Honduran Congress Puts Off Vote on Zelaya Return

Winding down the clock.
magbana

Congress avoids vote on Zelaya return

By Claudia Parsons and Gustavo Palencia

TEGUCIGALPA, July 27 (Reuters) - The Honduran Congress on
Monday avoided a vote on whether ousted President Manuel Zelaya
can return to power after a coup last month, saying it was a
matter for the Supreme Court to decide.

Congress head Jose Alfredo Saavedra said deputies could not
rule on Zelaya's return, part of a plan by Costa Rican
President Oscar Arias to end the Honduras crisis, because it
was a constitutional question.

The United States insisted on Monday it wants Zelaya
reinstated but made no commitment to tightening sanctions to
put pressure on the de facto government that replaced the
leftist leader after a June 28 coup.

The coup in Honduras, an impoverished exporter of textiles
and coffee, is Central America's worst political crisis in two
decades and a test of U.S. President Barack Obama's commitment
to improving relations with Latin America.

Zelaya, an ally of Venezuela's socialist President Hugo
Chavez, was ousted as he sought a referendum vote to change the
constitution to extend presidential term limits -- a move the
Supreme Court said was unconstitutional.

Zelaya is now in exile in neighboring Nicaragua.

The Honduran Congress did create a committee on Monday to
study some elements of Arias' proposal, including an amnesty
for political crimes that would cover Zelaya, and it was
expected to reach a decision by Thursday, Saavedra said.

Talks between the rivals in Honduras ran into trouble last
week over the question of Zelaya's return as president, a
condition that de facto leader Roberto Micheletti and his
supporters have said is impossible and illegal.

Micheletti said he would nevertheless consult Congress and
the Supreme Court over whether Zelaya can return.

A Supreme Court source said the court had considered the
proposal on Monday but there was no word on when it would
announce a judgment.

No foreign country has recognized the de facto government
but Micheletti has so far refused to back down, apparently
gambling he can hold out until November elections and the world
will accept the new order after that.

ZELAYA WANTS MORE FROM U.S.

Obama has condemned the coup, cut military aid to Honduras
and thrown his support behind the Arias plan. But Zelaya
complained on Sunday that Washington is wavering and has not
done enough to win his reinstatement.

Zelaya went to the border and took a few symbolic steps on
Honduran soil last Friday, a gesture criticized by U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as "reckless."

The U.S. government said it had not changed its position.

"We want the restoration of democratic order and that
includes the return by mutual agreement of the democratically
elected president, and that's President Zelaya," State
Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in Washington on Monday.

The de facto government has refused to let Zelaya back in
and says it will arrest him if he does return. Zelaya complains
that Clinton has stopped using the term "coup" to describe his
removal from power on June 28.

"The position of Secretary Clinton at the beginning was
firm. Now I feel that she's not really denouncing (it) and
she's not acting firmly against the repression that Honduras is
suffering," he told reporters over the weekend.

Asked if the United States would impose new sanctions on
the de facto government in Honduras, Kelly said Washington
wanted to give Arias more time to seek a negotiated solution.

"We're content to let that process play out. We're not
going to put any artificial deadline on that," he said.

Seeking to win over his critics and perhaps avert harsher
U.S. sanctions, Micheletti wrote an article in the Wall Street
Journal on Monday arguing Zelaya's removal was legal because he
was seeking to extend presidential term limits.

"The truth is that he was removed by a democratically
elected civilian government because the independent judicial
and legislative branches of our government found that he had
violated our laws and constitution," said Micheletti, chosen by
Congress to lead the country hours after Zelaya was ousted.

Micheletti said he understood criticism of the abrupt way
that Zelaya was ousted.

"Reasonable people can believe the situation could have
been handled differently," he said.

"But it is also necessary to understand the decision in the
context of genuine fear of Mr. Zelaya's proven willingness to
violate the law and to engage in mob-led violence."
(Additional reporting by Marco Aquino, Esteban Israel, Gustavo
Palencia and Sean Mattson in Honduras, Ivan Castro in
Nicaragua, Tim Gaynor in Washington; Writing by Claudia
Parsons; Editing by John O'Callaghan)

http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN2752357120090728

"to change the constitution to extend presidential term limits"

Is there any hope for the truth to ever prevail? :banghead:

sw

Surely wish we could get the message to them that they have destroyed any credibility they had ever hoped to have ages ago.

Apparently it doesn't matter to them as long as they continue to get clients for their pipeline from western propaganda mills. They are betting the system has it all worked out so there will NEVER be a governmentally approved news source which will finally start delivering the truth to people, to provide any actual competition for them.

You gotta wonder about how this Honduran Congress (so like our own) got elected. I imagine that the $43 million of US taxpayer money funneled to their campaigns by John McCain's "International Republican Institute," through the USAID, helped a bit--along with the "ten families'" control of all the levers of power in the Honduran government, including its election agencies.

Interesting that they're throwing this "hot potato" to the Supreme Court. That's how Bush/Cheney first got 'elected.' (Then they thought of Diebold.)