Thailand coup rumours circle Thaksin assets ruling

By Rachel Harvey BBC News, Bangkok

Thailand's army has a history of taking matters into its own hands

Thailand's political divisions are under scrutiny once more.

The Supreme Court ruled on Friday to seize $1.4bn (£910m) in contested assets belonging to the family of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a military coup in 2006.

Local media have been rife with speculation that the verdict might be the catalyst for further violence involving his supporters.

And, despite robust denials from the current army chief, there are persistent rumours that another coup could be in the offing.

Confident steps

Thailand's military has long played a pivotal role in the country. Its influence stretches far beyond traditional realms of defence.

The latest graduation day at Bangkok's military cadet school was an event full of pride and possibility.

More than 500 freshly minted cadets, destined for the ranks of the army, navy, air force and police, all in identical tight white shirts and peaked caps, marched across the parade ground.

These were the confident steps of Thailand's future military leaders, their polished shoes glinting in the sun.

The Thai people know very well that a year under the military regime didn't do any better than any other type of regime Suchit Bunbongkarn Military expert

Piyachart Siriboon finished top of his class. But his ambitions do not end here - he wants to rise to the highest ranks.

He is well on track - and certainly on message

"Our main duty is to protect the nation, the king and the people," he said.

"We also have other roles, less important, to help development in the country and improve lives."

The glaring omission in that list is any mention of a duty to serve the elected government.

Show of strength

The oversight is telling. Thailand's military has a history of taking matters into its own hands, most recently in September 2006.

Mr Thaksin has vowed to continue his fight to return to politics

One of the justifications offered by the coup leaders then was that Mr Thaksin had abused his position as prime minister to enrich himself and his family.

That argument was at the centre of the case before the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile Mr Thaksin still has influence even from exile in Dubai.

At a recent business dinner at a Bangkok hotel he was the VIP speaker, joining the guests via satellite link.

Defiant as ever, he berated the current government, a shaky coalition installed by parliament rather than elected by popular mandate.

His image stared down from screens all around the huge ballroom as Mr Thaksin vowed to continue what he called his fight for justice.

Show of strength

The police and army have been practicing riot control drills amid warnings of possible violence from Mr Thaksin's supporters should the court verdict go against him.

This is a very deliberate show of strength designed to send a clear message.

Disturbances will not be tolerated and Thailand's security forces stand ready to intervene if necessary.

Our role is to protect, and anyone who wants to get political should resign Piyachart Siriboon, cadet

But despite the recent hyperbole, that does not necessarily mean another coup is being hatched.

Seasoned observers, like Suchit Bunbongkarn, a military expert at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn university, says times have changed.

"They [the military] know quite well that if they launch a coup, it doesn't mean they can rule the country," he said.

"And the Thai people know very well that a year under the military regime didn't do any better than any other type of regime.

"So they tend to think, 'OK, let's give democracy a try'."

Military cadets like Piyachart Siriboon seem to be in tune with that new thinking.

"The police and army should not get involved in politics," he said firmly.

"Our role is to protect, and anyone who wants to get political should resign."

The young generation seems to be embracing new ways of thinking.

But in the current febrile atmosphere, many Thais will still question whether the old ways of the old guard have really been left behind.

Former Top Generals Detained in Turkish Coup Inquiry

By SEBNEM ARSU

Published: February 22, 2010

ISTANBUL — In one of the toughest actions against the powerful Turkish military in the history of modern Turkey, the police detained three of the country’s highest-ranking former generals on Monday as part of a vast investigation into a shadowy ultranationalist movement accused of planning to overthrow the Islamist-inspired government.

Ibrahim Usta/Associated Press

Soldiers kept watch as the police searched the home of a retired army commander in Istanbul.

News reports identified the detainees as a former deputy chief of the general staff, Ergin Saygun; a former air force commander, Ibrahim Firtina; and a former naval commander, Ozden Ornek. They were detained at their homes in Istanbul and the capital, Ankara.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said more than 40 people in all were taken into custody during the operations on Monday, including 14 other former high-ranking military officers.

The case, which has riveted Turks, revolves around a suspected conspiracy by secular ultranationalists who are accused of developing several plots to attack civilian targets, like a mosque in central Istanbul, and to provoke a crisis with neighboring Greece, with a goal of paving the way for a coup.

More than 200 people have been arrested so far in the case, including military officers, intellectuals, academics and writers who are outspoken critics of the government, and some have been held for months without charge. A first trial opened two years ago. The case is widely referred to as Ergenekon (pronounced ahr-GEN-eh-kahn) after the mythic Turkish valley that lent its name to the suspected conspirators.

Mr. Erdogan would not elaborate on the Monday operation. Speaking at a news conference in Madrid, where he was on an official visit, he said, “We are going to learn about it once the judiciary makes an evaluation after the delivery of the security forces.”

Details of the suspected plot first emerged in 2007, when a left-wing publication printed what it said was a 2004 diary kept by Mr. Ornek, the former naval commander detained Monday. He denied the authenticity of the documents, and the publication is now closed.

Since the establishment of the modern Turkish state in 1923, the military has cast itself as the guardian of the country’s stability and secularism. It has usurped civilian governments at least four times in the past 50 years.

The arrest of high-ranking officers is widely seen here as part of the continuing struggle between the country’s relatively new religiously conservative political leadership and staunchly secular institutions in Turkey.

Turkish society divides largely along those lines, as has reaction to the conspiracy case, with secularists seeing it as a crackdown that threatens Turkey’s secular future and the conservative Islamic side regarding the case as necessary to protect their own democratically-won power.

One political analyst who has been strongly supportive of the investigation, Oral Calislar of the newspaper Radikal, said that whatever failings there might be in the trial process, they are products of the military’s distorting influence.

“Forces supporting military coups are still very powerful and resisting change,” Mr. Calislar said. “If there is a political will to prosecute military coup perpetrators, it is a fantastic will to be supported, regardless of the criticism of the methods.”

The Constitution, adopted after one of the military’s coups in 1980, assigns the army to intervene in politics to defend of the republic, a vaguely defined responsibility that has until now been read as granting the military unconditional immunity. But the Turkish military has been criticized by the European Union for its influence in civilian politics, as the country aspires to join the pact.

U.N. Officials Say American Offered Plan to Replace Karzai

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By JAMES GLANZ and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

As widespread fraud in the Afghanistan presidential election was becoming clear three months ago, the No. 2 United Nations official in the country, the American Peter W. Galbraith, proposed enlisting the White House in a plan to replace the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, according to two senior United Nations officials.

Mr. Karzai, the officials said, became incensed when he learned of the plan and was told it had been put forth by Mr. Galbraith, who had been installed in his position with the strong backing of Richard C. Holbrooke, the top American envoy to Afghanistan. Mr. Holbrooke had himself clashed with the Afghan president over the election.

Mr. Galbraith abruptly left the country in early September and was fired weeks later. Mr. Galbraith has said that he believes that he was forced out because he was feuding with his boss, the Norwegian Kai Eide, the top United Nations official in Kabul, over how to respond to what he termed wholesale fraud in the Afghan presidential election. He accused Mr. Eide of concealing the degree of fraud benefiting Mr. Karzai.

Mr. Galbraith said in an interview that he discussed but never actively promoted the idea of persuading Mr. Karzai to leave office.

