Otto Reich: Zelaya not automatically to be re-seated as President in Honduras.

In an article Otto Reich, who served under President Bush from 2001 to 2004, first as assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere and later in the National Security Council, states:

Contrary to press reports, Zelaya is not in any way automatically returned to office by the accord. First, there must be a vote by the entire Honduran congress on whether Zelaya is fit to return to office. Prior to that, the Honduran supreme court, which ruled against Zelaya in June by a vote of 15 to 0, must issue an opinion on the same.

Zelaya warns that deal must be implemented in full

MOSCOW, November 2 (RIA Novosti) - Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said he will refuse support to the country's reconciliation government if he is not be reinstated ahead of national elections next month, the EFE news agency reported on Monday.

The reconciliation government was agreed to be established during Friday's meeting between representatives of Zeleya and the country's de facto leader, Roberto Micheletti.

"The reconciliation government can only be established if we reach an agreement," Zelaya told EFE in a telephone interview.

"No agreement - no reconciliation government," he added.

According to the deal, the Supreme Court is to decide whether the ousted leader will be reinstated ahead of national elections next month. The issue has been the sticking point between the two sides.

Micheletti says the agreement contains no guarantee that Zelaya will return to power.

Many countries and international bodies had warned they would not recognize the results if the Honduran elections were held under the Micheletti presidency.

Micheletti has argued that Zelaya's removal was a constitutional transfer of power and not a coup.

Zelaya was bundled out of Honduras on June 28 by the military, acting on instructions from the Supreme Court and parliament, over efforts to seek an unconstitutional second presidential term. He was flown to Costa Rica, and his place was taken by Micheletti, the parliamentary speaker.

The ousted president secretly returned to the country on September 21 and took refuge in the Brazilian Embassy.

Honduran National Front of Resistance to the Coup on deal to restore Zelaya.

The National Front of Resistance to the Coup d'Etát, facing the imminent signing of a negotiated agreement between the commission representing the legitimate President Manuel Zelaya Rosales and the representatives of the de facto regime, communicates the following to the Honduran people and the international community:

1. We celebrate the upcoming restoration of President Manuel Zelaya Rosales as a popular victory over the narrow interests of the coup oligarchy. This victory has been obtained through four months of struggle and sacrifice by the people who, in spite of the savage repression unleashed by the repressive forces of the state in the hands of the dominant class, have been able to resist and grow in their levels of consciousness and organization and turn themselves into an irrepressible social force.

2. The signing on the part of the dictatorship of the document which mandates "returning the holder of executive power to its pre June 28 state," represents the explicit acceptance that in Honduras there was a coup d'état that should be dismantled in order to return to institutional order and guarantee a democratic framework in which the people can exercise their right to transform society.

3. We demand that the accords signed at the negotiating table be processed in an expedited fashion by the National Congress. We alert all our comrades at the national level so that they can join the actions to pressure for the immediate compliance with the contents of the final document from the negotiating table.

4. We reiterate that a National Constituent Assembly is an unrenounceable aspiration of the Honduran people and a non-negotiable right for which we will continue struggling in the streets, until we achieve the re-founding of our society to convert it into one that is just, egalitarian and truly democratic.

"At 125 days of struggle, nobody here surrenders!"
Tegucigalpa, M.D.C. October 30, 2009

Translation by the Nicaragua Network

Zelaya set to return to power in Honduras

There are press reports that a deal has been reached in Honduras for President Zelaya to return!

According to Retuers elected President Manuel Zelaya said "We are satisfied. We are optimistic that my reinstatement is imminent" and that "Tomorrow will be the day that the plan will be signed to restore democracy to the country,"

He said "It is a triumph for Honduran democracy".

In a late night statement on October 29, Micheletti said, "I am pleased to announce that a few minutes ago my negotiating team signed an agreement that marks the beginning of the end," of the Central American state's political instability, AFP reported.

Boycott

There are 2,896 candidates up for election in November in Honduras, at all levels of government from President and Congress to mayors, and aldermen. While two of the presidential candidates, Cesar Ham (UD party) and Carlos H. Reyes (Independent), have said they will not run without a return to democratic order in Honduras, few at other levels of government have made public statements about the elections.

Earlier this week, the leadership of the UD party indicated they would not participate in the november elections without the restitution of Zelaya. The majority of the leadership of the Party of Innovation and Social Democratic Unity (PINU-SD) issued a statement rebuking their candidate for President, Bernard Martinez, for supporting the coup, and indicating that it would not participate in the November elections unless there was a restitution of democratic order in Honduras. This faction of the PINU-SD party indicated that 100 of its candidates for office would not participate in the November elections without a return of the democratic order.

Honduras: People to Not Approve Electoral Farce

Oct 27 (Prensa Latina) The National Front against the Coup d'Etat in Honduras stated Tuesday that it will not recognize the November 29 elections if constitutional order is not re-established and President Manuel Zelaya is not restituted.

"The people will not approve the electoral farce the putschists are preparing," rural leader Rafael Alegria told Prensa Latina.

