07 July 2009
U.S. Asks Costa Rican President to Mediate Honduran Crisis
Washington — The United States supports the restoration of democratic constitutional order in Honduras, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said after a meeting with ousted President Manuel Zelaya.
“We discussed the events of the past nine days and the road ahead,” Clinton said July 7 at the start of the daily State Department press briefing. “I told President Zelaya that we will do everything we can to avoid any further bloodshed. And I conveyed our deep regret over the tragic events that unfolded in the last days.”
Zelaya, who was democratically elected in 2006, was ousted June 28 and flown by the Honduran military to Costa Rica. He met with Clinton at the State Department in Washington. Efforts by Zelaya to return to the Honduran capital city, Tegucigalpa, ended July 5 when the interim government refused permission for his airplane to land. During his attempt to land, thousands of his supporters clashed with Honduran soldiers and police at the airport.
Clinton also announced that Costa Rican President Oscar Arias has agreed to act as an international mediator in the crisis and will conduct talks in Costa Rica. She said all sides have accepted the plan and have agreed to participate.
Meanwhile, President Obama, speaking at a college commencement in Moscow July 7, said, “America cannot and should not seek to impose any system of government on any other country, nor would we presume to choose which party or individual should run a country. And we haven’t always done what we should have on that front.”
“Even as we meet here today, America supports now the restoration of the democratically elected president of Honduras, even though he has strongly opposed American policies,” Obama said.
“We do so not because we agree with him. We do so because we respect the universal principle that people should choose their own leaders, whether they are leaders we agree with or not,” Obama said.
The United States, which is a member of the Organization of American States, voted with the rest of the organization, 33 to 0, on July 4 to suspend Honduras from the organization, a senior U.S. administration official said during a special State Department background briefing on July 5. The OAS action was taken to isolate Honduras’ interim regime in an effort to restore legal order, the senior official said.
Clinton echoed earlier calls to all parties to refrain from violent acts and to seek a peaceful solution. “To that end, we have been working with a number of our partners in the hemisphere to create a negotiation, a dialogue that could lead to a peaceful resolution,” she said.
The United States is supporting the efforts of the OAS, but in addition believes that a specific mediator would help enhance negotiations, Clinton said, and “we are supporting President Arias of Costa Rica to serve in this important role.”
Zelaya has agreed that Arias, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, brings the necessary diplomatic experience, she said. He is also the current president of the Central American Association.
“I spoke with President Arias earlier today, discussed it with him,” Clinton said. “He is willing to serve as a mediator. And we have received word that the de facto caretaker president, Roberto Micheletti, will also agree to President Arias serving in this role.”
Clinton said that Arias believes he should begin negotiations immediately. She told reporters that since the mediation process is beginning, she would not attempt to prejudge what the parties may agree to.
“We hope at the end of this mediation there will be a return of democratic constitutional order that is agreed to by all concerned. The exact nature of that, the specifics of it, we will leave to the parties themselves,” Clinton said.
The United States will “pause” nonhumanitarian aid to Honduras until the mediation process is completed and the critical issues are resolved, Clinton said.
While many hemispheric nations — and countries in the European Union — withdrew their ambassadors from Honduras, the United States has not. Clinton said that issue is being discussed in Washington, but the U.S. ambassador has been playing a key role in providing security for members of Zelaya’s family and in conducting negotiations with all sides.
“We are obviously going to be guided by the appropriateness of whether to leave our ambassador there going forward,” Clinton said.
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