Mr. Galbraith’s warnings about fraud were largely confirmed in October, when a United Nations-backed audit stripped Mr. Karzai of almost one-third of his votes, preventing a first-round victory and forcing him into a runoff. He was proclaimed the winner last month after his challenger withdrew, saying the runoff would not be fair.

But the disclosure of Mr. Galbraith’s proposal to replace Mr. Karzai, contained in a letter written by Mr. Eide and reported in interviews with United Nations and American officials, provides new perspective on the crisis in Kabul that enveloped the United Nations and the bitter feud between Mr. Galbraith and Mr. Eide.

The degree to which the United States should stand behind Mr. Karzai was vigorously debated in Washington in the fall, as the Obama administration pondered how to handle the disputed election in Afghanistan. Mr. Karzai is often criticized as being an ineffective leader in the battle against the Taliban who tolerates widespread corruption in his ranks. He has an acrimonious relationship with many American leaders.

Mr. Holbrooke said he was unaware of the idea. “And it does not reflect in any way any idea that Secretary Clinton or anyone else in the State Department would have considered,” he said.

Mr. Galbraith, a former American ambassador and an influential voice on Iraq, also came under scrutiny recently for his stake in an oil field in the Kurdish region of Iraq.

Mr. Eide, who is set to leave his job as head of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan by early next year, said Mr. Galbraith’s departure from Afghanistan in early September came immediately after he rejected what he described as Mr. Galbraith’s proposal to replace Mr. Karzai and install a more Western-friendly figure.

He said he told his deputy the plan was “unconstitutional, it represented interference of the worst sort, and if pursued it would provoke not only a strong international reaction” but also civil insurrection. It was during this conversation, Mr. Eide said, that Mr. Galbraith proposed taking a leave to the United States, and Mr. Eide accepted.

Mr. Galbraith’s proposal would begin with “a secret mission to Washington,” Mr. Eide wrote last week in a letter responding to a critical public report of his work by the International Crisis Group, a research organization.

“He told me he would first meet with Vice President Biden,” Mr. Eide wrote. “If the vice president agreed with Galbraith’s proposal they would approach President Obama with the following plan: President Karzai should be forced to resign as president.” Then a new government would be installed led by a former finance minister, Ashraf Ghani, or a former interior minister, Ali A. Jalali, both favorites of American officials.

In response to questions from The New York Times, Mr. Galbraith said that he never put forth any fully fledged proposal and said that he only considered an effort to persuade Mr. Karzai to leave so that an interim government, allowed under the Constitution, could be installed in case a runoff election did not occur until May 2010.

Mr. Galbraith said the United Nations never informed him that these discussions played a role in his firing.

“There were internal discussions,” Mr. Galbraith said. “I’m sure I discussed the crisis and I’m sure I discussed a way out. But that is an entirely different matter from acting on it.”

He said he never promoted the idea with officials outside the United Nations.

But according to a Western diplomat, Mr. Galbraith discussed his plan with Frank Ricciardone, the deputy American ambassador in Kabul. Mr. Ricciardone was subsequently alerted to Mr. Galbraith’s plan as well by Mr. Eide, the diplomat said.

A spokeswoman for the American Embassy in Kabul, Caitlin Hayden, confirmed that Mr. Galbraith had brought the plan to the embassy. She said that it was summarily rejected.

“Mr. Galbraith was outspoken within the diplomatic community about his concerns regarding fraud and its consequences, and raised questions about various alternatives to the elections,” Ms. Hayden said. “The U.S. Embassy discouraged consideration of theoretical alternatives to the constitutional elections process whenever they were raised by any party, even while acknowledging flaws in the process.”

Mr. Galbraith and a senior United Nations official said that a staff member from Mr. Holbrooke’s office was at some of the meetings where the idea was discussed. But Mr. Galbraith says that he does not recall any communication with Mr. Holbrooke on the subject.

Vijay Nambiar, chief of staff to the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said that he was aware of Mr. Galbraith’s proposal to go to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and develop support for the plan, and later learned of Mr. Karzai’s anger over the episode. Mr. Nambiar said it played a role in Mr. Galbraith’s firing.

“It was one of several factors,” he said.

Mr. Galbraith also says he never actually contacted Mr. Biden or his staff on this matter. James F. Carney, a spokesman for Mr. Biden, said in an e-mail message that one of the vice president’s staff members, Tony Blinken, did receive a call from Mr. Galbraith while he was still working for the United Nations in Afghanistan, but he did not say exactly when the call was made.

“Galbraith told Blinken that he had thoughts about Afghanistan and wanted to talk about them at some point. Blinken said he’d be glad to discuss them. However, the discussion never took place. Blinken has not heard from Galbraith since or received any information from Galbraith about his thoughts or ideas on Afghanistan,” Mr. Carney said.

Mr. Eide said the Galbraith plan caused strong reactions in Kabul. Mr. Karzai was “deeply upset,” he said. “I spent quite some time trying to calm down the accusations of international interference by talking to the president,” he said.

A spokesman for Mr. Karzai said he was not available for comment on the matter.

James Glanz reported from New York, and Richard A. Oppel Jr. from Kabul. Mark Landler contributed reporting from Washington, and Walter Gibbs from Oslo.

Related articles by Zemanta

• UN official 'drew up plans to depose Hamid Karzai' (telegraph.co.uk)
• US diplomat claims UN tried to gag him (telegraph.co.uk)
• Grumbling in Kabul (laf.ee)
• Peter Galbraith Afghanistan Elections Podcast (outsidethebeltway.com)
• Peter Galbraith Fired for Speaking Out on Afghan Election Fraud (outsidethebeltway.com)
• Karzai's "Win" (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
• Corruption in Kabul (tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com)

BBC - Honduras rivals resolve deadlock

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The interim leader of Honduras says he is ready to sign a pact to end its crisis which could include the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

Roberto Micheletti said the agreement would create a power-sharing government and require both sides to recognise the result of November's presidential poll.

Mr Zelaya said the deal, which requires the approval of the Supreme Court and Congress, would be signed on Friday.

The president was forced out of the country on 28 June.

His critics said he was seeking to amend the constitution to remove the current one-term limit on serving as president, and pave the way for his re-election.

The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has described this agreement as "historic", that suggests we are extremely close to a deal.

It is also significant that both sides say that the Congress of Honduras has to approve this.

That could mean a slight delay, but it might actually also have been the key to the solution. Neither side could agree and so ultimately, perhaps to save face, they had to leave it to others finally, and symbolically, to make an agreement.

It appears the US government put the pressure on the Micheletti government to say leave this to the Honduran Congress. And although the Congress initially voted to remove President Zelaya from power, now it wants him back, as everyone understands that it is the only way out of this.

Mr Zelaya returned covertly to Tegucigalpa on 21 September and has since been holed up in the Brazilian embassy. He says he has returned "for the restoration of democracy".

His term of office is due to finish at the end of January.

Negotiators for Mr Zelaya and Mr Micheletti resumed talks in the capital on Thursday in an attempt to resolve the political crisis which has gripped Honduras since the army-backed coup four months ago.

The opponents had earlier been told by US Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon that they had to reach an accord in order to ensure international support for the election on 29 November.

Afterwards, Mr Micheletti announced that a power-sharing deal had been reached that included a "significant concession".

"I have authorised my negotiating team to sign a deal that marks the beginning of the end of the country's political situation," the interim leader told a news conference.

