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 In a note issued this Friday, October 30, by the Itamaraty, Brazil's Foreign Relations Ministry, the Brazilian government expressed its belief that the agreement worked out in Honduras by deposed president Manuel Zelaya and the man who took over in his place, Roberto Micheletti, will put an end to a crisis that's been dragging for four months.
Zelaya has been the host of the Brazilian embassy in capital Tegucigalpa since his surprising and clandestine return to the country after having been expelled from it. Since September 21st, Zelaya and a group of followers took shelter in the Brazilian diplomatic representation. The deposed leader was ousted on June 28 by a coup d'état led by Micheletti.
The communiqué says that the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's administration received the news of the agreement with satisfaction and hope for a "peaceful outcome."
"Brazil trusts that the agreement reached yesterday will allow the full reintegration of Honduras into the inter American and international systems and the prompt normalization of the situation of its Embassy in Tegucigalpa," says the note.
José Miguel Insulza, the OAS (Organization of American States) secretary-general, announced that he is creating a specific mission to guarantee compliance of the accord signed between the representatives of Micheletti and Zelaya. The OAS will also be sending observers to keep an eye on the November 28 presidential elections.
The negotiation committees determined that the Honduras parliament need to approve the restitution of power to Zelaya. The group also recommended that the ousted president be given back his post as soon as congress approves it and the Supreme Court validates it.
Zelaya is supposed to reassume the presidency and rule till the end of January 2010. There are no deadlines, however, either for the legislative or judiciary decisions or for the whole process itself.
Below, the Itamaraty note in its entirety:
The Brazilian government received with satisfaction the news on the agreement reached yesterday, October 29, in Tegucigalpa, which creates the conditions for the re-establishment of the democratic order in Honduras.
Brazil expresses the hope that the institutional normality will be reestablished as soon as possible in Honduras, with the return of the Executive Power to the status prior to the coup d'état of June 28.
In congratulating the Honduran people for the peaceful outcome of the crisis, Brazil trusts that the agreement reached yesterday will allow the full reintegration of Honduras into the inter American and international systems and the prompt normalization of the situation of its Embassy in Tegucigalpa
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The big news in Honduras is that the good guys seem to have won a four-month political standoff over the exile of former President Manuel Zelaya. Current President Roberto Micheletti agreed yesterday to submit Mr. Zelaya's request for reinstatement as president to the Supreme Court and Congress, and in return the U.S. will withdraw its sanctions and recognize next month's presidential elections.
Mr. Zelaya, whose term would have expired in January, isn't likely to be reinstated, given that the court has twice ruled against his right to remain in office. The Honduran Congress, which voted in June to remove Mr. Zelaya, will then use that high court's opinion to decide if he should be restored to power.
There is a risk that Venezeula's Hugo Chávez and other Zelaya allies will try to buy support for their man and stir other trouble. But Hondurans who have rightly stood up to enormous U.S. pressure to reinstate Mr. Zelaya aren't likely to be intimidated now.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton trumpeted the result as a diplomatic triumph, but it's more accurate to say that it extricated her and the Obama Administration from the box canyon they entered by throwing in with Mr. Zelaya. Hondurans had deposed Mr. Zelaya on entirely legal grounds for threatening violence and violating the country's constitution in an attempt to run for a second term. The U.S. nonetheless meddled and demanded that Mr. Zelaya be reinstated.
But Hondurans refused to bend, and the State Department apparently decided at last that Honduras was going to go ahead with its election whether the U.S. agreed or not. The Honduran compromise provided Mrs. Clinton with an elegant diplomatic exit.
Washington and the Organization of American States have now promised to send observers and recognize the elections; there will be no amnesty for Mr. Zelaya if he is charged with a crime; and the zelayistas will renounce their plans to call for a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution. If Mrs. Clinton wants to call this a victory, it is—for Honduras.