Honduras Update: Pro-Zelaya Demonstrations Continue, but on Small Scale – 7 August 0900

Leftists continue to rally on behalf of the restoration to power of deposed president Manuel Zelaya. The protests are not sufficiently large or zealous to alter the political equation, but they should be given the widest possible berth by personnel.

Yesterday, up to 5,000 pro-Zelaya demonstrators rallied peacefully outside the US Embassy in Tegucigalpa, shouting “Obama, the people acclaim you” but urging Washington to step up its efforts to restore Zelaya to power. A smaller, angrier crowd gathered outside the residence of Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez, an outspoken foe of Zelaya, denouncing him as a coup backer.

Also, shots were fired at workers outside a child welfare agency in the capital who have been striking on Zelaya’s behalf; there were no injuries. Some health workers and teachers also have been striking to demand Zelaya’s restoration to power, and striking meteorologists have disrupted air traffic at Tegucigalpa’s Toncontin International Airport.

Meanwhile, a reasonably small band of Zelaya supporters are marching to the capital from the Pacific coast.

Yesterday’s demonstration outside the US Embassy was friendly, despite the US State Department’s apparent softening of support for Zelaya. In a letter dated Tuesday to Senator Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee, a State Department official, although condemning Zelaya’s 28 June ouster, noted that he had taken “provocative” actions prior to being removed. The official also stated that the Obama administration was not considering economic sanctions against the government of Interim President Roberto Micheletti, and that it was looking for a resolution that best serves the Honduran people and their democratic aspirations.

The Organization of American States (OAS) is continuing to endorse a plan proposed by Costa Rican president Oscar Arias to return Zelaya to power, albeit with limited authority, and is expected to send a delegation to Honduras next week to meet with local officials.

The interim government, however, continues to oppose Zelaya’s reinstatement, and has little reason to change this stance in the absence of pressure from Washington. It appears to be seeking an agreement that would move up the date of the next presidential election, which currently is scheduled for November. Micheletti also appears to be prepared to resign and turn over the reins of government to another person, perhaps a judge acceptable to both sides, and his government may be willing to abrogate the arrest order against his leftist predecessor.

Elvin Santos, the presidential nominee of the center-left Liberal Party, on Wednesday dissociated himself from the events surrounding Zelaya’s ouster, calling the decision to expel Zelaya from the country a huge mistake. Santos, however, stopped short of condemning the former president’s removal from power.

There has been growing criticism in Honduras of the generals’ decision to expel Zelaya from Honduras, rather than simply following the Supreme Court’s mandate to arrest him. Five leading generals Tuesday night went on television to explain that they had not staged a coup, but had merely acted in defense of the constitution by putting a stop to the former president’s plan to impose on the country “socialism disguised as democracy.”

Santos, Micheletti and Zelaya all belong to the Liberal Party, though Santos and Micheletti long have been at odds with Zelaya over his decision to join Chavez’s Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (Spanish acronym: ALBA), and it has been clear for some time that Honduras’s next elected president, whether he be Santos or Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo, the nominee of the center-right National Party, almost certainly would lead the country out of the alliance.