"With regard to the most contentious subject in the deal, the possible restitution of Zelaya to the presidency" would be included, he said.

Mr Zelaya described the accord as a "triumph for Honduran democracy", and said he was "optimistic" of returning to power.

The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, meanwhile said she wished to congratulate both sides on "reaching an historic agreement".

Mr Micheletti said the ousted president would only be able return to office after a vote in his favour in Congress that would first have to be authorised by the country's Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court ruled that Mr Zelaya had violated the constitution in June, while Congress voted to remove him from office.

Mr Micheletti - who as the speaker of Congress was constitutionally second-in-line to the presidency - was sworn in by Congress as interim leader following the coup.

Ousted Leader, Manuel Zelaya, Returns to Honduras - NYTimes.com

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By ELISABETH MALKIN

MEXICO CITY — Three months after he was expelled in a dawn coup, the deposed president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, sneaked back into his country on Monday, forcing world leaders gathered in New York to refocus their attention on the political stalemate to the south and presenting a new challenge to the de facto government.

After what he described as a 15-hour trek through the mountains, taking back roads to avoid checkpoints, Mr. Zelaya and his wife took refuge at the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital. He did not say which country he crossed into Honduras from.

At the embassy, he gave a series of interviews with the international news media, saying that he hoped to begin meeting with “prominent Hondurans” and members of the de facto government that ousted him to find an end to the crisis that has engulfed the country since he was exiled on June 28.

“We ask those in the coup government to think and to come to dialogue with us,” he told Al Jazeera’s English network.

His return appeared to have caught the de facto government by surprise. Roberto Micheletti, who was appointed president by Congress, at first denied that Mr. Zelaya had returned, calling the reports “media terrorism.”

But on Monday evening, after imposing a nationwide curfew, he acknowledged Mr. Zelaya’s presence but said it “changes nothing of our reality.” He called on Brazil to hand Mr. Zelaya over for arrest and trial.

“We are waiting for him,” Mr. Micheletti said in a news conference earlier in the day. “A court is ready to proceed against him legally, and a jail is also ready.”

The de facto government has said that Mr. Zelaya would be arrested if he tried to return, citing 18 charges against him, including treason.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday evening that the two sides must find a way to talk. “It’s imperative that dialogue begin,” she said. “It’s also imperative that the return of President Zelaya does not lead to any conflict or violence, but instead that everyone act in a peaceful way to try to find some common ground.”

President Óscar Arias of Costa Rica, who has led the international negotiations on Honduras, offered to go to Honduras to mediate if he were asked.

Mr. Arias and Mrs. Clinton were meeting in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting there.

Brazil’s foreign minister, Celso Amorim, also in New York, denied that Brazil had helped plan the return of Mr. Zelaya and his wife, Xiomara Castro, to Honduras. He said they had arrived at the embassy through “their own peaceful methods.”

Mr. Amorim did not say whether there was a time limit on Mr. Zelaya’s stay in the embassy, but he stressed that the Organization of American States should renew efforts to negotiate a solution. “If the O.A.S. doesn’t work to give guarantees to a democratically elected government, in the case of a coup like this, then what is the O.A.S. for?” he said.

Delegates from the organization met late Monday in Washington to discuss the crisis.

Mr. Zelaya has accepted a proposal offered by Mr. Arias that would restore him to the presidency with limited powers and grant an amnesty on all sides. Mr. Micheletti has rejected it.

As the talks have stalled and the international community has turned its attention elsewhere, Mr. Zelaya has grown impatient.

Since the coup, he has tried to return to Honduras at least twice. A week after the coup, he tried to fly into the Tegucigalpa airport, but soldiers massed on the tarmac and blocked his plane from landing.

In July, he set up camp with his supporters just over the border in Nicaragua, and stepped briefly into Honduran territory before returning to Nicaragua. Rumors that Mr. Zelaya was already in the country, or was about to return, have circulated through the capital repeatedly since then.

The curfew was announced just 30 minutes before it took effect at 4 p.m. Monday, sending residents of the capital rushing to get home and tying traffic in knots, residents said.

At the time of his removal, Mr. Zelaya was planning a nonbinding referendum that his opponents said would have been the first step toward allowing him to run for another term in office, which is forbidden under the Honduran Constitution. Mr. Zelaya has denied any attempt to run for re-election.

No country has recognized the de facto government of Mr. Micheletti. President Obama and other leaders in the hemisphere have insisted that Mr. Zelaya be returned to office, contending that he was removed in a coup. The United States, the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have all suspended aid to Honduras in protest.

But the Micheletti government has stood fast, insisting that Mr. Zelaya was removed from office legally. Mr. Micheletti has promised to hand over power to a new president who will be elected in national elections scheduled for Nov. 29.

Alexei Barrionuevo contributed reporting from New York.

Zelaya Speaks - Nation

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By Tom Hayden

September 4, 2009

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AP Images
Zelaya points to a State Department document as he speaks to the media following his meeting with Clinton on September 3, 2009.

In a significant development in hemispheric relations, the Obama admininstration yesterday condemned the June 28 Honduras coup d'état more strongly than ever, announced the cutoff of additional millions in economic aid and declared it would not accept the legitimacy of elections under the auspices of the coup government.

In an interview shortly after his meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Honduran president Manuel Zelaya pronounced the US decisions "a great step forward" for the Honduran popular resistance to the coup and a "positive message in favor of democracy."

Following the State Department meeting, a US spokesperson announced the termination of "a broad range of assistance" to Honduras as a spur to encourage the return of President Zelaya and democratic processes to the country, which has been under repression for two months.

Zelaya told The Nation that the US would terminate multi-year Millennium Challenge grants in the range of $200 million, involving funds for roads, ports and infrastructure. Clinton chairs the Millennium Challenge corporation, which meets next week.

Asked if Clinton intended a message to the coup regime in Honduras, Zelaya responded forcefully that it was a "direct blow in the face of [Roberto] Micheletti" because "the golpistas' [coup organizers] plan was to negotiate with the candidates for an exit strategy so that they don't have to pay for their crimes, and get away with their crimes after an election. When you don't recognize the legitimacy of the elections, you are breaking up the plan of the golpistas."

With these decisions, the Obama administration has made clear that it embraces the Latin American consensus that the coup was an illegitimate transfer of power. "Mexico, Central and Latin America already had taken a position on the elections. We were only missing the United States. Now in light of these statements, the entire continent is condemning these elections under the de facto regime," Zelaya said.

When probed on the conditions when the sanctions might be lifted, Zelaya said only "when democracy is restored and President Zelaya returns." He said he is "prepared to return independently of any US plans" in order to "protect the population."

There will be "a permanent convulsion" and a "permanently ungovernable country" if he cannot return, and "that's what everybody wants to avoid." The social movements in Honduras "are not willing to go back to the way things were before," he noted.

What the June 28 coup was able to prevent, for now, was an advisory referendum planned for three days later on whether there should be a constituent assembly to rewrite the Honduras constitution, promoting greater participatory democracy. But the same coup also provoked the rise of a new social movement with its own dedicated members, martyrs and new memories.

"The grassroots movement," Zelaya said, has only one purpose, the transformation of Honduras, including deep structural changes. "This movement is now very strong. It can never be destroyed," he said. Zelaya believes that the reforms of his administration, including an increased minimum wage, subsidies to small farmers, cuts in bank interest rates and reductions in poverty levels "are the causes which irritated the ruling elite of Honduras."

