Getting Serious About Honduras: Is It Too Late?

Ray Walser / October 29, 2009

The White House and the State Department are finally doing what they should have done long ago: putting a high-level delegation on the ground on Honduras and talking to all parties including the interim government of Roberto Micheletti.

The U.S. hopes to end the political crisis that began on June 28 when President Manuel Zelaya was removed from the presidency for gross violations of the Honduran constitution and for aspiring to extend the term of his presidency. For months the Obama Administration dodged leadership responsibility and handed the problem off to the Organization of American States, to Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, and U.S. embassy officials.

Now, with just a month to go until the November 29 elections, the Administration is desperately playing catch-up. Although the Administration may have already shot itself in the foot with its pronouncements about a “coup,” not a constitutional crisis, with its readiness to punish Hondurans with aid cut-offs and visa denials, and with threat to reject the legitimacy to the November 29 elections, it may yet help negotiate a solution. (more…)