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Diplomats deliver ultimatum to Honduras
Coup leaders urged to reverse course or risk sanctions, isolation.
- Guardian News & Media Ltd
- Published: 19:42 July 3, 2009
Tegucigalpa: Latin American diplomats were to yesterday deliver a blunt ultimatum to Honduras to reverse a coup within 24 hours or face becoming an international pariah.
Jose Miguel Insulza, the secretary general of the Organisation of American States (OAS), was due to lead a delegation that would warn coup leaders of economic and diplomatic sanctions.
The interim government in Tegucigalpa showed little sign of buckling. It ruled out reinstating President Manuel Zelaya, whom soldiers bundled into exile last Sunday, and said the central America country could survive the isolation.
The crisis could enter a new, explosive phase this weekend if Zelaya keeps his promise to return to Honduras to try to regain power. The interim government said it would arrest him. Rival crowds have demonstrated for and against the exile in recent days, underlining deep polarisation.
Violent clashes earlier this week left dozens injured. A semblance of normality has returned to Tegucigalpa but authorities have restricted civil liberties, muzzled the media and imposed a nightly curfew.
Insulza, the region's top diplomat, said he would not negotiate with the new government to avoid legitimising it but would instead warn of the consequences missing a deadline - which expires today - to reverse course.
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"We hope the coup leaders recognise the damage they are doing to the country and the world and allow the return of President Zelaya," he told reporters in Guayana on Thursday night. He played down hopes of breakthrough. "I will do everything I can. But I think it will be very hard to turn things around in a couple of days."
Honduras faces expulsion from the 34-member OAS, which groups most countries in the Americas. Cuba was the last to be so punished, in 1962. It would be a symbolic step that would put pressure on donors and creditors to squeeze Honduras, an impoverished coffee exporter of seven million which relies on loans to stay afloat.
The World Bank has "paused" lending but not cut ties with Tegucigalpa. The US has severed diplomatic and military contacts but not aid. European Union ambassadors left the country earlier this week. Latin American countries briefly suspended trade.
The interim government has rebuffed the threats and said it will launch a campaign to persuade the world that Zelaya's ouster - he was woken in his pyjamas at gunpoint and put on a plane - was a legal defence of the constitution.
Congress, the supreme court, the army and the president's own party approved the overthrow in response to the leftist leader's attempt to change the constitution to extend term limits, a strategy pioneered by his ally and mentor, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez.
Blame game: Chavez points finger at Pentagon
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said the US military supported the coup in Honduras that ousted leader Manuel Zelaya and called on President Barack Obama to take a harder line against the new regime.
"It's possible that Obama wouldn't have known," Chavez said late on Friday on state television. "But I am sure the soldiers wouldn't have moved one step if they hadn't gotten the green light from the Pentagon."
The Honduran military seized Zelaya on June 28 and put him on a plane to Costa Rica.
The US, historically a close ally of Honduras, froze military aid to the Central American nation because of the crisis.
"We've taken some actions to hit the pause button on assistance programs which we would be legally required to terminate" if it is found to have been a military coup, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said on Friday in Washington.
- Bloomberg News
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