Zelaya said he hopes that Clinton understands that "the same opponents of Obama in the US are mine in Honduras. The transnational trade, oil and banking systems. Those who do not want health insurance here are the same as those who do not want to pay a living wage in Honduras."

For example, he pointed out, "during Bush there was no coup. The coup in Honduras during the first six months of the Obama presidency was a litmus test. The right-wing groups in America who are supporting the coup are betting that Obama will not solve the problem. I trust that that he will."

Warming to the point, Zelaya went on to argue that the coup plotters in Honduras "have copied some reactionary sectors in Washington," who publicly say that Obama "has no power, that he is weak, weaker than Jimmy Carter, that we should not pay any attention to the Obama administration, and they refer to him as the black boy who doesn't know where Tegucigalpa is."

But the right-wing groups from Latin America to the Beltway have employed a Democrat and ardent Clinton supporter, Lanny Davis, to lobby for their interests in the capital, or what Zelaya calls "the empire of capital." Democratic consultants also are sprinkled in the coup delegations to the Costa Rican talks.

Perhaps no lobbyist is closer to the Clintons than Lanny Davis. When his name was raised critically by Zelaya during the meeting, the secretary of state did not acknowledge that Davis was her longtime family ally but instead took notes on Zelaya's claim of Davis's false charges and promised to investigate them. "She didn't tell me what she would investigate," he added, with a good-natured chuckle.

For Clinton's State Department, the tone of the meeting marked a shift from frosty previous statements on the coup. After Obama's initial observation that an undemocratic coup had taken place, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said that a coup had not taken place, in legal terms, and ridiculed Zelaya for being allied with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. "If that is the lesson that President Zelaya has learned from this episode," he remarked amidst laughter in a July State Department briefing, "that would be a good lesson." On August 4, a State Department letter to Senator Richard Lugar said Zelaya's "insistence on taking provocative actions...led to a confrontation that unleashed the events that led to his removal." The term coup d'état was not used in the letter.

Asked yesterday by The Nation whether the State Department certified what happened as a coup d'état or was calling it a coup, Zelaya responded, "I do not know the details of US law, but in the communiqué issued today the United States on behalf of the State Department said that in relation to the coup in Honduras various parts of the Honduran government are involved: the legislative, judicial and military. The State Department directly implicates the Congress, the army and the Court of Honduras in the coup."

Whatever Lanny Davis's spin may be, yesterday's developments represent a sharp rejection by the Obama administration of going it alone in Latin America.

The State Department's Crowley was not present at the meeting yesterday, which included longtime Latin American diplomat Tom Shannon, National Security Council representative Dan Restrepo, US ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens, and a different public relations spokesman, Ian Kelly.

The present tension may be winding down, but it is not over. Micheletti, abandoned by the Americans in his quest to legitimize the coup, is under enormous pressure to accept the recommendation of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias that he step down, which would be a huge victory for Latin America. On the other hand, any return to Honduras by Zelaya could be volatile, with the right-wing wanting his arrest or even his death. He cannot run for re-election under the present constitution. There is no visible candidate to replace him, and the constituent assembly proposal is off the agenda for now (or "por ahora", as a young Hugo Chávez once said upon release from prison).

The future may lie with the social movements that have risen against the military coup, with Zelaya serving as a transitional hero to the mobilized and awakened people on the streets of Honduras who are trying to take an unpredictable future into their own hands.

About Tom Hayden

Tom Hayden is a former California state senator and author of Street Wars (Verso, 2005).

IMF: stop funding Honduras - guardian.co.uk

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by Mark Weisbrot

The IMF is undergoing an unprecedented expansion of its access to resources, possibly reaching a trillion dollars. This week the EU committed $175bn, $67bn more than even the $108bn that Washington agreed to fork over after a tense stand-off between the US Congress and the Obama administration earlier this summer.

The Fund and its advocates argue that the IMF has changed. The IMF is "back in a new guise", says the Economist. This time, we are told, it's really going to act as a multilateral organisation that looks out for the countries and people of the world, and not just for Washington, Wall Street or European banks.

But it's looking more and more like the same old IMF on steroids. Last week the IMF disbursed $150m to the de facto government of Honduras, and it plans to disburse another $13.8m on 9 September. The de facto government has no legitimacy in the world. It took power on 28 June in a military coup, in which the elected President Manuel Zelaya was taken from his home at gunpoint and flown out of the country.

The Organisation of American States suspended Honduras until democracy is restored, and the UN also called for the "immediate and unconditional return" of the elected president.

No country in the world recognises the coup government of Honduras. From the western hemisphere and the EU, only the US retains an ambassador there. The World Bank paused lending to Honduras two days after the coup, and the Inter-American Development Bank did the same the next day. More recently the Central American Bank of Economic Integration suspended credit to Honduras. The EU has suspended over $90m in aid as well, and is considering further sanctions.

But the IMF has gone ahead and dumped a large amount of money on Honduras – the equivalent would be more than $160bn in the US – as though everything is OK there.

This is in keeping with US policy, which is not surprising since the US has been – since the IMF's creation in 1944 – the Fund's principal overseer. Washington made a symbolic gesture earlier this year by cutting off about $18.5m to Honduras, and the state department announced on Thursday that it is terminating other assistance.

But more than two months after the Honduran military overthrew the elected president of Honduras, the US government has yet to determine that a military coup has actually occurred. This is because such a determination would require, under the US Foreign Appropriations Act, a complete cutoff of aid.

One of the largest sources of US aid is the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a government entity whose board is chaired by Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state.

Interestingly, there were two military coups in the last year in countries that were receiving MCC money: Madagascar and Mauritania. In both of those cases MCC aid was suspended within three days of the coup.

The IMF's decision to give money to the Honduran government is reminiscent of its reaction to the 2002 coup that temporarily overthrew President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. Just a few hours after that coup, the IMF's spokesperson announced: "We stand ready to assist the new administration in whatever manner they find suitable."

This immediate pledge of support by the IMF to a military-installed government was at the time unprecedented. Given the resources and power of the IMF, it was an important source of international legitimacy for the coup government. Members of the US Congress later wrote to the IMF to inquire how this happened. How did the IMF decide so quickly to support this illegitimate government?

The Fund responded that no decision was made, that this was just an off-the-cuff remark by its spokesperson. But this seems very unlikely, and in the video on the IMF's website, the spokesperson appears to be reading from a prepared statement when talking about money for the coup government.

In the Honduran case, the IMF would likely say that the current funds are part of a $250bn package in which all member countries are receiving a share proportional to their IMF quota, regardless of governance. This is true, but it doesn't resolve the question as to whom the funds should be disbursed to, in the case of a non-recognised, illegitimate government that has seized power by force. The Fund could very easily postpone disbursing this money until some kind of determination could be made, rather than simply acting as though there were no question about the legitimacy of the coup government.

Interestingly, the IMF had no problem cutting off funds under its standby arrangement with the democratically elected government of President Zelaya in November of last year, when the Fund did not agree with his economic policies.

We're still a long way from a reformed IMF.

