Zelaya's peregrinations
You have to admire Mel Zelaya's persistence. Since his overthrow, he has been traveling almost constantly, and that has kept his profile up. His visits often do not achieve many concrete results, but it is notable that no government in the world supports the coup. Not even the IMF does. By the logic of coup supporters, I suppose that means the IMF must be a leftist dupe.
Zelaya was just in Guatemala for the second time, where Alvaro Colom reiterated that his government would not recognize the elections. From there he was returning to Nicaragua, presumably to the border, and he said something vaguely about events this weekend.
It is also forcing itself into the presidential campaign. Rafael Leiva Vivas, Director of the Academia Diplomática de la Cancillería, says that he is preparing a document for all the presidential candidates outlining how Honduras must change its foreign policy. Without giving details, he said that Honduras must address the fact that all of its traditional allies are now opposing the Micheletti government, thus creating a foreign policy of "dignity." Unfortunately, he does not recognize that the most obvious response would be to rethink the behavior that caused these problems in the first place.
Days since the coup: 70
Days until the scheduled presidential election: 84
3 comments:
Zelaya: "I gave 90 million lempiras of public money to the Armed Forces to finance the Fourth Urn and they haven't given it back - they are naughty little boys!"
Audit Office: "And who authorised this 90 million lempiras of public money?"
Zelaya: "Um...um...um..."
Zelaya - pathetic liar, pathetic thief, pathetic President.
One concrete result of many of Zelaya's visits with other heads of state has been a solid collection of public, explicit commitments not to recognize the results of elections conducted under any government other than the legitimate, elected government with him as president. Mexico's was an important addition to the UNASUR group declaration. And you note Colom's, which adds Central American oomph to the message (Guatemala is the largest of the group, and El Salvador and Nicaragua are givens).
The best he could get out of our government is "At this moment, we would not be able to support the outcome of the scheduled elections."
But he was also effective elsewhere in DC, such as his speaking engagement at George Washington Univ. Very worthwhile coverage here [video and transcript].
By the way, the RealNews coverage linked in my comment above is technically correct, but may prove misleading: The IMF did allocate $150 million in special drawing rights to Honduras. This was a routine action, with similar increases announced to many other countries at the same time, in effect notifying them that their borrowing limits had been raised.
However, the IMF agreed with the legitimate Honduran finance minister Rebecca Santos that because the IMF does not recognize the coup government, officials of that government will not be able to actually get the use of these funds. But they wouldn't go on the record as saying so. We'll find out Wednesday, which is also the day the board of the Millenium Challenge Corp. (Sec. Clinton, chair) meets to consider the funds left in Honduras' allotment, which involves roughly the same amount of money.
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