Honduran Coup Leaders Heed Call for Power-Sharing Deal

Andrew Mcleod
Scotland Herald
November 1, 2009

When the de facto government of Honduras buckled under international pressure this weekend, apparently agreeing to bury the hatchet with the president they ousted four months ago, the outcome was hailed throughout the Americas as a major foreign policy triumph for the Obama administration – an old-fashioned Latin American coup had at last been foiled, not supported, by the United States. Some observers wondered, however, whether Mr Obama’s erstwhile political rival and now Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, had not pulled off a little coup of her own.

Under a power-sharing agreement brokered by the US Assistant Secretary of State, Thomas Shannon, the Honduran congress will decide whether to reinstate the ousted leftist president Manuel Zelaya. A government of national unity and a team of foreign observers will oversee elections scheduled for November 29. Mr Zelaya, who was sent into exile on June 28 and has been holed up in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa since September 21, will not be running for office, but neither will his foe Roberto Micheletti, the de facto president. Under the agreement a truth commission will be set up to investigate the coup and its causes, and there will be no political amnesty for anyone on either side...

"...The agreement that Mr Shannon worked out does show that, despite all the hand-wringing about the United States losing influence in the region and Brazil’s rapid rise, the United States remains indispensable in the conduct of hemispheric affairs,” said Eric Farnsworth of the Council of the Americas, a US-based organisation whose members include major multinationals with interests in Latin America.

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