1- La creación de un gobierno de unidad y reconciliación nacional.

The creation of a national reconciliation and unity government.

2- Rechazo a la amnistía delitos políticos, y demoratoria de acciones procesos penales.

Rejection of an amnesty for political crimes, and delay for penal processes.

3- Renunciar a una convocatoria a una Asamblea Nacional Constituyente o a reformar la Constitución en los artículos constitucionales irreformables.

Reject the convocation of a National Constitutional Assembly or reform of the unreformable constitutional articles.

4. Reconocer y apoyar las elecciones generales y el traspaso de Gobierno.

Recognize and support the general elections and the transfer of Government.

5- La transferencia de autoridad sobre las Fuerzas Armadas al Tribunal Supremo Electoral.

Transfer of authority over the Armed Forces to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

6- La creación de una comisión de verificación para hacer cumplir los puntos del acuerdo.

Creation of a commission of verification to ensure compliance with the points of the accord.

7- La formación de una comisión de la verdad para investigar los sucesos antes, durante y después del 28 de junio de 2009.

The formation of a truth commission to investigate the events before, during, and after June 28, 2009.

8- Solicitar a la comunidad internacional la normalización de las relaciones internacionales con nuestro país.

Request from the international community normalization of international relations with our country.

9. Apoyar una propuesta que permite un voto en el Congreso Nacional con una previa opinión de la Corte Suprema de Justicia para retrotraer todo el Poder Ejecutivo previo al 28 de junio.

Support the proposal that permits a vote in the National Congress with previous judgment from the Supreme Court to make the Executive Power retroactive to before June 28.

    "I cannot give details of how this will be achieved, but Honduras cannot remain in this situation," Zelaya told the local broadcasting station Radio Globo.

The new effort began on Friday, officials said, when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made calls to both Mr. Zelaya and the head of the de facto government, Roberto Micheletti.

In those calls, officials said, Mrs. Clinton told the two leaders that there was "increasing frustration" in the United States and Latin America over the deteriorating situation in Honduras, the hemisphere's third-poorest country. She reserved her toughest comments for Mr. Micheletti, officials said, because the United States believes he has been "the most difficult."

"During the call, he spent a lot of time talking about the past," a State Department official said. "She wanted to talk about the future."

Among other things, Mr. Micheletti has refused to accept any political deal that would allow Mr. Zelaya to return to power. He has demanded that the international community declare Mr. Zelaya's ouster a legal transition of power. And, with the help of lobbyists in Washington, he has tried to pressure the United States to agree to recognize the outcome of presidential elections scheduled for next month.

Most Latin American countries have said that they would not recognize the elections unless Mr. Zelaya, who is holed up in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, is first restored to power. The United States has threatened to do the same.

A senior administration official said Mrs. Clinton spoke to Mr. Micheletti on Friday for more than half an hour.

"The purpose was to remind him there were two pathways to the elections," the official said, "one where Honduras goes by itself and the other where it goes with broad support from the international community."

My sneaking suspicion is that this is the source of Zelaya's upbeat optimism that the crisis will be settled this week.  However, Zelaya's "certainty" must derive from his conversation with Secretary Clinton - namely she gave him information about the leverage the U.S. negotiation team will use in Tegucigalpa this week.  The team leader is Assistant Secretary of State Thomas A. Shannon - whose confirmation as United States Ambassador to Brazil has been blocked in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Jim Demento, er, Demint.

Brazil, at Organization of American States, Accuses Honduran Coup Regime of "Torture"

For Immediate Release: October 21, 2009
Contact: Dan Beeton, 202-239-1460

Washington, D.C. - The Brazilian government's Ambassador to the Organization of American States, Ruy de Lima Casaes e Silva, accused the Honduran coup regime of "torture" in its ongoing attacks on Brazil's embassy in Honduras.

Ambassador Lima Casaes described an elaborate series of measures taken by the Honduran security forces surrounding the Embassy to cause sleep deprivation among those inside. These included ultra-high-intensity lights, high-decibel sound, and other measures.

He also mentioned other attacks including tear gas and attacks with unidentified gases, and other forms of harassment and violations of international law including restricting food deliveries.

All of these are serious violations of international law, and have already been condemned on September 25 by the Security Council of the United Nations. Today OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza also condemned the ongoing "harassment" of the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa.

"These ongoing violations indicate that the coup regime in Honduras has no interest in dialogue or a mediated solution to the Honduran crisis," said Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "The also indicate an astounding lack of regard for international law, unusual even in the history of military coups over the last century."