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• US halts aid over Honduras coup (news.bbc.co.uk)
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• Ousted Honduran Leader Seeks Tougher U.S. Stance Against Coup (nytimes.com)

Supreme Court Won't Try Musharraf for Treason

ISLAMABAD: Chief justice turned down a request on Thursday to launch a treason case against former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, saying the Supreme Court lacked the authority. Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry's remarks could reassure both the fragile civilian government and military establishment, as they can ill-afford any fresh crisis at a time when the country is fighting a Taliban insurgency. ‘This is not the proper forum to initiate such case. We are not authorised to do so,’ Chaudhry told the court. Musharraf was forced to quit as president almost a year ago to avoid impeachment and has been living in London for the past two months. Hamid Khan, a lawyer who was at the forefront of a movement to oust Musharraf, asked a panel of 14 judges led by Chaudhry to begin treason proceedings on grounds that the general had seized power in a coup in 1999 and violated the constitution to extend his rule in 2007. Musharraf declared emergency rule in November 2007 and purged the Supreme Court of judges, including chief justice Chaudhry, who might have ruled illegal his re-election while still army chief. The court last week ordered Musharraf to explain allegations that he appointed new judges under emergency rule in violation of the constitution, but Musharraf and his lawyers have stayed away from the hearings.—Reuters

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/12-supreme+court+wont+try+musharraf+for+treason--bi-04

Second Turkish 'Plot' Trial Opens

Fifty-six people, including two retired generals, journalists and academics, have gone on trial in Turkey accused of plotting to overthrow the government.

Prosecutors say they were members of a shadowy ultranationalist network - dubbed Ergenekon - which allegedly aimed to provoke a military coup.

The two generals, who are in their 60s, could face life in prison if convicted.

This is the second court case related to the Ergenekon case. Another 86 suspects went on trial in October.

The investigation has strained relations between the governing AK Party, which has its roots in political Islam, and the military, which considers itself the guardian of Turkey's secular constitution.

Last week, President Abdullah Gul approved a new law giving civilian courts the power to try military personnel suspected of threatening national security or having links to organised crime.

'Coup plans'

Forty-four of the defendants were present inside the courtroom at the heavily-guarded Silivri prison on the outskirts of Istanbul on Monday to hear the charges against them read out.

Gen Hursit Tolon, a former army commander, looked relaxed as he answered questions from the four-judge panel after being accused of masterminding a terrorist group and inciting armed rebellion against the government.

His co-accused, Gen Sener Eruygur, a former commander of the paramilitary gendarmerie forces, was not present because of ill-health.

According to the 1,909-page indictment, the two men "began implementing the coup plans they drew up in 2003-2004 while in office and continued their activities after they retired".

The allegations first surfaced in March 2007, when a magazine published excerpts from the purported diary of a former navy commander, which described how Gen Eruygur and several other senior officers had plotted coups but failed to secure the support of the heads of the armed forces.

After retiring, the indictment says, the two men used civil society groups to incite public opinion against the AKP-led government.

At the same time, it alleges, they helped set up Ergenekon, which is accused of being behind several violent attacks, including the bombing of a secularist newspaper in 2006 and an attack on the country's top administrative court in the same year, in which a judge died.

Targeting those key parts of the secular establishment were supposed to foment chaos and to provoke Turkey's military into launching a coup in defence of secular interests, it is alleged.

'Lie'

Other prominent suspected Ergenekon members who went on trial on Monday include two journalists who have frequently criticised the government, Mustafa Balbay and Tuncay Ozkan; two university rectors; and the head of the Ankara chamber of commerce.

All the defendants deny the charges, saying they are politically motivated and designed to undermine the AK Party's opponents.

About 200 people demonstrated against the trial outside the court building on Monday, many holding portraits of Ataturk, the secularist founder of modern Turkey.

"This trial is a lie. They are fabricating evidence to arrest Ataturk's followers," one protestor, Suzan Demirten, told the Associated Press.

The BBC's David O'Byrne in Istanbul says it is unclear if the presiding judge will now decide to merge the proceedings with the ongoing trial of the 86 other suspects in the Ergenekon case, who include several other senior military personnel.

What is certain, however, is that few Turks doubt that at least some truth lies behind the accusations of coup plotting by elements of the military, our correspondent says.

And equally few doubt that whatever the result of the trials, the delicate balance of power between the Turkey's political and military elites has changed irrevocably, he adds.

Zelaya's Plane Not Allowed to Land in Honduras

By William Booth and Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 6, 2009

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, July 5 -- In a high-stakes standoff that played out in the skies over Honduras, the airplane carrying ousted president Manuel Zelaya was forced to circle the nation's main airport twice before flying away Sunday evening after coup leaders who deposed Zelaya blocked his landing with troops on the runway.

The turn-back of Zelaya's white jet left thousands of his supporters shouting in disappointment and anger. Minutes earlier, security forces fired tear gas and bullets at the crowd to keep demonstrators away from the airport, which was surrounded by soldiers and military vehicles.

The Red Cross said people 30 people were wounded in the melee, but there were conflicting reports about fatalities. An Associated Press photographer reported that one man was shot in the head.

Immediately after Zelaya's plane flew away, Honduran air force helicopters and aircraft appeared over Tegucigalpa, the capital. Zelaya, who had repeatedly vowed to return to his country, later landed in Managua, Nicaragua.

The aerial standoff, which took place at sunset, punctuated a crisis that has gripped this country of 7 million for the past week. The entire hemisphere, including the United States, has been drawn into a bitter political brawl in Honduras between the leftist Zelaya and his conservative opponents that shows no sign of ending soon.

Zelaya was deposed June 28 in a military-backed coup that has been condemned throughout the Americas but has frustrated diplomats in the Obama administration, who have not been able to persuade the Honduran coup leaders to back down. The leaders of the new Honduran government say Zelaya is guilty of treason for advocating a change to the constitution that would allow a president to serve more than one term. The coup backers also fear Zelaya's close ties with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

The government of Roberto Micheletti, the de facto president, had warned Sunday that it would refuse to allow Zelaya to land at any airport in Honduras and ordered the military to turn the plane back. A Honduran aviation official said the restrictions applied only to Zelaya and his entourage. But the order effectively shut down air traffic across the country for the day. Flights from all major carriers in and out of the nation were canceled.

Zelaya took off for Honduras from Washington's Dulles International Airport about 3 p.m., followed by a plane carrying the presidents of Argentina, Ecuador and Paraguay, as well as the secretary general of the Organization of American States, according to senior Obama administration officials.

Zelaya and the other presidents flew in different planes for safety reasons -- and because the other leaders were expecting Zelaya to mount his face-off over Tegucigalpa.

Zelaya was accompanied only by top advisers, a Nicaraguan priest and U.N. General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann. Also aboard his plane was Venezuelan state television network Telesur, which broadcast live interviews with Zelaya from 35,000 feet.

"Today I feel like I have sufficient spiritual strength, blessed with the blood of Christ, to be able to arrive there and raise the crucifix," he said in one live transmission.

He insisted that he remained commander in chief of the Honduran military and pleaded with troops to allow him to land.

As his plane circled the airport, Zelaya narrated his approach live on Telesur. "I am here with the two pilots. They are doing what is humanly possible to approach the landing strip. They do not want to land with obstacles in the way," he said. "What is happening here is a barbarity."

Thousands of his supporters surrounded the international airport in the Honduran capital. Hundreds of police officers and soldiers in riot gear kept the crowds away from the terminal.

As word spread that Zelaya's plane was coming, the crowds pressed against the police barricades. Soldiers or police fired tear gas, and shots were heard.

