Strong diplomatic, and in some cases, financial pressure placed on the regime established in Honduras by the military, has not succeeded in finding an avenue for the return of exiled President Manuel Zelaya. Large and small countries, including the United States and the major countries of Latin America, have called for Zelaya’s return, but the de facto authorities in Tegucigalpa remain adamant. They are insisting that their actions were taken in the face of a President who broke the law in trying to force a referendum on the people to justify his attempt to upset the law on term limits, and they do not accept that the fact that the referendum was non-binding is a justification for his actions.
Zelaya’s attempt to land in Honduras was easily thwarted by the military and police forces, and he certainly did not want to be placed in the situation of attempting a landing in the face of a large numbers of persons literally on the airport. Not even a diplomatic intervention by the OAS Secretary General, nor the promise of the President of Argentina to accompany Mr Zelaya to Honduras, moved the authorities. And they have so far resisted the efforts of the distinguished President of Costa Rica, Mr Oscar Arias, the recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize in the 1990s, for negotiating an end to the civil wars on the Central American isthmus, including the Contra war in Nicaragua, at that time supported (and some may say promoted) by the United States under President Ronald Reagan.
The last major attempt to overthrow a sitting president in Latin America was the attempted coup against President Chávez, which the United States government, then led by President George W Bush seemed pleased to see. Indeed some say that the US was privy to those coup plans, hoping that the indigenous institutions of the Venezuelan state would carry it out successfully. The consequence was, much obloquy thrown at the United States after President Chávez returned.
On this occasion Barack Obama’s United States has taken the position of not wanting to be visibly seen interfering with the coup process, and has been instrumental in President Arias making a diplomatic intercession and having active consultation with both sides to the dispute. Mr Obama wishes, it appears, not to let the United States be seen as placing overt pressure, in the traditional American way, on the current President. And he is well cognizant that America is still experiencing the political aftermath of the prolonged intervention in Iraq to which he was opposed, and of which he made a significant issue in the presidential campaign. In this stance, he would have strong support.
Further, it is claimed, the American President sees his stance of non-overt intercession as an opportunity to fulfil his own intention of having more balanced relations in the hemisphere, and allowing the regional institutions of the area, particularly the Organisation of American States, to intervene. He was quick to anticipate that President Chávez would want to blame the United States as a promoter of the coup and protector of the coup-makers, and he has played a hand that has diffused Chávez’s attempt to create an anti-American alliance beyond his associations with the leaders of Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua. Brazilian diplomacy has also moved to subtly isolate this tendency, and the Argentine President playing a role befitting her country’s status in the hemisphere, has herself engaged in no more than quiet diplomacy.
But there has appeared a tendency, as time has passed, to suggest that the US, in the face of what is perceived as the intransigence of the authorities in Honduras, should be playing a stronger hand. According to reports the American Secretary of State has informed temporary President Micheletti that playing a waiting game and then having elections after Mr Zelaya’s legal term has ended, will not mean that the United States will view the election as legitimate, and therefore the successful candidate as legally elected. But having suspended aid to the military, the US has not yet withdrawn current economic assistance carded for Honduras, and, unlike other countries of the hemisphere, has not withdrawn the country’s ambassador, on the grounds that he is useful as a direct listening post in Honduras.
It is most likely the case that the United States holds Zelaya partly responsible for the present situation, to the extent that even though the referendum which he was seeking was supposed to be non-binding, his actions did raise the political temperature in the country. This is a country in which continuous democratic processes are still relatively recent, and in which, as in some other states in the hemisphere, military influence is still strong. Zelaya himself has not had the reputation of being a political radical in Honduras, having appeared in his campaign for election as an orthodox political personality claiming some support from the land-owning class. That he has allowed himself to be aligned with radical grouping of presidents in Latin America led by Chávez, has certainly enraged his former political associates like Mr Micheletti.
In that context emerging opinion within the walls of the OAS appears to favour a solution that would establish the status quo ante, with Zelaya returned as president for the rest of his term, with constraints that would make him largely inoperative, but which would satisfy the requirements for having a legitimate election. Micheletti and his group no doubt are hoping for the opposite – that they can hold out and the hemisphere will tire of the imbroglio and leave them to their own devices.
The problem with this is that the political temperature in Honduras has, as we have seen, risen tremendously, and relations will certainly have hardened between his supporters and those who have exiled him. There is some indication that the current regime has been surprised at the extent of support which Zelaya’s demand for reinstatement has gained. It suggests that, in what is one of the poorest countries of Central America, suspicion of the oligarchy and its military partners is high. And it would therefore not be surprising if, in the event of lack of a resolution of this issue, the current regime will seek to use unorthodox measures to ensure a victory for their side.
Then, the question of recognition – by hemispheric countries and by the OAS, will arise again. And Honduras will be unlikely to have the support of the United States, its friend and ally in Cold War days and beyond.