Yes, the "negotiations" have been going on in Tegucigalpa.  At one point last week both negotiating teams agreed on all points of the San Jose Accord, including Zelaya's reinstatement as President.  By later the same day, Michelleti nixed it - and said that the Supreme Court should decide (the court already decided last month...no Zelaya.)  MSM is spreading the word that "both sides are holding up any agreement" but the OAS President Insulza said yesterday that it was the coup leaders who were holding progress up:

Tuesday, October 20, 2009
 Insulza Points A Finger
El Universal, a Venezuelan newspaper, citing a EFE wire story, reports this evening that José Miguel Insulza, OAS President, lamented that the de facto government of Honduras introduced a proposal that was not in conformance with the San Jose Accord and in this manner, "made impossible a good result" in the dialogue to resolve the crisis in Honduras.

"One of the parties presented a proposal that included a point not included in the San Jose Accord, which seeks to force the legitimacy of what happened on June 28. This act make a good outcome in the dialog impossible."

But there are growing signs that the U.S. may be willing to abandon that condition. A number of well-placed sources in Honduras and the U.S. tell TIME that officials in the State Department and the U.S.'s OAS delegation have informed them that the Obama Administration is mulling ways to legitimize the election should talks fail to restore Zelaya in time. "We're suddenly hearing from them that the one may no longer be a [precondition] for the other," says a Western diplomat in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, where Zelaya is currently holed up in the Brazilian embassy.

Executive Agreement Number 124-2009

The Constitutional President of the Republic

Considering: That the human person is the supreme end of society, the state, and all have the obligation to respect, protect, and conform to article 62 of our Constitution, the rights of every person are limited by the rights of the others, for the security of all, and for the just demands of the general good and the developing democracy.

Considering: That the President of the Republic and the Council of Ministers have answered, through the organs of defense and security of the State, and other entities, the deterioration which we have begun to have, the pretense of protected goods, by social communications media, systematically denaturing the objective of the Democratic State of law, and generating a regime of social anarchy encouraging vandalism up to the point of attempting against the social peace and the security of the state, and leaving incalculable effects on the national economy.

Considering: That it is an urgent necessity to preserve the public order and peace in all the national territory, to guarantee life and the well being of all people residing in the national territory, with the ultimate end, guaranteed by our constitution of the Republic, and with the democratic system, fundamental pillar of our society.

Considering: That it corresponds to the State to guarantee liberty of though and expression, but when the communications media attempt against the national security, the public order, the health, or the public morals, it makes it imperative to execute regulations founded in the existing legislation in conformity with the INTERAMERICAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS.

Wherefore
The constitutional President of the republic, in conformance with the articles 245 points 7 and 16, 248 and 252 of the constitution of the Republic, articles 11, 17, 18, 20, 22 number 10, 24, 116, and 117 of the General Law of Public Administration and the rest that the constitution and the laws confer.

Agree
Article 1: Declare, for reasons of national security and in application of the commands in Article 28 of the case law of the Telecommunications sector, specifically that referring to the use of the radio spectrum in the national territory, apply the measures which in law correspond to those that infringe the law.

Article 2: Instruct for legal effects corresponding to the National Commission of Telecommunications (CONATEL) and other competent organs of the state, that they proceed in conformity with their laws, to protect the national security in the function of the larger interests of the country, the good, the physical and moral integrity of humans. The state, as owner of the radio spectrum can revoke or cancel the use of approved titles (licenses and permissions) authorized by CONATEL to operators of broadcast speech and television that emit messages that generate national abhorrence, pretend to be protected speech, and also call for a regimen of social anarchy against the democratic state that attempts against the social peace and human rights.

Article 3: Remit to the National Commission of Telecommunications (CONATEL), the communications contained, the reports emitted by the defense and security forces and other parts of the government for its fulfillment.

Article 4: The present accord is executed immediately and should be published in the official newspaper La Gaceta.

Given in the city of Tegucigalpa, municipality of the Central District the 5th of October of 2009.

Communicate and Publish this.

Robert Micheletti
Constitutional President of the Republic
Oscar Raul Matute Cruz
Secretary of State

[Dated Monday, October 5th, "effective immediately"]

Michetteli had just announced the recension of his previous decree due to international and domestic pressure.  But he has continued acting as if the previous decree was still in effect, stating that it won't stop until the recension is published in La Gaceta ( which is like our "Congressional Record.)  He stated that the printing press was broken, so he was compelled to continue denying Honduran people their basic constitutional guaranteed liberties. 

