New complications hit talks to end Honduran crisis

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July 9, 2009

By Juan Carlos Llorca The Salem News Thu Jul 09, 2009, 10:05 AM EDT

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — U.S.-backed talks to resolve a standoff over Honduras' coup faced new difficulties even before they began on Thursday as the sides seemed to harden their positions. The toppled president insists he must return. The interim leaders say he cannot.

Aides to interim leader Roberto Micheletti said he does not even plan to meet personally with ousted President Manuel Zelaya and they accused Zelaya's followers of gathering in San Jose to "create tension" during the talks.

Zelaya, meanwhile, said he's not here to negotiate but to arrange his return to power, while Micheletti insists his reinstatement is not negotiable. And even the host of the talks sought to dampen expectations of a quick fix to the crisis, despite star backing for the meetings scheduled to start late Thursday.

Costa Rica's president, Nobel laureate Oscar Arias, is mediating at the request of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. But that may not be enough to end a crisis some consider the Obama administration's first big test in Latin America.

"At this time, it is not foreseen that President Micheletti would meet with Zelaya, because the meetings are separate," Defense Minister Adolfo Lionel Sevilla told the HRN radio station. "The meetings are bilateral and individual, between President Micheletti and his Costa Rican host," Arias.

And Micheletti's information minister, Rene Zepeda, told The Associated Press that pro-Zelaya activists were gathering Costa Rica "to create tension during the talks."

Only a few Zelaya supporters were seen publicly holding vigils or banners in downtown San Jose Wednesday.

Even the host of Thursday's talks sought to dampen expectations of a quick fix to the crisis. "In two days there could be a solution or it could be that in two months there is no solution," said Arias, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his role in mediating civil wars in Central America.

But he added that usually once talks start, "positions begin to soften."

The sides couldn't be much farther apart.

On arriving at San Jose's airport late Wednesday, Zelaya told reporters that he plans to "listen to the de facto government explain how they plan to leave" and expects them out in 24 hours.

Zelaya, a leftist who was toppled by the military and flown out of Honduras on June 28, said he wasn't in Costa Rica to negotiate because doing so "would be like inviting to dialogue someone who violated your family."

Micheletti, the congressional leader who was named president by legislators following the coup, also replaced the foreign minister who caused a flap by referring to President Barack Obama as "a little black man who doesn't know where Tegucigalpa is located."

Enrique Ortez was replaced by Roberto Flores, Honduras' former ambassador to the United States, late Thursday.

Ortez has been a prominent spokesman for Micheletti, staunchly maintaining the coup was legal because congress and the Supreme Court had ruled Zelaya violated the constitution by pursuing a referendum on retooling the charter.

Talks with Arias should "start from the understanding that Zelaya's return is not open to negotiation," Micheletti said Tuesday.

The national security council of Honduras' interim government was meeting early Thursday to decide if the security conditions were in place for the delegation to even fly to the talks in Costa Rica.

The world — including the U.S. government, the United Nations and the Organization of American States — has rallied behind Zelaya, demanding he be returned to power and imposing or threatening sanctions and aid cuts against Micheletti's de facto administration.

Protests demanding Zelaya's return and rival demonstrations in favor of Micheletti have filled Honduras' streets in recent days.

Zelaya, a wealthy rancher who moved to the left after his election and allied himself with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, made an unsuccessful attempt to return home Sunday despite Micheletti's promise that he would be arrested on arrival. The thwarted bid sparked clashes between his supporters and security forces at the Tegucigalpa airport. At least one person was killed.

Zelaya has offered to drop his aspirations for a constitutional change that might allow him to run for another term, the issue the ostensibly sparked the coup.

His supporters claim Honduras' wealthy class backed the military action because Zelaya's policies favored the poor, including his raising of the minimum wage. Micheletti has accused Veneuzela's Chavez of stoking the flames in Honduras.

Zelaya's wife, Xiomara Castro, has emerged as the public face of the movement to restore Zelaya to power.

Castro told The Associated Press on Wednesday she was so afraid the Honduran military would shoot her on sight after soldiers whisked Zelaya out of the country in his pajamas that she fled to the U.S. Embassy.

Though she still sleeps in hiding, she vowed to take to the streets daily in protest of the coup. The family of a pro-Zelaya demonstrator slain by soldiers at the airport Sunday urged her to get involved — over Zelaya's objections.

"He told me that my presence could cause more problems, more persecution on the family. But I insisted," Castro said, while trudging up a steep road with 3,000 Zelaya supporters who blocked traffic on a route connecting the capital of Tegucigalpa with a highway to Nicaragua. "I consider our presence here as like having the president himself here, like feeling that the president is standing firm."

Meanwhile, Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said his country would cancel oil shipments to Honduras over the coup. Zelaya's alliance with Chavez had brought Honduras crude oil deliveries on 25-year credit.

The State Department said Tuesday that the U.S. suspended military assistance programs estimated at $16.5 million and a few development assistance programs estimated at $1.9 million, all aimed at the Honduran government.

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