Zelaya in Honduras

international | rights, freedoms and repression | press release Saturday September 26, 2009 15:33 by brendan butler - ngo peace alliance brendan13 at eircom dot net

Honduran military in diplomatic standoff

President zelaya of Honduras who was forced out of his country by a coup d'etat has returned but is in virtual captivity in the Brazilian Embassy in the Honduran capital , Tegucigalpa.

The NGO Peace alliance is alarmed at the deteriorating political situation in Honduras upon the return of the ousted President Zelaya after three months in forced exile He is in in virtual imprisonment in the Brazilian Embassy in the Honduran capital ,Tegucipalpa where the Honduran military have created a 5 kilometre cordon of steel and are refusing to allow food and other necessities into the Embassy. Furthermore the military have cut off water, gas and electricity to the Embassy. . Mr. Micheletti , who has assumed power illegally in the country refuses to agree to the terms of a peace agreement brokered by the former president Arias of Costa Rica and claims that his accession to power was not the result of a ‘coup d’ etat ‘ but a ‘constitutional succession’. Equally U.S. Secretary of State , Clinton , refuses to call the ousting of Zelaya a coup d’etat as it would oblige the U.S to suspend all economic and military aid to the Micheletti Government. Resistance to Zelaya did not begin ,as his opponents claim, with his attempted referendum to consult the Honduran people of constitutional change but when he increased the minimum working wage by 60% which caused consternation among employers in Honduras.
It appears that the U.S. administration has adopted a hard line approach to any more Latin American states who exercise their franchise to vote for political parties who have declared their intentions to exercise power in favour of the majority indigenous poor in their countries who have been disenfranchised throughout their lives.