Asked why his government did not allow Zelaya to land and then arrest him, as officials have repeatedly threatened, Micheletti said that kind of publicity could incite violence.

"When Zelaya is prepared to turn himself in quietly, he can do so," he said.

Micheletti said in a news conference that Nicaraguan troops were massing at the border with Honduras.

"I want to ask the country of Nicaragua, our brothers, not to cross our borders, because we are ready to defend our country. If there are acts of war against our country, there will be bloodshed," he said.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega dismissed the charges of troop movement as "totally false." Critics of the de facto Micheletti government said the rumors of a war with Nicaragua were propaganda intended to consolidate power for the new regime by introducing an illusory external threat.

Pressed on the Nicaraguan confrontation, Micheletti conceded that "it is a small number of troops, without the support of their commanders, and they haven't crossed the border, and they are not in a position to strike against Honduras."

U.S. officials said they were not aware of any Nicaraguan troop movements toward its border.

Senior Obama administration officials, briefing reporters earlier Sunday, said that if Zelaya's plane were not allowed to land in Honduras, he probably would return to Washington for consultations with the OAS, possibly as early as Monday.

Zelaya, however, said he would try to return home Monday or Tuesday.

U.S. officials confirmed that Honduras's de facto government had sent a message to the OAS seeking to open negotiations, a move that one official described as positive.

"We think this could create the basis for continuing movement by the OAS on diplomatic initiatives," one official said. However, he said the hemispheric body would still insist that Zelaya be allowed to return and serve out the rest of his term, which ends in January.

Zelaya left Washington after the OAS voted in a late meeting Saturday to suspend Honduras, putting in jeopardy about $200 million in loans the Central American country receives from the Inter-American Development Bank. In addition, U.S. military and development aid has been "put on pause," the official said, and military cooperation has been limited.

Representatives of many countries at the OAS meeting -- including the United States -- urged Zelaya not to fly back to Honduras, saying the move was dangerous for him and his supporters.

"Given the situation in Honduras, we did not see how this was going to assist in creating a political space for dialogue. But at the same time, we respect the right of President Zelaya as a Honduran citizen, and the legal and constitutional leader of Honduras, to make his own decisions," the U.S. official said.

Sheridan reported from Washington.

Honduran Crisis Offers Venezuala's Chavez Some Domestic, International Openings

By Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, July 2, 2009

CARACAS, Venezuela, July 1 -- An ally was in trouble, toppled in a military coup. And the television cameras were rolling.

The ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya could not have been better scripted for another Latin American leader who has taken center stage: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. The populist firebrand has been Zelaya's most forceful advocate and could win international accolades if the Honduran eventually succeeds in regaining power.

Ever since Zelaya was hustled into exile Sunday by the military, Chávez has been a whirlwind of activity. Using Venezuela's oil-fueled influence to organize summits at which he has been the central speaker, he is spreading his vision of Latin America and calling for Hondurans to rise up against those who deposed Zelaya.

"I just cannot stay here with my arms crossed," Chávez declared in one of many speeches calling for the new Honduran government to step aside.

Luis Vicente León, a pollster and political analyst in Caracas, said the crisis is "perfect" for Chávez "because he's not defending a tyrant; he's defending an elected president who was overthrown. It's showtime for the showman."

The extent of Chávez's influence on the Honduran crisis is unclear, many analysts said. But with Venezuelan state media publicizing his every pronouncement, some analysts say he is using the crisis to shift his countrymen's attention from domestic problems he has struggled with at a time when his popularity has been slipping.

Indeed, Zelaya, 56, is on the surface an unlikely benefactor of Venezuela's support. He is a rancher and logger from Honduras's upper classes who came late to Chávez's alliance of left-leaning nations, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, which includes Nicaragua, Bolivia, Cuba and others.

But Chávez has characterized Zelaya as a leftist fighting for the poor and said those who overthrew him hail from an oligarchy intent on maintaining the status quo. Chávez has even taken to mockingly calling Roberto Micheletti, the lawmaker who replaced Zelaya as president, a "gorilla."

"I swear as president: We are going to make your life impossible," Chávez said in one speech, directing his ire at Micheletti.

Chávez has also said that the CIA could have had a hand in Zelaya's ouster. On Monday, Chávez gave a long speech to fellow Latin American leaders, recounting U.S. interference in the region and his survival of a brief coup in 2002. The speech was televised by government stations here and CNN's Spanish-language service.

Milos Alcalay, who was Venezuela's ambassador to the United Nations until breaking with Chávez in 2004, said the Venezuelan president has quickly taken advantage of the crisis to cast himself as the leader of progressive countries battling the dark forces of Latin America's establishment. Alcalay said that, for Chávez, there is no middle ground or nuance in his approach to the Honduran crisis -- nor recognition that Zelaya had erred by pushing a nonbinding constitutional referendum opposed by the courts and his own party.

"He is, in essence, defending his ideological project, and the rest of the countries follow along," Alcalay said, referring mainly to Venezuela's closest allies. "He is following the vision of leadership set by Simón Bolívar, a mantle that he believes he now carries. It's megalomania on the international stage."

With the United States, Europe and big regional players such as Brazil and Mexico condemning the coup, Chávez's role in propelling Zelaya's possible comeback may be peripheral, some political analysts said. Indeed, Carlos Sosa, Zelaya's ambassador at the Organization of American States, said the demands made on Micheletti by other Latin American leaders have been vital.

"Hugo Chávez's role is like that of other leaders," such as Mexico's Felipe Calderón, Chile's Michelle Bachelet, Argentina's Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Obama, Sosa said in a telephone interview.

Mark Schneider of the International Crisis Group, a Washington-based policy organization that studies countries in crisis, said: "Chávez is clearly taking advantage of the opportunity, but he is not calling the shots."

Going by the Venezuelan state media, though, it would be hard to conclude that Chávez is not spearheading the effort. Nor is there any mention of the contradiction of Chávez demanding that the Hondurans adhere to democratic principles when his closest ally is communist Cuba. Although he labels Micheletti's government a military dictatorship, and decries the violence against protesters, state television makes no mention of a botched coup led by Chávez in 1992 in which dozens died.

León, the pollster, said the coverage is part of a larger strategy that helps the government deflect attention from grinding domestic problems it has been unable to address, including rampant crime and a troubled economy.

León said Chávez has been searching for a lift. The polling company León helps run, Datanalisis, said that more than 60 percent of Venezuelans supported Chávez in February, when he won a referendum on a constitutional amendment that permits him to run for reelection indefinitely.

But the popularity rating has slipped to slightly more than 50 percent in recent weeks, León said, as Venezuelans have become increasingly worried by what he called Chávez's "radicalization." Polls show that 75 percent oppose the government's expropriations targeting landholders and big companies. An additional 65 percent oppose the president's efforts to wrest power from local governments led by political opponents, León said.

"He is talking for the benefit of the local population because it allows him to put people's minds, for at least a while, on other issues and not their own problems," León said.

Still, Leon and other analysts said Chávez is often most formidable -- and effective -- on the international stage.

Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a policy group in Washington, said Chávez's attempts at leading his allies in an effort to reinstate a deposed friend dovetail effectively with his frequent invocation of images of coups against leftist leaders.

"He puts his money where his mouth is, and there's a grudging respect for that," Birns said.

