Extraordinary OAS meeting to consider the Honduran situation

The Organization of American States Permanent Council will hold an extraordinary meeting Tuesday to assess the situation in Honduras following the interruption of the process agreed by both sides to end the several months political crisis.

The “interruption of the process” is that Mel Zelaya decided to backtrack after he committed to the agreement.

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In last Wednesday’ session several countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Brazil expressed concern because of the delay in the implementation of the much worked Tegucigalpa/San Jose accord.

The council requested a new report on the situation from OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza and reaffirmed that the November 29th election results will not be recognized unless ousted president Manuel Zelaya is reinstated in office.

The OAS is simply echoing Hugo Chavez: the Venezuelan ambassador to the OAS, Roy Chaderton, declared that Micheletti is a mouse toying with the OAS.

Meanwhile, Lanny Davis, writing in the Wall Street Journal, sees The Way Forward in Honduras
The U.S. should recognize the coming election, whether Manuel Zelaya does or not.

It’s more accurate to say Mr. Zelaya moved to destroy the accord. It called for him to propose members of the reconciliation government by Nov. 5, and it also gave Honduras’s Congress the right to vote whether to reinstate him as president. But Mr. Zelaya refused to make his appointments, even while Mr. Micheletti proposed his appointments on time. On Friday, Mr. Zelaya declared the accord null and void before Congress could vote on whether to restore him to power. Interestingly, he had insisted on adding the congressional vote to the agreement, so his decision to blow up the process before the vote is an indication that even he realizes he would lose a vote in a Congress controlled by his liberal party.

If there is to be a resolution to this crisis, it will likely only come if the Obama administration (which helped both sides hammer out the accord), leaders in the U.S. Congress, and the Organization of American States (OAS) make sure that Mr. Zelaya does not get away with breaking his word.

One vital part of the accord calls for international monitors to go to Honduras to prepare for the presidential elections, which are scheduled for Nov. 29. Under the accord the monitors will work with the Honduran Supreme Electoral Tribunal, a four-member body appointed by Honduras’s Congress when Mr. Zelaya was in power, and which is independent of the executive branch. The White House and the U.S. Congress need to call for this step to be taken immediately.

Mr. Zelaya’s modus operandi is clear. In 2005, he got elected president while vowing to uphold the constitution. He then violated the country’s constitution by pushing for a vote that would have allowed him to extend his time in office. Honduras’s Constitution specifically states that a president who does that is to be automatically removed, which is why the country’s Supreme Court and Congress supported his removal. Mr. Zelaya’s response was to turn to OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza and the OAS to support him in ignoring his constitutional and legal commitments—and they did so.

Mr. Zelaya’s agenda is to reinstall himself to power before the presidential elections. If he succeeds, he might be able to disrupt those elections and create a constitutional crisis by ensuring that no one is credibly elected president. If that occurs, he would likely declare himself president ad infinitum—just what he was trying to do when he was ousted in June.

The bottom line is that a deal is a deal. The U.S. government needs to insist on the implementation of the accord and endorse the results of the Nov. 29 presidential elections as verified by international monitors. Once that happens, Mr. Zelaya will be irrelevant, a footnote as a president who thought he was above the constitution./blockquote>Amen to that.