An international mediator warned of civil war in Honduras after the failure of talks between representatives of the country’s rival governments.
Talks broke down late on Sunday after representatives of the de facto rulers rejected a proposal by mediator Oscar Arias, the Costa Rican president, that ousted leader Manuel Zelaya return as president in charge of a “reconciliation” government.
Arias, who has won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work resolving conflict in Central America, warned that Honduras was at the brink of “civil war and bloodshed.”
PHOTO: EPA
“We have started organizing internal resistance for my return to the country,” Zelaya told reporters in Nicaragua, where he has been based since he was forced out by the army on June 28.
Arias pleaded for the talks to resume after a 72-hour break, but there was no sign his appeal would be heeded, though sources close to the negotiations said the two sides might meet again on Wednesday.
Neither Zelaya nor the head of the de facto government, Honduran congress leader Roberto Micheletti, were in Costa Rica for the talks.
Micheletti’s representatives took exception to Arias’s use of the words “civil war.” Its deputy foreign minister, Martha Lorena Alvarado, accused the Costa Rican president of “taking us towards a situation of near-panic” with the phrase.
She welcomed the call for 72 hours’ reflection, but ruled out allowing Zelaya’s return as president.
Micheletti’s government has promised to arrest Zelaya if he does return and prosecute him for treason and 17 other charges.
Zelaya’s supporters in Honduras, however, said they would intensify their protests pressing for his reinstatement. They called a strike for Thursday and Friday.
The leader of the National Front Against the Coup d’Etat, Berta Caceres, said her group opposed Arias’s plan for a reconciliation government that included what she termed “the putschists.”
The secretary-general of the Organization of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza, said his body would press Honduras’s de facto government to recognize “this is a coup that failed.”
The OAS would hold a meeting Monday on Honduras, he said. Zelaya has vowed to go back to Honduras with or without agreement from his rivals.
He tried to fly back on July 5 on a plane borrowed from his ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, but aborted the landing when Honduran military vehicles parked on the runway.
Rumors suggested he might next try to cross the border from Nicaragua.
Many Honduran lawmakers, judges and military leaders believe Zelaya triggered the crisis by organizing a June 28 referendum, without congressional approval, on changing the Constitution.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS