OAS Urged To Normalize
Honduran Relations
By Adam Thomson
The Organization of American States (OAS)
should discuss restoring full membership to
Honduras just seven months after the country
was suspended following a military coup last
year, according to a senior US diplomat.
In an interview with the Financial imes,
Craig Kelly, deputy assistant secretary of
state, said that the country had made
significant headway in returning to
democratic constitutional rule, and that it
deserved a chance to normalize international
relations.
“The circumstances allow them [the OAS] to
take this up now and have a very good
discussion given that Honduras has
performed,” he said this week. “The Honduran
people have produced something here that
certainly makes this a live question for the
OAS, and we think that Honduras has earned
that consideration.”
Kelly confirmed that the US was working to
re-establish about $37 million in suspended
aid flows to the impoverished Central
American nation now that a new government
led by conservative president Porfirio
“Pepe” Lobo had taken office.
William Chong, upon taking up his new post
of Honduras’ finance minister, said that the
new government was inheriting a bankrupt
country with just $50m in the public
coffers.
Kelly said that Lobo had worked hard to
restore the democratic constitutional order,
including the establishment of a cross-party
government of national unity. As early as
this month, Lobo is also expected to set up
a so-called “truth commission” to
investigate last year’s coup.
The US official said that he was “pleased”
to see countries gradually making moves to
restore full diplomatic relations with
Honduras after they suspended them following
the coup last June. Unconfirmed reports
suggest that several European Union
governments, such as Spain and France, are
in the process of sending their ambassadors
back to the country of just over 7m.
“We think that most of the countries in the
region are recognizing that, with all these
elements, there is sufficient political
space to return to a productive relationship
with Honduras,” he said. “There is a trend
towards re-establishing a positive
relationship with the country.”
One of the elements that had made this
possible was the decision by Manuel Zelaya,
Honduras’ former president and victim of the
coup, to accept a deal that allowed him safe
passage abroad.
Prior to that deal, Zelaya had been holed up
in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa from
where he had continued to insist on his
return to power for the remainder of his
official term, which ended January 27.
Washington has come under criticism for what
most experts agree was a substantial shift
in position with regard to Zelaya,
abandoning its initial insistence that he be
returned to power as an essential step in
the country’s return to democratic,
constitutional rule.
Kelly defended the US position, arguing that
it responded to changing conditions on the
ground. “All of us [the international
community] called for Zelaya’s return at the
outset,” he said. “Then, the Hondurans
themselves spelled out a path to resolve the
issue of Zelaya’s restitution in the
Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord, which both
sides agreed to. We along with many other
countries supported that agreement.”
Many commentators have expressed concern
that the US’s recognition of the November 29
elections in which Lobo emerged victorious
has created a rift with other regional
powers, such as Brazil and Argentina, which
decided not to recognize the result.
But Kelly said that progress made by Lobo’s
administration had meant that Honduras had
ceased to be a divisive issue in regional
diplomacy. “I don’t see Honduras as being
divisive among countries in the region,” he
said.
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