OAS: Any Honduran deal must restore ousted leader

Source: Washington Post

OAS: Any Honduran deal must restore ousted leader
By JUAN CARLOS LLORCA
The Associated Press
Friday, August 28, 2009; 4:52 PM

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- The head of the Organization of American States closed the door Friday on a compromise offered by Honduras' interim leader because it would not restore the president ousted in a coup.

OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza warned there will be no agreement to end Honduras' crisis unless Manuel Zelaya returns to the presidency.

The interim government "has not ceded on one of the principal points, which is the return of President Zelaya. And we are also not going to cede on that issue," Insulza said in an interview with Chile's La Tercera newspaper. "Therefore, until there is a consensus on that, there will be no agreement. Zelaya must return as president of Honduras."

~snip~
Micheletti has said he does not fear sanctions, and officials in his government have expressed hope that international pressure will soften after the Nov. 29 presidential election, which was scheduled before the coup.

Insulza warned that would not likely happen. He said at least 22 OAS member countries would have to vote to lift Honduras' suspension from the bloc before recognizing the outcome of the election.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/28/AR2009082802893.html

Meanwhile, the ruling families live comfortably while the rest of the country suffers.

Even if it is a year from now, he must be restored, and then legitimate elections can be held. Any other elections are coup elections, Pinochet elections, Suharto elections.

Honduras' coup must not stand
Other nations will not hesitate to step into the vacuum if the U.S. fails to act.
By Robert White and Glenn Hurowitz
August 31, 2009

When Honduran soldiers entered democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya's bedroom and packed him off in his pajamas at gunpoint to exile this summer, the politicians and industrialists who backed the ouster had confidence that President Obama wouldn't touch them.

Even though the United States maintains 600 troops in Honduras, they thought they could pull off the first successful military coup in Latin America since the end of the Cold War. So far, they're right: The Honduran junta's intransigence in negotiations to restore democracy has been rewarded with U.S. complacency, setting an extremely dangerous precedent for other areas of the world. Unexpectedly, in the age of Obama, democracy is in retreat.

In the wake of the coup, the United Nations and the Organization of American States passed rare unanimous resolutions with U.S. support calling for Zelaya's immediate, safe and unconditional restoration. Obama labeled the actions a "coup" and sponsored the valiant efforts of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias for a negotiated solution in which the coup leaders would gain amnesty in exchange for restoring Zelaya to office, albeit with limited powers.

But in response to the administration's extremely generous concessions, the coup leaders responded with vicious attacks. Instead of engaging in sincere negotiations, they are digging in for the long haul. They are threatening, for example, to offset the relatively weak economic sanctions and visa restrictions imposed on Hondurans by reversing the country's ban on environmentally disastrous open-pit mining.

Meanwhile, they've hired well-connected Democratic lobbyists, such as Clinton administration veteran Lanny Davis, to mount a PR campaign against the restoration of democracy. And Republican South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint has shamelessly supported their anti-democratic efforts -- defending the coup on the Senate floor.

More:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-hurowitz31-2009aug31,0,273853.story

Military Coup Reverses Honduran Women's Gains in Human Rights

By Margaret Thompson, Women's Media Center. Posted August 31, 2009.

Women have been front and center in all of the massive peaceful daily marches opposing the regime, and military and police have responded with ever more violent repression.

The military coup d’état in Honduras on June 28 has seriously eroded democratic institutions and hard-fought gains in women’s human rights and human rights in general. That was the finding of Feminist Transgressional Watch, a group of 22 journalists, human rights legal experts and activists from North and Central America and Spain. The group visited Honduras in mid-August during Women’s Human Rights Week to assess reported violations of human rights and observe feminist strategies to resist the military coup.

In one gathering, the delegation met with 18 women who were fired recently from the National Institute for Women (INAM) because they are feminists and opposed the coup. According to Gilda Rivera, director of CEM-H (Women’s Studies Center of Honduras), the coup resulted in the devastation and militarization of such democratic institutions as INAM, which was established in 1998 based on international agreements coming out of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women.

Feminists and other women have been front and center in all of the massive peaceful daily marches opposing the regime of Roberto Michelleti, and military and police have responded with ever more violent repression, including increased sexual aggression and torture of women, according to Honduran feminists and activists. "Women are playing a different role in society, breaking the traditional order," noted Daysi Flores, a young member of Feminists in Resistance of Honduras. "Since the coup we’re in the streets, we’re more visible, we call ourselves feminists, we occupy spaces and carry out political actions," a "serious breach" of traditional social norms. Xiomara Castro Zelaya, wife of ousted President Manuel Zelaya, said she was surprised that more women than men are participating in many marches, and that "it’s hard to see people in the demonstrations repressed so brutally." The first lady was addressing an August 17 forum of the Coalition of Resistance in Teguciagalpa, Honduras.

One blatant violation of women’s human rights occurred on July 15, when several members of the Feminists in Resistance group staged a peaceful protest at INAM. They were speaking out against the loss of progress for women after decades of struggle—under a coup regime supported by the ultra right wing, including Opus Dei, a very conservative Catholic group that opposes many rights for women. The defacto Minister of Women María Marta Díaz called in security forces who chased the women protesters, hitting them with batons on their backs and buttocks, screaming verbally aggressive comments such as, "Whores! Go back to your homes!" Gilda Rivera of CEM-H noted that she had never heard of police hitting male protestors on the buttocks with their batons. Leaders of indigenous and Afro-Caribbean organizations who were staging their own peaceful march against the coup came to support the feminists in the attack.

More:
http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/142369/military_coup_reverses_honduran_women%27s_gains_in_human_rights/