Honduras Targets Protesters With Emergency Decree

By William Booth and Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, July 2, 2009

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, July 1 -- The new Honduran government clamped down on street protests and news organizations Wednesday as lawmakers passed an emergency decree that limits public gatherings following the military-led coup that removed President Manuel Zelaya from office.

The decree also allows for suspects to be detained for 24 hours and continues a nighttime curfew. Media outlets complained that the government was ordering them not to report any news or opinion that could "incite" the public.

A dozen former ministers from the Zelaya government remain in hiding, some hunkered down in foreign embassies, fearing arrest. News organizations here remain polarized. Journalists working for small independent media -- or for those loyal to Zelaya -- have reported being harassed by officials.

Before emergency measures were tightened, thousands of protesters rallied Wednesday to urge Zelaya's return. They were answered by counterdemonstrations in support of the new government. Local radio reported that several bombs were found but safely defused.

Zelaya vowed that he would come back to Honduras over the weekend, while the newly appointed interim president, Roberto Micheletti, repeated in a news conference Wednesday "that when he comes into the country, he will be arrested."

Asked whether Honduras could withstand international isolation and risk losing the foreign aid that keeps the impoverished nation running, Micheletti said, "You know that the Europeans are not going to cut the aid to our country, nor will the Americans."

But on Wednesday, the Inter-American Development Bank did suspend aid, after a similar move by the World Bank. As the impasse continued in Honduras, diplomats at the Organization of American States struggled to organize a mission that would restore Zelaya to power and avoid a clash between him and the military that ousted him.

After nearly 12 hours of debate, the OAS approved a resolution shortly before dawn Wednesday that called on its secretary general, José Miguel Insulza, to undertake every effort to reinstate Zelaya. If Insulza did not succeed within 72 hours, Honduras would be suspended from the OAS, the main forum for political cooperation in the hemisphere.

The passage of the resolution prompted Zelaya to postpone a trip home he had scheduled for Thursday, which diplomats had feared could sharply escalate tensions in the Central American country.

"I am going to return to Honduras. I am the president," Zelaya told reporters Wednesday. But he added that he did not want to complicate the diplomatic efforts of the OAS over the next few days.

Insulza faces an unusually complex task in trying to reverse the coup. Normally, he would negotiate with the de facto government for the return of the deposed president. But OAS members, furious about the military ouster, do not want him to talk to Micheletti, for fear that would legitimize the new regime.

Even hard-core coup backers here say they were surprised how quickly and forcefully the Latin American countries condemned their actions.

"This coup is a mess," said the outgoing Italian ambassador, Giuseppe Magno. "Mistakes have been made on all sides, and the only solution is for a compromise. We hear that different parties are talking among themselves. That is good. The solution has to come from the Hondurans themselves. It cannot be imposed on them."

Honduras is finding itself increasingly isolated. France, Spain, Italy, Chile and Colombia began recalling their ambassadors Wednesday. The Pentagon suspended joint military operations with Honduras.

"What provoked an enormous indignation among Latin Americans, above all, was the military coup," said one diplomat involved in the planning at the OAS, referring to the way soldiers seized Zelaya at dawn and bundled him onto a plane bound for Costa Rica.

Insulza, of the OAS, is trying to establish contact with people who are not closely allied with either Zelaya or Micheletti to build a compromise, the diplomat said. It was not clear when he would fly to Honduras.

The coup is the first big test for the Obama administration's policy of seeking a more diplomatic and collegial role in a region traditionally dominated by the United States. The military action has been roundly condemned internationally, including by President Obama. But U.S. diplomats have sought to prevent a response that is so tough it leads to bloodshed.

U.S. officials said Wednesday that they would hold off formally designating the Honduran military action a "coup" until Insulza reports back to the OAS on Monday. Such a move is significant, because it would lead to the cutoff of millions of dollars in military and development aid.

However, the Pentagon said Wednesday that it had decided to reduce military contact with the Honduran armed forces. "We're still reviewing and making decisions" about what cooperation would be affected, said a spokesman for U.S. Southern Command, José Ruiz.

The U.S. military also has cut off contact since Sunday with those who orchestrated the coup, officials said. The United States has a contingent of about 700 military personnel at Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras, focused on disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping and counternarcotics activities in Honduras and the region.

Honduras also is facing a freeze on petroleum exports from Venezuela and a halt in trade from other Central American countries.

"In the 21st century, these kinds of coups don't last long. It is very hard for a country like Honduras to maintain this kind of position in the face of overwhelming rejection by the world, and especially the region and its major trading partners," a senior U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities.

Zelaya is a close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who led a bloc of leftist governments in pressing the OAS to suspend Honduras immediately and support Zelaya's quick return to the country -- even at the risk of his being arrested. The governments believe that unless there is a tough response to the coup, their own leftist governments could be threatened, diplomats said.

Venezuela's ambassador to the OAS, Roy Chaderton, described the approach as "diplomatic asphyxiation." The Venezuelan government provided a plane for Zelaya's trips Tuesday to the United Nations and the OAS.

Sheridan reported from Washington.

U.N. General Assembly, OAS Back Honduran Zelaya

By Mary Beth Sheridan and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Scrambling to hold on to his presidency, deposed Honduran leader Manuel Zelaya pleaded his case in the United States yesterday, winning a rare unanimous vote of support from the U.N. General Assembly but failing to get an audience with top Obama administration officials.

Zelaya also gained crucial support at the Organization of American States, whose members debated into the night on launching a diplomatic initiative to resolve the crisis. They were also considering calling on the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank to cut off all loans to the Honduran government.

In New York, Zelaya told the General Assembly that Honduras was "reverting to the age of dictatorship. Repression has now been established in the country."

After the meeting, he vowed to return to Honduras on Thursday with a delegation of dignitaries, including the presidents of Argentina and Ecuador, the secretary general of the OAS and the president of the General Assembly.

Diplomats last night tried to persuade Zelaya not to make the trip. Some analysts worried that the crisis could be escalating.

"If he [Zelaya] goes back with no one laying the groundwork . . . it's going to be a huge clash," said Jennifer McCoy, director of the Carter Center's Americas program, who attended an urgent OAS general assembly last night on the matter.

Zelaya was detained by soldiers Sunday morning and expelled from the country. A close ally of populist President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Zelaya had clashed with the Honduran Congress, the military and the Supreme Court over his plans for a referendum that many alleged was an effort to change the constitution in order to gain another term as president.

The U.S. government continues to recognize Zelaya as president, rather than a replacement sworn in by the Honduran Congress, Roberto Micheletti. But the Obama administration did not grant Zelaya a high-level meeting at the White House or State Department.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton could not meet with Zelaya because she was away from work recuperating from a fractured elbow. "This is just something that came up today," he said of the Honduran's decision to fly to Washington.

But the low-key treatment of Zelaya appeared to reflect an effort by the Obama administration to preserve some room for diplomatic maneuver. The U.S. government is working with regional leaders to resolve the crisis, but it has outsize influence with the Honduran elite because of its close military ties and its economic clout.

Zelaya was expected to meet with the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, Thomas A. Shannon Jr., and the top Latin America official on the National Security Council, Dan Restrepo, during his stay in Washington.

If Zelaya felt slighted, he didn't show it. Asked about allegations from some leftist politicians that the United States favored the coup, he said: "I have listened to President Obama. It is not only that he condemns the event, but he has demanded the restoration of the president. I have also heard the ambassador of the U.S. in Tegucigalpa. He has taken the same position against the coup powers."

