Arias Has a Difficult Task

Arias should travel to Honduras to have a better picture of the situation.

Common sense barely begins to break through in the Honduras crisis. The deposed president, Manuel Zelaya, and the interim president, Roberto Micheletti, have agreed to mediation by D. Oscar Arias, President of Costa Rica and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Hillary Clinton correctly suggested this in face of the auto-exclusion by Chilean Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the OAS, and because of his bias in favor of Chavez and the discredited image he left among Hondurans as the bearer of a humiliating ultimatum.

Arias is the perfect person for the role of mediator. He is a Democrat with very clear ideas, but he will not be an instrument of Washington or of anyone.

In the eighties, during the last stage of the Cold War, he opposed pressure from the Reagan government and created the conditions for Nicaraguans, Salvadorians, and Guatemalans who faced gunfire to negotiate peace.

On his side were perestroika, the Soviet Union fatigue, and the armed resistance of the anti-Sandinista guerrillas sponsored by the CIA, but the greatest credit for those accords corresponds to Arias. That is the reason he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

On the surface, this new task seems simpler, but Arias should travel to Honduras to talk with other key actors in order to obtain a clearer picture of the situation. Manuel Zelaya and Roberto Micheletti bring 30 years of friendship and just eight months of growing friction. What divided these men? In fact, the same issues that today divide Honduran society in the political arena: the insistence of President Zelaya to drag his country into “twenty-first century socialism.”

What could derail Arias’s mediation? There are three reasons. First, Zelaya’s character. Second, pressure from Chavez, intended to wreck any agreement that would diminish his area of influence. Third, the belief that Arias’s failure is a kind of green light to begin the violent re-conquest of power by means of violent subversive methods.

Already there are signs that Zelaya does not understand the negotiations. Since speaking with Hillary Clinton, Zelaya hardened his discourse, as if to seek the unconditional surrender of his adversaries, despite the fact that they have real and total control of the country.

The U.S. still retains some ability to pressure Zelaya and to force him to take the negotiations seriously. They will not abandon Micheletti nor will they deprive him of aid until ascertaining the final outcome of Arias’s mediation.

If the U.S. verifies that Zelaya’s objective is not to recover legitimateness, but to enthrone Chavismo, the right thing to do is to do one’s best to prevent it.