Meanwhile, Radio Globo is broadcasting clandestinely on Internet Radio from a secret location in Honduras.  You should be able to hear it at this link.  If you understand Spanish, you're in luck.  Actually, since the Gestapo shut down it's radio operation and they went underground, their numbers have grown enormously.  400K listeners now, 100K in Honduras. 

Channel 36 owner, Esdras Amado Lopez, is now in hiding after the Gestapo shut down his TV station.  He has received death threats, and believes that there is a warrant out for his arrest.

This is the reason the international community, including the US and OAS, feel that the November elections cannot be considered legitimate.  Michelleti keeps exacerbating the situation with his repression of civil freedoms, while rhetorically giving voice for his hope for free elections next month.  He has stated that if there is no president elect to take office in January, he will remain as president for the next two years.  Looks to me like this is his power play, folks - whine about elections while doing everything he can to make sure elections will not take place in Honduras.

Are you in favor of the June 28 coup d'etat against President Manuel Zelaya Rosales?

In favor of coup: 17.4 percent

Opposed to coup: 52.7 percent

No response: 29.9 percent

Should Micheletti stay in power or leave the current government?

Micheletti should stay: 22.2 percent

Micheletti should leave: 60.1 percent

No response: 17.7 percent

Do you support the return of Manuel Zelaya Rosales to the Presidency of the Republic?

Support Zelaya's return: 51.6 percent

Oppose Zelaya's return: 33 percent

No response: 15.4 percent

Do you agree or disagree with the marches by the national resistance throughout the country against the coup d'etat?

Support the marches: 45.5 percent

Oppose the marches: 41.8 percent

No response: 12.7 percent

Do you think that the Armed Forces and National Police are engaging in repression or not against the National Resistance?

Yes, there is repression: 54.5 percent

No, there is not repression: 21.8 percent

No response: 23.7 percent

Do you agree with the repression or condemn the repression that the Armed Forces and National Police have engaged in against the National Resistance?

Against repression: 65.4 percent

For repression: 8 percent

No response: 26.4 percent

Should the general elections organized by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal for November 19 happen even if the institutional crisis isn't resolved?

Yes, have elections: 66.4 percent

No, don't have them: 23.8 percent

No response: 2.9 percent

There are more questions at the link.  There is also an unverified poll that asked the question about the 4th Ballot (to convene a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution) with 72% polling "yes."  I'm waiting for something solid on this.

Orellana, in addition to his most recent service in government, has an illustrious history as a Professor of Constitutional Law and a member of various Honduran governments. He holds a PhD in law, and was from 1976 a Professor of Law at the National University of Honduras (UNAH). His government service began in 1982, when constitutionality was restored to Honduras; was Magistrate in the Court of Appeals of "lo Contencioso Administrativo" (the courts that ruled against Zelaya in his attempts to hold a poll) from 1988-1994; was the Attorney General of the country from 1994 to 1999; served as Honduras' ambassador to the UN, was a cabinet minister in multiple administrations, is the recipient of many honors, and the author of legal texts as well as research articles.

"Zelaya's return to Honduras is irresponsible and foolish and it doesn't serve to the interest of the people nor those who seek the restoration of democratic order in Honduras." "Everything will be better if all parties refrain from provoking and inciting violence."

"The president should stop acting as though he were starring in an old movie."

(note: I haven't found Amselem's exact quotes - seems like every news site is twisting them around a bit - so take the above as a paraphrase.)

I can parse a statement from the US State Department as an American, and I can parse the same statement the way a Honduran does. I have to think that the State Department can do both parsings as well. Ian Kelly's (State Department Spokesperson) statement yesterday basically ignored Anselem's vulgarities yesterday. Anselem's actually suggested in the OAS session that the US would recognize the results of the November 29 elections, whether or not anything changes in Honduras, and was part of a faction that included Canada, Panama, and Columbia that took that position and blocked an OAS resolution to not recognized the results. We aligned ourselves with the right wing governments of Latin America. The State Department and the Obama White House have not repudiated Anselem's actions in the OAS.

Note: There is some discepency regarding the reporting of countries who obstructed the consensus at the OAS meeting.  The vote was taken in a closed session, and I don't know where RAJ obtained this particuar list of OAS members.

Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative

W. Lewis Amselem, Deputy Chief of Mission

W. Lewis Amselem

Lewis Amselem assumed the duties of Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States in July 2008. He is currently serving as Acting U.S. Permanent Representative.

