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CENTRAL AMERICA:
Ousted President or Coup Leader to
Regional Parliament?
By Danilo Valladares
GUATEMALA (IPS) - The Central
American Parliament (Parlacen) has been
caught up in the political confrontation
in Honduras between Manuel Zelaya, the
president who was ousted on Jun. 28, and
the leader of the coup government,
Roberto Micheletti, because the regional
body is having a hard time deciding
which of the two it should accept as a
member.
Under the treaty that created Parlacen,
all outgoing former presidents and vice
presidents of the member countries - El
Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras,
Nicaragua, Panama and the Dominican
Republic - automatically become regional
legislators.
But the toppling of Zelaya - who was
removed from his house at gunpoint and
put on a plane out of the country in his
pajamas - and his replacement by
Micheletti - who served out the rest of
Zelaya's term, until January - has led
to a quandary: which of them should join
Parlacen?
"Our founding treaty is very clear as to
who forms part of Parlacen," said
Honduran lawmaker Hena Ligia Madrid of
the centre-right Liberal Party - to
which both Zelaya and Micheletti belong.
"It stipulates that outgoing presidents
of member states are immediately
admitted," she told IPS.
"In the case of Honduras, it is obvious
to me, as a politician and Parlacen
legislator, that the man who should come
is President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales,
because he was elected in free elections
and was sworn in as constitutional
president of the republic," she stated.
With respect to Micheletti, she said he
was in the post "as the result of a
military coup, and our founding charter
does not say that a de facto president
can become a member of this parliament
when leaving that post, when it was
gained in an irregular, illegal and
unconstitutional manner."
Guatemalan lawmaker Rodolfo Dougherty of
the right-wing Partido de Avanzada
Nacional, who is deputy chair of
Parlacen's political commission,
preferred to stay out of the dispute,
but told IPS that it is solely up to
Honduras to resolve the issue.
"These decisions are up to the states,"
and more specifically, to the election
authorities, the parliamentarian said.
Besides former presidents and vice
presidents, Parlacen, created in 1991
and based in Guatemala, is made up of 20
legislators from each of the six member
states.
However, in December, Panama passed a
law to withdraw from the regional
legislature as of Nov. 24 - one of the
campaign pledges of right-wing President
Ricardo Martinelli, who after taking
office on Jul. 1 described Parlacen as a
costly, ineffective "den of immunity."
He was referring to ex-presidents taking
refuge in the parliamentary immunity
from prosecution conferred by Parlacen,
when they are accused of corruption.
Costa Rica has refused to join Parlacen,
on the grounds that it entails a great
deal of money spent for little or no
return.
Representatives of Mexico, Puerto Rico,
Taiwan and Venezuela participate as
observers.
The dilemma with respect to which former
Honduran leader has the right to a seat
in the regional parliament will end up
in the courts, said Parlacen legislator
Víctor Manuel Galdámez of Honduras's
governing right-wing National Party.
"In the case of Honduras doubts have
arisen, and when such doubts are legal
in nature, the appropriate authorities
will have the last word," Galdámez told
IPS, referring to the Central American
Court of Justice.
Galdámez, who is arranging a
consultation with the regional court,
which forms part of the Central American
Integration System (SICA), said the
question should be resolved in one or
two weeks.
The Honduran lawmaker pointed out that
former Guatemalan president Ramiro de
León Carpio, appointed president by
Congress for the 1993-1996 period after
then president Jorge Serrano (1991-1993)
led a self-coup and later resigned, took
a seat in Parlacen.
Despite that precedent, in his opinion,
neither Zelaya nor Micheletti should be
allowed to take a seat in Parlacen
because both committed mistakes when
they led the country. "Micheletti took
power unconstitutionally…and Mel (Manuel
Zelaya) committed many illegalities,"
such as trying to rewrite the
constitution, he said.
The coup was ultimately triggered by
Zelaya's attempt to organise a
non-binding referendum on Jun. 28 on
electing a constituent assembly to
reform the constitution, which was ruled
illegal by the Supreme Court and
Congress.
Above and beyond the question of who
should represent Honduras as a former
president in the regional legislature,
neither of the two has begun to take
steps to join it.
On the contrary, Micheletti said earlier
this month that "Parlacen leaves much to
be desired. It has not had any real
benefits for any country in Central
America, only for a group of citizens
who earn quite good salaries and are not
even directly elected."
Zelaya, meanwhile, has not openly
expressed an intention of taking a seat
in Parlacen. "He hasn't said anything
about it," the president of Parlacen,
Jacinto Suárez of Nicaragua's ruling
left-wing Sandinista National Liberation
Front (FSLN), said this month. |
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