Agreement Reached in Honduras; President Slated to Resume Office, Reversing Coup

An agreement to reverse the coup in Honduras was signed on October 29 between ousted President Manuel Zelaya and Robeto Micheletti, leader of the coup government that forced President Zelaya into exile on June 28.   Contingent upon approval by the Honduran Congress, President Zelaya would resume his presidency through the next three months to the end of his elected term.   The agreement reportedly includes a verification commission to ensure that it is carried out and a truth commission but no amnesty provision for events of the past several months, which have included major human rights violations against coup protestors.   

A key part of the agreement would permit elections scheduled for November 29 to go forward and be recognized by the international community, subject to international observers from the Organization of American States (OAS).   The Obama administration has been credited for, belatedly, exercising the leverage needed to ensure an agreement, reportedly threatening to not recognize the November elections without restoration of President Zelaya.

The national movement resisting the coup issued a statement on Friday, October 30, praising elements of the agreement but noting that the movement’s major objective remains convening a National Constituent Assembly to consider a new constitution, the issue that sparked the crisis in June when the powers that be in Honduras resisted Zelaya’s efforts to hold a non-binding referendum on whether to have a vote on convening a constituent assembly.   The statement from the resistance movement did not indicate whether it would accept as legitimate elections conducted so soon after a period of violent resistance and repression of civil liberties by Honduran armed forces.   Key Honduran labor unions have been a central part of the resistance movement.

A translation of the statement of the resistance movement has been provided by the Nicaragua Network, below:

Honduran National Front of Resistance to the Coup celebrates restoration of Zelaya!  Vows continued struggle for a just society!

The National Front of Resistance to the Coup d'Etát, facing the imminent signing of a negotiated agreement between the commission representing the legitimate President Manuel Zelaya Rosales and the representatives of the de facto regime, communicates the following to the Honduran people and the international community:

1. We celebrate the upcoming restoration of President Manuel Zelaya Rosales as a popular victory over the narrow interests of the coup oligarchy. This victory has been obtained through four months of struggle and sacrifice by the people who, in spite of the savage repression unleashed by the repressive forces of the state in the hands of the dominant class, have been able to resist and grow in their levels of consciousness and organization and turn themselves into an irrepressible social force.

2. The signing on the part of the dictatorship of the document which mandates "returning the holder of executive power to its pre June 28 state," represents the explicit acceptance that in Honduras there was a coup d'état that should be dismantled in order to return to institutional order and guarantee a democratic framework in which the people can exercise their right to transform society.

3. We demand that the accords signed at the negotiating table be processed in an expedited fashion by the National Congress. We alert all our comrades at the national level so that they can join the actions to pressure for the immediate compliance with the contents of the final document from the negotiating table.

4. We reiterate that a National Constituent Assembly is an unrenounceable aspiration of the Honduran people and a non-negotiable right for which we will continue struggling in the streets, until we achieve the re-founding of our society to convert it into one that is just, egalitarian and truly democratic.

"At 125 days of struggle, nobody here surrenders!"
Tegucigalpa, M.D.C. October 30, 2009

Translation by the Nicaragua Network