Handura, July 10: Talks to resolve the leadership crisis in Honduras began without a breakthrough Thursday, as both rivals emerged from meetings with a mediator showing no signs of relinquishing their claims to the presidency following a divisive coup.
The hoped for face-to-face meeting in Costa Rica between ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and the man who replaced him, Roberto Micheletti, didn’t take place. The men held separate, closed-door meetings with Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, who is mediating efforts to end the standoff over a June 28 coup that drew worldwide condemnation and presented the Obama administration with one of its biggest tests in Latin America.
“We have no illusions, this may take longer than what was imagined,” said Arias, who won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for helping Central Americans resolve their civil wars.
Micheletti and Zelaya, who were once friends and political allies, had staked out hardline positions ahead of the talks. The ousted leader said he was in San Jose only to arrange his return to power. Honduras’ interim leader, in turn, insisted that Zelaya’s reinstatement was not negotiable.
Little appeared to change Thursday.
Zelaya was the first to arrive for the talks in Arias’ home in Costa Rica’s capital. As he headed back to his hotel, the leftist rancher called for “the reestablishment of the state of law, democracy and the return of the president elected by the Honduran people.”
Micheletti arrived shortly afterward and met with Arias for almost three hours. On emerging, he only said that he was “satisfied” with the meeting and was returning to Honduras. He named four officials who will represent him in future negotiations and said presidential elections in Honduras would be held in November as planned.
On arriving back in Tegucigalpa, Micheletti told reporters that the main point argued by Zelaya’s supporters was that the toppled leader return to Honduras as president.
“We are in agreement with his return here — but to be sent directly to the courts,” Micheletti said, referring to the 18 charges against Zelaya in Honduras, including treason and usurping public functions. Interim leaders say the coup was legal because the Supreme Court ruled that Zelaya’s push for a referendum on constitutional change violated the charter.
Offering some hope for future talks, Micheletti said he would return to San Jose for talks “if it is necessary.”
Arias had hoped to bring the rivals together for their first direct meeting since the coup, but that was not to be.
“Each one put as a condition that the other not be there, that it wasn’t the moment to meet,” said Costa Rican Information Minister Mayi Antillon.
Antillon said commissions named by Zelaya and Micheletti had already begun talks Thursday afternoon.
“At this time, they are exchanging ideas … it is a basic process but both delegations are sitting at the same table,” she said.
Costa Rica’s president said any resolution to the dispute must included Zelaya’s reinstatment as president.
“My recommendation is that we advance where it is easy and leave the most difficult point for the end,” Arias said. He added that negotiations could last for several days more.
Even getting both sides to appear in the same city was an achievement for Arias — something that hasn’t happened since the leftist Zelaya surrendered under gunfire and was flown out of his country by masked soldiers on June 28.
OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza expressed concern that if the Honduran crisis is not resolved, it could leave the door open for other coups in Latin America.
“I’m not going to mention countries,” Insulza told reporters in Washington on Thursday.
Arias was invited to mediate by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. That move effectively sidelined Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who had lent Zelaya a Venezuelan plane and other support, and cast the crisis as an epic battle between the poor and the region’s “oligarchies.”
President Barack Obama has framed the issue in non-ideological terms, encouraging leaders from the left and right to come together to support the institutions of democracy.
Obama has insisted that Zelaya be restored to power, but “not because we agree with him,” he told an audience in Russia. “We do so because we respect the universal principle that people should choose their own leaders, whether they are leaders we agree with or not.”
U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said no U.S. representatives were participating in the mediation sessions. “We are keenly interested in these talks. We want to see a good outcome that restores the democratic order in Honduras. But I just want to emphasize, this is President Arias’, these are his talks.”
In Honduras, thousands of Zelaya’s supporters and detractors continued marching in the streets Thursday. Pro-Zelaya forces cut off several highways, including a key southern truck route to Nicaragua and El Salvador. They argue the president was illegally toppled by the military with the backing of the country’s oligarchy.
Backers of the Micheletti government demonstrated in the northern industrial city of San Pedro Sula and other places.
In contrast, very few people — almost all journalists — showed up at the metal security gates placed in front of Arias’ home, a one-story house in a residential neighborhood of San Jose. The only guards were about two dozen unarmed tourism police wearing polo shirts.
The United Nations and the Organization of American States have demanded Zelaya be returned to power, imposing or threatening sanctions and aid cuts. Venezuela said it is canceling shipments of subsidized oil, and the U.S. suspended more than $18 million in military assistance and development aid programs. No other country has recognized the interim administration.
–Agencies