OAS begins steps to suspend Honduras - Interim government said it would not reinstate Zelaya

OAS begins steps to suspend Honduras - Interim government said it would not reinstate Zelaya
By Adam Thomson in Tecucigalpa, Honduras
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: July 4 2009 16:34 | Last updated: July 4 2009 16:34
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2d7a6a64-68af-11de-a472-00144feabdc0.html


The Organisation of American States on Saturday began steps to suspend Honduras from the 35-member group after the interim government said it would not reinstate Manuel Zelaya as the Central American nation’s president.

The move by the OAS pushes Honduras, which this week suffered a military coup as soldiers arrested the leftist Mr Zelaya and forcibly expelled him from the country, one step closer to becoming a pariah nation.

Suspension would make the impoverished nation of 7.2m only the second country to suffer such a fate after Cuba was suspended in 1962 following the Communist revolution. Late Friday, the government reacted defiantly by threatening to renounce the OAS charter.

The latest events have substantially increased the Central American nation’s political and economic isolation. The international community has almost universally criticised the coup, and refused to recognise the interim government headed by Roberto Micheletti, a fellow member of Mr Zelaya’s Liberal Party.

This week, Washington confirmed that its embassy in Honduras was under strict orders to avoid any contact with the new regime. The European Union has confirmed that all EU ambassadors to Tegucigalpa have been recalled.

On Tuesday, the World Bank said that it would “pause” disbursements to Honduras as a result of the political turmoil. Two days later, the US State Department announced that it would stop aid programmes. The country was relying on multilateral aid to help fund a rapidly growing fiscal deficit this year.

On Friday José Miguel Insulza, head of the OAS, met in Tegucigalpa with authorities, including with members of the Supreme Court who are understood to have given the order for Mr Zelaya’s arrest. He did not meet with Mr Micheletti.

But at an evening press conference, he told journalists that no progress had been made on the OAS insistence that Mr Zelaya be returned to power. Honduras “made it clear they have no intention of reversing ... this interruption of constitutional order”, he said.

The interim government has insisted that Mr Zelaya’s removal did not constitute a coup but was rather a valid and legal transition of power after the ousted president broke the law by trying to hold a nationwide vote on constitutional change. Mr Zelaya’s detractors claim that the idea was to seek re-election – something that is currently forbidden in Honduras.

Most of all, they feared Mr Zelaya’s growing friendship with leftwing President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, and insisted that Honduras would have become a satellite of Caracas in Central America if Mr Zelaya had got his way.

On Friday, Mr Insulza dismissed the interim government’s interpretation of last Sunday’s events. “I don’t know what else you would call it when a group of military take a president out of power and sends him to another country,” he said bluntly.

For now, at least, Mr Micheletti’s government appears determined to ride out the escalating isolation until the next presidential election, which is scheduled for November 29.

Martha Lorena Alvarado de Casco, the newly appointed deputy foreign minister, told the Financial Times this week: “I would prefer five months of isolation than accept 20 years of Chávez.”