Traditional parties and the de facto government insist that these elections are a solution to the dangerous crisis unleashed in the country after the breaking of democratic order.

"The only solution to the conflict in Honduras is the restitution of democratic legality and the president elected by the people," Alegria said.

Juan Barahona, general coordinator of the Front, stressed that if those objectives are not achieved, the future of elections is uncertain.

International community organizations and several governments, included the United States, stated that they will not recognize the elections results if they are not organized in the current circumstances.

The Lonesome Death of Pedro Munoz

A young Honduran activist was almost certainly tortured and killed by the military.

By Jeremy Kryt

A life-sized sketch of Pedro Munoz, in the offices of COFADEH; surrounding placards depict other victims of government violence. Such signs are carried by the nonviolent resistance during marches and rallies as a tribute to the fallen. (All photos by Jeremy Kryt)
 
The only clues left by Munoz's assailants were footprints—tracks identified as belonging to military-style combat boots were found in the rain-freshened mud around the body.

Poll Shows Growing Opposition to Coup

On Oct. 23 the Washington, DC-based polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner released the results of a survey involving face-to-face interviews held Oct. 9-13 with 621 randomly selected Hondurans; the firm didn’t give the margin of error. According to the survey, 60% of Hondurans disapproved of the June 28 removal of President Manuel Zelaya from office, while only 38% approved. Some 19% rated Zelaya’s performance in office as “excellent” and another 48% as “good”; the poll showed 57% personally disapproving of Roberto Micheletti, de facto president since Zelaya’s overthrow, while 28% approved.

The pretext for the coup was a claim that Zelaya’s purpose in calling for a constituent assembly was to end the Constitution’s ban on second terms for presidents. According to the survey, Hondurans favor allowing re-election by a solid 55% to 43%, while 54% support holding a constituent assembly as a solution to the current crisis, with 43% opposed. While the Honduran right depicts Zelaya’s supporters as backers of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez Frías, only 10% of Hondurans feel “warm” towards Chávez, while 83% have a negative impression, according to the survey. (Greenberg press release 10/23/09; Honduras Coup 2009 blog 10/24/09; Bloomberg 10/23/09)

The Greenberg poll, although based on a relatively small sampling, gives results similar to those from the two other polls published since the coup: a survey by the Costa Rican-based CID Gallup firm in early July and a poll the Tegucigalpa firm Consultants in Investigation of Markets and Public Opinion (COIMER & OP) conducted Aug. 23-29. The July CID Gallup survey showed a plurality of 46% opposing the coup, while the August COIMER & OP poll showed 52.7% against Zelaya’s removal, with only 17.4% supporting it (the rest didn’t answer). If the surveys are correct, opposition to the coup has grown steadily over the past four months, with large majority now rejecting Zelaya’s removal. (Daily Kos 7/12/09; Narco News 10/6/09; Honduras Coup 2009 blog 10/7/09)

Honduras: Talks Stall, Election in Doubt

From http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/

On Oct. 23 negotiators for deposed Honduran president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales gave up on talks to end a four-month political crisis in Honduras. The negotiations had been “worn down” by the intransigence of de facto president Roberto Micheletti Bain’s government, Zelaya representative Mayra Mejía announced in Tegucigalpa.

Zelaya had already given up key points in the talks, which began on Oct. 7 with the support of the Organization of American States (OAS). His concessions included acceptance of a government of national reconciliation and the renunciation of calls for a national constituent assembly to rewrite the 1982 Constitution, a demand still strongly supported by grassroots organizations. But Micheletti’s representatives refused to negotiate seriously on Zelaya’s return to office before the scheduled Nov. 29 general elections, according to Zelaya’s representatives. Zelaya, who was deposed by a military coup on June 28, ends his four-year term on Jan. 27.

The de facto government’s intransigence was “a second coup d’état,” Zelaya said in an interview with the British network BBC on Oct. 25.

CONDEMNATION OF THE ACTS OF INTIMIDATION AGAINST THE EMBASSY OF BRAZIL IN HONDURAS

(Approved by the Permanent Council at its meeting of October 21, 2009)

The Permanent Council denounces and strongly condemns the hostile action by the de facto regime against the embassy of Brazil in Tegucigalpa and the harassment of its occupants through deliberate actions that affect them physically and psychologically and violate their human rights.

The Permanent Council calls on the de facto regime to put an immediate end to these actions, to respect the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and international instruments on human rights, and to withdraw forthwith all repressive forces from the areas surrounding the Embassy of Brazil, without neglecting the due security of the Mission.

The Permanent Council appeals for guarantees for the right to life, integrity, and security of President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales and of all persons in and around the Embassy of Brazil, as well as for the protection of their dignity, and it urges the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to follow up on this situation.

The Permanent Council issues a strong appeal for continuation of the dialogue already well under way in Honduras, under the terms of the proposal of the San José Agreement, without any attempt to open topics other than those contained in said proposal.ENDS

THIS FILM HIGHLIGHTS THE ABUSE OUTLINED ABOVE