| | |  Americas & Beyond 
Honduras Starts Coup Investigation with US Support
 Freddy Cuevas & Martha Mendoza - Associated Press
go to original
May 04, 2010
| | The president of Honduras, Porfirio Lobo, right, shakes hands with the Secretary General of the Organization of American States, OAS, Jose Miguel Insulza after a joint news conference in Tegucigalpa, Monday May 3, 2010. (AP/Fernando Antonio) | |
Tegucigalpa, Honduras — A Truth Commission with strong international support starts investigating the Honduran coup Tuesday, helping the country regain the recognition it lost when soldiers ousted President Manuel Zelaya last year.
Zelaya backers call the commission a farce that cements Central America's first successful coup in nearly two decades, and vow not to provide information to its investigators. But the U.S. supports it and the chief of the Organization of American States was in Honduras to attend the inauguration.
Soldiers ousted Zelaya on June 28 at gunpoint after he ignored court orders to stop trying to modify the constitution. The United States and most other countries suspended diplomatic ties with the impoverished Central American country.
But the universal repudiation started wavering after November's presidential elections, which had been scheduled before the coup. Porfirio Lobo, a conservative rancher, took office in January, replacing an interim government.
Lobo has launched increasingly successful campaign to end his country's isolation. He has won the support of his Central American neighbors, even leftist Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who had been a strong Zelaya ally. The World Bank and other multilateral organizations have resumed lending.
President Obama commended Lobo in a telephone call last week for pressing forward with the Truth Commission, and U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens said it "should be a tool for national reconciliation, not to lay blame."
Former Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein chairs the five-member commission, which also includes a former Peruvian justice minister, a Canadian diplomat and two prominent Honduran academics. One of the academics, National Autonomous University director Julieta Castellanos, was beaten by police during an anti-coup protest at the campus last year and was an outspoken critic of abuses under the interim government.
"I know that some doubt the commission will conduct a proper investigation, but we are determined to do something independently that reflects the reality of what happened," said Stein. He said that some confidential information will be sealed for a decade until "the wounds of Hondurans are healed."
Stein said the panel hopes to deliver a final report by January 2011.
Skeptics wondered how thorough the investigation could be without the collaboration of Zelaya or most of his supporters. Tensions have deepened in Honduras, with several journalists and activists gunned down on the streets, both supporters and opponents of Zelaya.
A conglomeration of union and peasant groups that opposed the coup, the National Front for Popular Resistance, said the commission merely "serves as an excuse for the coup leaders to avoid justice." It said it would create its own commission "to clarify the crimes committed against the people both before and after the coup."
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a branch of the OAS, says there have been at least 50 cases of illegal detention, eight cases of torture, two kidnappings and two rapes of Zelaya supporters since Lobo took office.
"While this initiative may be a small step toward mending the deep divisions present in Honduran society, ongoing human rights violations have proven to be a serious challenge," Matthew Lackey, a researcher for the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs, wrote in a report. "This raises questions about the country's dubious potential for peace and reconciliation."
However, the presence of OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza at the inauguration was a sign that Honduras could eventually be accepted back into the diplomatic bloc after a nearly yearlong suspension.
Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, however, said Monday that he and other leaders were still trying to persuade holdouts including Brazil, which insists Honduras must do more to promote national reconciliation.
A frustrated Zelaya, exiled in the Dominican Republic, lashed out at his own supporters last week, accusing them of abandoning the fight for his safe return to Honduras in favor of pushing for an assembly to rewrite the constitution.
"This terribly affects my possibilities of returning to my homeland and regaining my rights as a Honduran," Zelaya said in a letter sent to the media.
The campaign to rewrite the constitution prompted Zelaya's ouster in the first place. Soldiers threw him out of office for ignoring a Supreme Court order to cancel a referendum asking Honduras if they wanted a constitutional assembly.
Zelaya said he wanted to shake up a political system dominated by a few wealthy families who ignored the needs of the poor. Critics, including much of Zelaya's own political party, called it a ploy to eliminate presidential term limits and extend his time in power.
|
|
| |
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us