Republican Senators Connie Mack and Brian Bilbray met separately with President Roberto Micheletti and American Ambassador Hugo Llorens to discuss the realities of the national crisis that followed the dismissal of Manuel Zelaya Rosales.
The international community does not know much about the legal reasons for Zelaya’s separation, and the groups sympathetic to the ex-president erroneously assure foreign media that citizens are being oppressed and massacred.
The senators, Micheletti, Llorens and other national personalities followed an agenda that gave an overview of the conflict and allowed them to draw their own conclusions.
In the Presidential Palace
At two o’clock in the afternoon, Dime and Bilbray arrived at the Presidential Palace to meet with the current president, Chancellor Carlos Lopez Contreras and Vice Chancellor Martha Lorena Alvarado.
The coordinator of the organization Honduran Unity in the United States, Jose Lagos, and the liberal Deputy Marcia Villeda also participated in the talks.
Neither the Senators nor the officials declared what was discussed for some two hours at Altar Q, an archaeological site of the Mayan ruins.
The secretary of presidential communications did not even release an announcement about the presence of the Upper House members. The visitors exited through one of the back doors of the palace.
According to Radio America, they also expected the arrival of the republican governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, who joined the delegation that met with President Micheletti.
Tom Dime, from the same party, also attended but was not seen in the meeting with Micheletti.
Before arriving in Honduras, Connie Mack revealed that his intention was to learn more about the political situation and any progress that has been made in the negotiations that have been mediated by the president of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias.
He has very clearly assured everyone that Zelaya’s separation was not a coup, and that the jurisdictional body and National Congress remain devoted to the Constitution of the Republic in the presidential substitution process.
He also affirmed that the primary concern for the U.S. should be for Honduras to find a peaceful way to the end the conflict.
Encounter with Llorens
After the meeting with Micheletti, the senators met with Ambassador Hugo Llorens in his residence.
It is assumed that the president of the Supreme Court of Justice, Jorge Alberto Rivera Aviles, also participated in this chat, along with the attorney general of the Republic, Luis Alberto Rubi, and other members of the National Congress directive.
Just like the first meeting, the details of this conversation are not known.
The Separation
The National Congress separated Manuel Zelaya from his office on 28 June for violating the Constitution and intending to invoke a Constitutional National Assembly.
The constituency can dissolve the Powers of State and create a new Magna Carta in order to counter the sticky articles that refer to maintaining a form of government that cannot be changed.
Two weeks ago, a commission of businessmen and Honduran political leaders met with the U.S. Council on Hemispheric Affairs to explain that Zelaya’s separation was not a coup, but a constitutional event.
Their appearance led to further division among congressmen and senators; certain Democrats consider it to have been a coup, while some Republicans believe the Constitution was used to depose Zelaya.
Honduran living in the United States are expected to participate in various protests this week.
Zelaya Will Travel to Costa Rica for the Tuxtla Summit
The Chancellor in San Jose announced this Saturday that the deposed president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, will attend the Presidential Summit of the Tuxtla Group. This meeting will begin on Monday in Costa Rica and bring together the Central American countries of Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Colombia.
“President Zelaya has been invited to this summit since before the coup of state on 28 June, and, additionally, he is the president that all members of the group recognize,” the Chancellor’s Chief of Press Miguel Diaz told AFP.
It is hoped that Honduran government official will be present at the meeting, where the political situation of their country will be an obligatory topic for the governments of the region.
The eleventh Summit of Mechanisms of Dialogue and Agreement of Tuxtla will take place in a hotel in the tourist province of Guanacaste in the north of Costa Rica from 27 July to 29 July.
Chavez Criticizes Arias and Uribe Again
Yesterday, the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, criticized the position of mediator of the political crisis in Honduras that his Costa Rican counterpart, Oscar Arias, has assumed. Chvez accused him of receiving orders from the United States and being involved in a trap.
“Arias is repeating what the U.S. State Department orders him to do and this is undignified for a Latin American president… These proposals are not only from him; they come from the State Department,” Chavez declared in a speech before the National Assembly.
Chavez said that when Arias maintains that the deposed President Manuel Zelaya’s intentions of returning to Honduras from Nicaragua “is not the way,” what he promotes is the “path of surrender, of immortality.” “The role that President Oscar Arias is playing is lamentable, it is very lamentable,” he insisted.
Chavez also attacked his Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe for permitting the use of American military bases in Colombia.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.