Honduras's power struggle

Zelaya swaps exile for embassy

The unexpected return of the ousted president (pictured below, with his signature hat) highlights the failure of the region’s diplomats to reverse a coup

EVER since he was deposed as Honduras’s president by the army and bundled into exile in late June, Manuel Zelaya vowed that he would return to his country. On September 21st he finally made it, turning up at the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, the capital. Even as Roberto Micheletti, Honduras’s de facto president, was insisting that he was still in Nicaragua, Mr Zelaya was recounting to the media his 15-hour journey along back roads through the mountains, reportedly in the boot of a diplomatic car belonging to the Central American Parliament. His arrival has thrown Mr Micheletti’s government onto the defensive, and dramatised the failure of the diplomats of the Americas to resolve a power struggle in one of the smallest and poorest countries in the region.

It also triggered some violence. After being allowed into the embassy, Mr Zelaya gave a round of interviews in which he called on his leftist supporters to gather outside. “Fatherland, reinstatement, or death!,” he cried, tweaking a slogan (“Fatherland, socialism or death”) used by his political patron, Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez. Rattled, Mr Micheletti’s government responded to his presence by shutting the country down.

It decreed, with just half an hour’s notice, a curfew starting in mid-afternoon. As Hondurans scurried home in snarling traffic jams, shouting matches sometimes gave way to fist-fights between supporters and opponents on Mr Zelaya. Before being lifted, the curfew was extended for more than 60 hours, with only one short break in which Hondurans rushed to buy food and fuel amid queues, looting and chaos. Television and radio stations that support Mr Zelaya were allowed to broadcast only intermittently.

The government laid siege to the Brazilian embassy, cutting off its electricity and water supply. When some 2,500 stone-throwing demonstrators gathered outside early on September 22nd, troops used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse them. At least one person was later killed; hospitals reported treating 83 people for injuries, five from gunshots; another 200 were rounded up and held at a baseball stadium.

Mr Zelaya, a Liberal businessman, polarised his country when he moved into alliance with Venezuela’s Mr Chávez. Honduras’s Supreme Court ordered his arrest when he persisted with a plan to organise a consultative ballot on changing the constitution, seemingly to allow himself to stand for a second consecutive term in an election due on November 29th. Mr Micheletti, who took over with the backing of the Congress, the court and the army, has said he will step down after the election. He claims Mr Zelaya’s ousting was a “constitutional succession”, not a coup.

But many in Latin America saw Mr Zelaya’s arrest in his pyjamas as an unacceptable throwback to the region’s dark past. Barack Obama’s administration is determined not to repeat the diplomatic mistake of its predecessor, which appeared to condone a short-lived coup against Mr Chávez in 2002. No government in the Americas has recognised Mr Micheletti. Most backed a mediation effort by Óscar Arias, Costa Rica’s president, who proposed that Mr Zelaya should be restored but only until the end of his term in January, and with his powers curtailed.

Mr Micheletti refused to accept this. As a result, Honduras has lost promised foreign aid worth 6% of its GDP, and the United States has revoked the visas of several officials in the de facto government. But no country has imposed trade sanctions. Mr Micheletti has seemed confident that he can carry on until January and that the outside world will relent in its determination not to recognise the result of an election held on his watch.

Will Mr Zelaya’s return upset these plans? Mr Micheletti’s people say they will arrest Mr Zelaya if he leaves the Brazilian embassy. By choosing this, rather than Venezuela’s embassy, as his refuge, Mr Zelaya clearly hopes to maintain broad diplomatic backing for his cause. There have been some signs that the army might waver in its support for Mr Micheletti. The de facto government this week invited a mission from the Organisation of American States for talks.

Nevertheless a long stand-off may ensue. Brazil has, in practice, granted diplomatic asylum to Mr Zelaya (although its foreign ministry said he was just a guest). This means that under the terms of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, Mr Zelaya should abstain from political declarations. It also means that Brazil, keen to play a bigger role in the region, has championed a cause that it may prove unable to bring to a victorious conclusion.

Mr Micheletti retains the support of Honduras’s political and business establishment. Polls suggest only about a quarter of Hondurans back Mr Zelaya. Although his supporters can cause inconvenience by blocking roads and staging strikes, they have failed to ignite the mass protests that might force Mr Micheletti to negotiate. “Unless Micheletti does something incredibly outrageous or stupid, I still think he has won this,” says Peter Hakim, of Inter-American Dialogue, a think-tank in Washington, DC. “Honduras may have committed a venial sin, but it’s not Serbia or Darfur. The international community should focus on returning to the best democracy they can get.” Maybe so, but many governments in Latin America remain unwilling to acquiesce in Mr Micheletti’s power grab.