Thursday, December 10, 2009

Breakdowns in Negotiations Over Zelaya's Status in Honduras? Shocking!

Color me unsurprised:

A plan for the ousted Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, to leave the country for Mexico ran aground late Wednesday when negotiations over his safe passage fell apart, the leader and the Mexican authorities said.
As the news about Mr. Zelaya’s possible departure spread, along with considerable confusion, his supporters gathered outside the police barricades erected in the streets surrounding the Brazilian Embassy, where he has been a virtual prisoner since September.
In an interview with the Mexican TV network Televisa, Mr. Zelaya said that the de facto government had placed a “denigrating” condition on his departure from Honduras, offering him safe passage out of the embassy only if he would seek political asylum. He added that he has not asked for political asylum.
Wow. Efforts between Micheletti and Zelaya to come to a negotiated conclusion over something ended in no results, miscommunication, and a dogmatic refusal to bend to any type of agreement on the part of Micheletti? This has never happened before!

More seriously, Greg is saying (and the Times article backs this up) that Zelaya isn't opposed to leaving; he just doesn't want it to be as a political asylee. The fact that the Micheletti government has decided to stonewall on a point that means very little to it (it's gone in a few weeks), but so much to Zelaya, is just symbolic of how incompetent and authoritarian the Micheletti regime has been. A refusal to give in to any negotiations that cause you no harm but are beneficial to your opponent while insisting all of your own demands be met is not negotiating. Micheletti pretty much alienated everybody who wasn't a political elite pal of his a long time ago, but his shtick got old months ago. Hopefully, history will remember what a reprehensible, unbending, undemocratic, authoritarian "leader" he was for the six months he served as the head of a government that overthrew a democratically elected president.