. After the 1973 coup d'etat in Chile he was forced into exile to Argentina and then the United States. He returned to Chile to lead the resistance against the coup regime of General Augusto Pinochet, including the successful "vote no" referendum of 1988 that brought down the then fifteen-year-old coup regime.
MOre