Prior to his designation as Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative, Mr. Amselem served as Foreign Policy Advisor at the United States Southern Command, Miami, Florida, since August 2006.  In that capacity, he provided assistance and expert advice to the Commander on issues involving SOUTHCOM's mission as it relates to the formulation and execution of foreign policy.

Mr. Amselem came to SOUTHCOM after serving as Deputy Chief of Mission in Jakarta, Indonesia (2003-2006).  A career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor (FE-MC), Mr. Amselem joined the Foreign Service in 1978.

He served as Vice-Consul and Labor officer in Georgetown, Guyana (1978-80), followed by a tour in Islamabad, Pakistan as Refugee Officer (1981-83).  He returned to the Department of State as Pakistan Country Affairs Officer (1983-85).

From 1985-88, he was the Executive Officer for the Third Committee at the US Mission to the UN in New York, and a member of several US delegations to the Human Rights Commission in Geneva and the Commission on the Status of Women in Vienna.  He went to Guatemala as the Embassy Political-Military Officer (1988-92), and to La Paz, Bolivia (1992-95) as Counselor for Political Affairs.

In Washington (1995-97) he served in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs as Deputy Director and then acting Director of the Office of International Security and Peacekeeping.  He became Counselor for Political and Economic Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Panama (1997-2000) and Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka (2000-2003).

Mr. Amselem holds three Department of State Superior Honor Awards, and two Meritorious Honor Awards.  He received the 1991 Director General's Award for Reporting for his coverage of the political-military and human rights situation in Guatemala.

Mr. Amselem graduated from the University of California with BA in Political Science in 1974 and earned an MA in International Relations from Brandeis University in 1976.  He speaks near native Spanish and has facility in Portuguese.  He is married to Mirentxu Salegui of San Sebastian Spain; they have four children.

A Bush appointment.  President Obama has appointed Carmen Lomellin as Ambassador to the OAS on September 14, and she has not yet been confirmed.  So Amselem is temporarily filling in the gap.  There is some clamor going on in the Left that he sports neocon bona fides, but I haven't seen those yet.  But Amselem's claim to infamy comes from his diplomatic post in Guatemala, which is cited above as Embassy Political-Military Officer (1988-92).  I'm not sure how this works out, but historical sources say Amselem was also the Human Rights Oficer.  At any rate, Amselem was named as the source of a very vicious claim against a victim of arrest and torture by the Guatemalan authorities, Ursaline nun Dianna Ortiz.

Dianna Ortiz is an Ursuline nun from New Mexico who journeyed to Guatemala in the early 1980s as a missionary, teaching Mayan children in the highlands. After months of receiving threats, Ortiz was abducted and brutally raped by armed men in November 1989. One of the men overseeing the torture appeared to be American. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights concluded that: "Sister Ortiz was placed under surveillance and threatened, then kidnapped and tortured, and that agents of the government of Guatemala were responsible for these crimes. . . including violating Dianna Ortiz's rights to 'humane treatment, personal liberty, a fair trial, privacy, freedom of conscience and of religion, freedom of association and judicial protection.'" Ortiz's ordeal did not end with her escape. Her torment continued as she sought answers from the U.S. government about the identity of her torturers in her unrelenting quest for justice. Ortiz's raw honesty and capacity to articulate the agony she suffered compelled the United States to declassify long-secret files on Guatemala, and shed light on some of the darkest moments of Guatemalan history and American foreign policy.

Two months later, after a U.S. doctor had counted 111 cigarette burns on my back alone, the story changed. In January 1990, the Guatemalan defense minister publicly announced that I was a lesbian and had staged my abduction to cover up a tryst. The minister of the interior echoed this statement and then said he had heard it first from the U.S. embassy. According to a congressional aide, the political affairs officer at the U.S. embassy, Lew Anselem, was indeed spreading the same rumor.

In the presence of Ambassador Thomas Stroock, this same human rights officer told a delegation of religious men and women concerned about my case that he was "tired of these lesbian nuns coming down to Guatemala." The story would undergo other permutations. According to the Guatemalan press, the ambassador came up with another version: he told the Guatemalan defense minister that I was not abducted and tortured but simply "had problems with [my] nerves."

