Saturday, October 3, 2009

developments.....

Mark was kind enough to type up another update for everyone wondering about the situation in Honduras...

even though there has been a new wave of calm throughout the city this week, there appears to have been a lot happening. The executive decree temporarily suspending constitutional guarantees by Micheletti and his cabinet have done exactly what they were intended to do.... restore a sense of calm here. There has been no nightly curfew for the last three days and the demonstrations have been small in number and remained peaceful.

A group of Brazilian Congressmen was here to check out the situation with Zelaya at their embassy. They asked him not to abuse their facility by using it as a place to call for insurrection. It seems that they were not happy with the way he was creating unrest while there. They also met with Micheletti and got assurances that he will not "attack" the embassy in an effort to arrest Zelaya. Micheletti has also extended his ten day deadline for the Brazilian authorities to "define the status of Zelaya" to a now indefinite period.

We found out yesterday that the president of the OAS arrived and met with Micheletti, US Ambassador Llorens, and other business and political leaders here. He flew into the US military base at Palmerola incognito and that is where he met with these various leaders. This was an effort to lay groundwork for the dialogue that will take place in the near future. A delegation of the OAS is scheduled to arrive on October 7. It was also disclosed that Costa Rican President Arias would not be a part of that delegation. He really stuck his foot in his mouth this week when he disclosed that he had not even read the Honduran constitution and when he tried he said it was the "worst constitution in the world". It is becoming pretty obvious to many that there was never an effort by the international community to see if what occurred here was constitutional or not and that those who were attempting to provide solutions were doing so without a true understanding of the Honduran constitution.

There was also a visit here by a group of Republican congressmen from the US. They met with a variety of leaders and seem to be interested in discovering more details about the conflict. A group of Democrats, led by Senator Kelly, tried to block the trip, but were unsuccessful.

It also appears that Zelaya is tired of "house arrest" and is more willing than ever to reach a compromise. We'll see. His life of traveling the world had to have been preferable to the situation he is in now. Maybe he thought that once he came back he would march right in and take over. It hasn't worked out that way at all.

Here is a gooble translation to
an article on Processo Digital that covers many of these things.

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