Delegates from over 10 Latin and North American countries are today arriving in Tegucigalpa to begin yet another round of negotiations between advisers to ousted President Manuel Zelaya and the de facto regime of Roberto Micheletti. In the words of Mr. Micheletti, this time the talks would begin with a “new spirit,” while addressing the main issues of dispute over the San Jose Accord (particularly “powers of the state” and the issue of “amnesty”). The AP quotes Micheletti Tuesday saying, “To consolidate political stability and normalize our country's relations with the international community, I believe the time is right to intensify the national dialogue.” But, as Reuters adds, Mr. Micheletti and Mr. Zelaya will not actually meet with each other face-to-face on Wednesday. Instead, Mel Zelaya plans to send three new faces to the negotiating table—Victor Meza, Mayra Mejía, and Juan Barahona—replacing Milton Jiménez, Silvia Ayala and Patricia Rodas (the Zelaya team also includes five other members who form part of the “popular resistance” movement in Honduras). For its part, the Micheletti regime has also mixed up its negotiating team, replacing foreign minister Carlos Lopez Contreras with lawyer Armando Aguilar Cruz who joins Arturo Corrales and Vilma Morales as representatives of the de facto government. According to El Heraldo this morning, behind today’s discussions—now being called the “Guaymuras Dialogue,”—there still remain doubts, particularly on the part of Mr. Zelaya and his followers. Speaking from the Brazilian embassy Tuesday, Zelaya called the latest OAS mission “very smooth,” adding that the OAS “must make clear its position” and not “fall for the games being played by the Micheletti regime.”
Such “games” include continuous delays on the part of the Micheletti regime. As Rosemary Joyce at “Honduras Coup 2009” and Reuters both note, the latest such delay comes after Mr. Micheletti rescinded a state of emergency on Monday, but has yet to have the announcement published in the official record, “La Gaceta.” Thus, says RAJ, the decree PCM-M-016-2009, still remains in effect and pro-Zelaya media outlets remain shuttered. [RAJ also has interesting new poll numbers from late August that show 52.7% of Hondurans opposing the coup of June 28.]
In the New York Times this morning, Elisabeth Malkin reports on an issue Mary Anastasia O’Grady discussed in her Monday WSJ opinion column—the troubling words of pro-Zelaya Radio Globo host David Romero Ellner. In late September, Mr. Ellner, on air, said: “There are times when I ask myself if Hitler was or was not correct in finishing with that race with the famous Holocaust. If there is a people that do damage in this country, they are Jewish, they are Israelis.” Ellner has since asked for forgiveness for what he called such “stupidity,” and Mel Zelaya has attempted to distance himself from the comments, noting he appointed four Jewish cabinet members during his term.
And, in interviews in various publications, three individuals very much involved in the Honduran crisis give their latest thoughts on where things currently stand. Reported in La Tribuna, Lula da Silva again demanded the return of Zelaya but added amnesty for the coup perpetrators should follow: “There is only one thing that is not working in Honduras. There is a person in the presidency who should not be there. If he leaves power and normalcy returns, if Manuel Zelaya is permitted to hold elections, there will be amnesty because the international community wants Honduras to live well.” In Tiempo, U.S. Amb. Hugo Llorens says U.S. Ass’t Sec. of State for the Western Hemisphere, Tom Shannon, will be joining the OAS delegation arriving Wednesday, illustrating the U.S. commitment to resolving the crisis now [Llorens also insisted the Obama administration does not share the position of various Republican congressional members who have visited Tegucigalpa in recent days. Three of those members, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart returned to the U.S. yesterday demanding November elections be recognized]. And, presidential candidate/frontrunner Porfirio Lobo speaks with Spain’s El País. In the interview, Lobo insists he will form a unity government to heal a country that is deeply divided, if elected. But he also discusses how he believes it was Mel Zelaya who tore the country apart. As Lobo tells it: “I attended a meeting in his (Zelaya’s) office in May, one month before he was ousted from power. There were just three people. Zelaya, General Romeo Vásquez…and me. The general left it very clear that if [Zelaya] convened an illegal referendum, he would not be able to obey the order. He warned him…”
In other news today, the Washington Post reports on how competition from “mom and pop” marijuana farmers in the U.S. is cutting into the profits of Mexican drug cartels. The paper writes: “…Recent changes in state laws that allow the use and cultivation of marijuana for medical purposes are giving U.S. growers a competitive advantage, challenging the traditional dominance of the Mexican traffickers, who once made brands such as Acapulco Gold the standard for quality. Almost all of the marijuana consumed in the multibillion-dollar U.S. market once came from Mexico or Colombia. Now as much as half is produced domestically, often by small-scale operators who painstakingly tend greenhouses and indoor gardens to produce the more potent, and expensive, product that consumers now demand, according to authorities and marijuana dealers on both sides of the border.”
The LA Times reports from Colombia on the recruitment of indigenous youth into armed rebel groups in the country. According to a recent study conducted by the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University in Bogota (and based on some 8000 interviews), 64% of new recruits are under 14 years old and join to escape poverty and isolation. Further, nearly half of all such recruits come from indigenous backgrounds, says Natalia Springer, one of the study’s primary authors.
And finally the AP reports on newly declassified documents published by the National Security Archive this week which show “how Cuban exile and suspected terrorist Luis Posada Carriles informed on violent Miami-based efforts to attack Fidel Castro's fledgling Cuban government even as he was deeply involved in helping them.” Posada, a longtime CIA informant, was later suspected in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban jet, hotel bombings in Havana in 1997 and other crimes. He currently faces charges of immigration fraud in Texas, including lying about involvement in the Havana attacks.
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