Honduras Deal Dead (Again?)

Color me unsurprised:

An accord that would have unblocked the political standoff in Honduras has failed, the deposed president said Friday, a week after it was mediated by the United States.

The deposed president, Manuel Zelaya, whose possible return to power was at the heart of the accord, is still a virtual prisoner in the Brazilian Embassy, where he took refuge six weeks ago after he secretly slipped back into Honduras. He is no closer to resuming his presidency, while the de facto president, Roberto Micheletti, and the people around him are still running the country.

But none of this has happened. Critics said the accord was difficult to enforce because its only source of pressure was an American threat not to recognize the planned election.

This doesn't come as a major shock to me. As my original parenthetical question-mark indicated, I was skeptical that the latest "agreement" would come to fruition, and there had been rumors in the blogosphere over the last two days that the deal was "threatened," "coming unraveled," or "at risk." Still, I wanted to reserve judgement, hoping these rumors would be proven wrong at the 11th hour. However, it would appear to be that that is not the case.

There's little more to say at this point. Micheletti's power-hunger has been clear for a long time. There probably would not have been enough time for Zelaya to be effective even if he'd return, but now it seems even that small window has closed. Even if he is able to finally return to office (and that seems possible, not because of the current situation, but because this has been so up-and-down, with more "agreements" and "breakdowns" than any diplomatic process in recent memory). This has just been a disgrace for Honduras, with plenty of blame to go around, but most of it falling on the military and Micheletti and his cronies. It's too bad that Honduras's leaders couldn't follow the will of the people and maintain the basic structures of democracy that the Constitution and the people called for.

UPDATE: Greg (as usual) perfectly sums up why the pact fell apart, and why the blame falls on Micheletti here: "Apparently now a "unity government" is synonymous with "pro-coup only government," as Roberto Micheletti is putting one together alone."