The U.N. General Assembly unanimously condemned the coup yesterday afternoon and demanded the "immediate and unconditional restoration of the legitimate and constitutional government" of Zelaya.

The action, while not legally binding, provided a show of unity at the United Nations in responding to an international crisis, bringing the United States together with stridently anti-American governments in Latin America such as Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Zelaya took to the General Assembly podium to condemn the coup as an act of "barbarity" by a "small group of usurpers."

In a lengthy address, he portrayed himself as a champion of the poor who had been brought down by a clique of conservative military and economic elites who resented his attempts to improve the living standards for impoverished Hondurans.

He denied allegations that he had prepared the referendum to pave the way for another run for president, saying he planned to step down after his mandate ends in January.

He added that the new government's allegation that he had engaged in wrongdoing was unfounded. "I have been accused of being a populist. I've been accused of being a communist," he said, but added that he had not had an opportunity to defend himself.

"Nobody has told me what my crime is, what my error is," he said.

Zelaya presented a detailed account of the army raid on his home, saying he had been rousted from his sleep by gunfire and confronted by soldiers as he sought to alert a local reporter and others on his cellphone.

Lynch reported from the United Nations.

Showdown Looms in Honduras: Rival Vows to Arrest Ousted President on His Return

By William Booth
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, July 1, 2009

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, June 30 -- The two presidents of Honduras were headed on a collision course Tuesday, as the president ousted by a coup vowed to return and his replacement threatened to arrest him the minute he lands.

Neither side seemed willing to bend in a looming confrontation that is the first test of the Obama administration's diplomacy and clout in the hemisphere.

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, removed from office Sunday in a military-led coup, addressed the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Tuesday and said he would fly back to Honduras on Thursday, accompanied by the head of the Organization of American States.

But the newly appointed interim president of Honduras, Roberto Micheletti, warned that if Zelaya returns, he will be arrested, tried and sent to prison for years. Micheletti's claim on the presidency is seen as illegitimate by the international community.

"If he comes back to our country, he would have to face our tribunals and our trials and our laws," Micheletti said in an interview with The Washington Post at his residence in the hills overlooking the capital. "He would be sent to jail. For sure, he would go to prison."

Micheletti said he did not see any way to negotiate with the Obama administration and international diplomats seeking a return of Zelaya to power because, Micheletti insisted, Zelaya was guilty of crimes against the country.

"No, no compromise, because if he tries to come back or anyone tries to bring him back, he will be arrested," Micheletti said.

At the United Nations, Zelaya told the assembly, "I'm going back to calm people down. I'm going to try to open a dialogue and put things in order."

Zelaya, whose politics moved to the left during his three years in office, has become close to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who has been the most vocal and belligerent critic of the coup, threatening to "overthrow" the new government.

"When I'm back, people are going to say, 'Commander, we're at your service,' and the army will have to correct itself," Zelaya told the assembly. "There's no other possibility."

Yet other possibilities do exist. Thousands of Hondurans rallied Tuesday in the central plaza of the capital, Tegucigalpa, to support the forced removal of Zelaya and to shout their support for the armed forces.

"It would be a disgrace to have him back in the country," said Emilio Larach, owner of a large building materials company here, who attended the rally to denounce Zelaya. "He created hate among the Honduran people. Everyone in the government was against him."

As the rally was underway, a small, anxious but growing group of Honduran lawmakers sought to build a coalition to endorse a compromise measure to allow for Zelaya's return. According to one participant in the talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of derailing the negotiations, the compromise would include a general amnesty for everyone involved, including the coup leaders and members of the military, while Zelaya would have to abandon his plan to hold a referendum that could lead to a change in the Honduran constitution.

Critics have charged that Zelaya in his nonbinding referendum was seeking a change in the constitution that would allow him to serve for more than one term as president.

The lawmakers seeking a compromise, however, have not yet begun to work with U.S. diplomats here, according to U.S. Embassy press officer Chantal Dalton. "They haven't been in contact with us," Dalton said. "This is smoke and signals. Nobody here has heard anything."

At the United Nations, Zelaya said he would agree not to push his referendum. "I'm not going to hold a constitutional assembly," he said. "And if I'm offered the chance to stay in power, I won't. I'm going to serve my four years."

Zelaya, a wealthy rancher and timber baron, said he would go back to his farm after his term ends in January. "I come from the countryside, and I'm going to go back to the countryside," he said.

The streets of Tegucigalpa were calm Tuesday, though the city is awash in rumors that Venezuela is marshaling forces for a possible invasion.

Micheletti cautioned the world that his army was on alert and prepared to defend the country. Honduran reservists have been called to their barracks to donate blood.

"Our army also consists of 7.5 million people prepared to defend freedom and liberty," said Micheletti, who stressed that Hondurans are a peaceful people.

Media outlets friendly to Zelaya have been shut down, and some reporters are hiding -- as are a dozen members of Zelaya's former cabinet. Most Hondurans must rely on newspapers and television stations that support the coup. Cable news outlets such as CNN en Español have occasionally been blacked out, though it is still possible to get outside news via satellite.

Micheletti and his supporters insist that the world does not understand what happened here. They say that Zelaya was found guilty by a Supreme Court tribunal, that his arrest by the military was legal and that Zelaya was attempting to circumvent Honduras's Congress and courts by staging the referendum.

The interim president said he thought his country could hold out long enough for world opinion to turn its way. Venezuela has said it would suspend oil shipments, and Honduras's neighbors -- El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua -- announced that they would stop overland trade.

"That is why I want to make a call to our allies in the United States, that they should stick with us at this very important moment in the life of the country," Micheletti said. "The economy of our country is completely destroyed -- because of the acts of the former government. If aid [from the United States and Europe] keeps coming, we will show that every little penny that we borrowed will be spent for the people of this country."

Micheletti promised that Honduras would hold presidential elections in November and that a new president would take office in January. Micheletti, who is a leader of the Liberal Party, the same party that Zelaya belongs to, vowed that he would not run for president.

Micheletti also said that Zelaya is a master at bending world opinion his way. Another source in the government here said that Zelaya actually was wearing a crisply ironed dress shirt when he was sent into exile in Costa Rica, but that he changed to a white T-shirt to show how he was hustled out of his official residence at dawn while still in his pajamas.

Senior Obama officials said that an overthrow of the Zelaya government had been brewing for days and that they worked behind the scenes to stop the military and its conservative, wealthy backers from pushing Zelaya out. That the United States failed to stop the coup gives anti-U.S. leaders such as Chávez room to use events in Honduras to push their vision for the region.

Zelaya is an unlikely hero for the left, coming from Honduras's wealthy classes and joining a leftist bloc of Latin American countries several years after he had been elected president. But his ouster has changed the dynamics.

"Zelaya didn't have a strong constituency," said Larry Birns, director of the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a policy group. "And this has become a recruiting mechanism for Zelaya. It's the best thing that could have happened to Zelaya because it's allowed him to generate support."

Carlos Sosa, Honduras's ambassador to the OAS, said in a telephone interview that on Thursday he would likely join Zelaya on a flight that would leave from a U.S. airport -- he wouldn't say which one -- and land in Tegucigalpa. "Everyone wants to go," he said, noting that the secretary general of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza, and other leaders would be on that flight.

Correspondent Juan Forero in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.