Something worth noting about Ortiz' ordeal is that First Lady Clinton had met with her and offered to help with the release of documents that Sister Ortiz was seeking.  From Julia Lieblich Pieces of Bone essay on Dianna Ortiz:

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton caused a bigger stir when she invited Dianna into the White House for a meeting and told her that she would try to get an early release of some documents.
       And when Deputy National Security Advisor Nancy Soderberg said that the administration wanted to "underscore that people at high levels of the White House are following [her case] closely and that we are trying to get the information she is seeking as fast as we can," it looked like a stunning departure from the previous administration.
       "We're trying to get to the bottom of her case and find Alejandro if we can," she told me. "We have absolutely no reason not to believe her."

Five OAS technical representatives, three Spaniards, one Columbian, and a US citizen, who arrived at Toncontin International Airport this morning were expelled from Honduras. All four arrived this morning at 9 am. Three were expelled on a COPA airlines flight this morning at 9 am while a fourth was expelled abord a later American airlines flight. El Heraldo reports that all four were deported because they arrived without the authorization of the de facto regime. La Prensa disagrees, and says they were deported because their governments do not recognize the de facto government. A Chilean who accompanied them as part of the team was allowed to remain. All of them were deported after being held for 6 hours, on flights bound for San Jose, Costa Rica.

Yesterday Carlos Lopez Contreras, Foreign Minister of the de facto regime, had invited the OAS delegation to visit. In a press release yesterday he emphasized that the political crisis in Honduras needed a Honduran solution, and that it was no threat to international peace, that there were no international interests. None-the-less he invited the OAS delegation to visit "on a precise date", along with the support staff they require, "so that they might witness the level of advance of the internal dialog." Lopez Contreras's statement didn't specify the "precise date" so we can only guess that its not today.

Decree:

Article 1. For a period of 45 days beginning with this decree's publication, the Constitutional rights of Articles 69, 72, 81 and 84, are suspended.

Article 2. The Armed Forces will support, together or separately with the National Police, when the situation requires, to execute the necessary plans to maintain the order and security of the Republic.

Article 3. The following is prohibited:

First: Freedom of transit, which will be restricted according to the parameters established by press releases broadcast on all radio and TV stations by the President of the Republic, which will be in effect in all national territory and during curfews, with the exception of cargo transport, ambulances, and urban traffic in the cities excluded in said communiqués, and medical personell and nurses that in those cities work during curfew hours.

Second: All public meetings not authorized by police or military authorities.

Third: Publication in any media, spoken, written or televised, of information that offends human dignity, public officials, or criticizes the law and the government resolutions, or any style of attack against the public order and peace. CONATEL (the Honduran communications commission), through the National Police and the Armed Forces, is authorized to suspend any radio station, television channel or cable system that does not adjust its programming to the present decree.

Article 4. It is ordered:

First: Detain all persons who are found outside of the established orders of circulation, or that in any manner are suspected by police and military authorities of damaging people or property, those that associate with the goal of committing criminal acts or that place their own lives in danger. All detainees will be read their rights, and at the same time must be brought to be booked in a police station of the country, identifying all persons detained, their motives, the hour of arrest and release from the police station, recording the physical condition of the detainee, to avoid future accusations of supposed crimes of torture.

Second: All persons detained must remain confined in the legally established detention centers.

Third: All public offices, national, state and municipal, that have been occupied by demonstrators or have persons inside of them engaging in illegal activities will be cleared.

Fourth: All Secretaries of State, decentralized institutions, municipalities and other state organisms must place themselves at the orders of the National Police and Armed Forces without any equivocation, along with all means at their disposal, for the development of these operations.

Article 5. The present Decree becomes law immediately, being duly published in the Official Daily "La Gaceta" and will be sent to the National Congress to be made law.

Ordered from the Presidential Palace in the City of Tegucigalpa, municipality of the Central District, on the 22nd of September of 2009.

ROBERTO MICHELETTI BAIN

CONSTITUTIONAL PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC

Article 69: Personal liberty is inviolable and only through law can it be restricted or suspended temporarily.

Article 72: The expression of thought by any media, without censorship, is free. Those who interfere with this right or through direct or indirect means restrict or impede the communication and circulation of ideas and opinions will held responsible by the law.

Article 81: Every person has the right to circulate freely, leave, enter and remain in national territory.

No one can be obligated to move from his home or residence except in special cases in accord with the law.

Article 84: No one can be arrested or detained except  through written order by competent authorities, executed through legal formalities and for motives established by law.

Notwithstanding, open delinquency can be apprehended by any person only to deliver the delinquent to the authorities.

The arrested or detained person must be informed clearly of his rights and the facts of the accusations against him, and, additionally, authorities must permit him to communicate his detention to a family member or person of his choice.