Silvia Mencillas (center) was comforted by relatives in Tegucigalpa yesterday. Witnesses said her son was shot to death Sunday by army troops during a demonstration.
(Rodrigo Abd/ Associated Press)
Ousted Honduran leader, Clinton to meet
US diplomats weigh response to coup last week
Silvia Mencillas (center) was comforted by relatives in Tegucigalpa yesterday. Witnesses said her son was shot to death Sunday by army troops during a demonstration.
(Rodrigo Abd/ Associated Press)
WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to meet with the deposed Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, this week as the Obama administration weighs responses to his ouster.
The talks planned for today would be the administration’s highest-level contact with Zelaya since he was overthrown in a coup eight days ago. On Sunday, he failed in an attempt to return to Honduras and the country’s political crisis deepened.
Zelaya met with two senior US diplomats in Washington on Sunday after the Organization of American States suspended Honduras for its role in the coup and before the deposed president tried to return to Honduras by plane. The aircraft got as close as several hundred feet above the Tegucigalpa airport but had to turn away because of obstacles placed on the runway on orders of the interim government.
Clashes between police and soldiers and Zelaya supporters left at least one fatality at the airport on Sunday and thousands of supporters have been marching to protest his overthrow. About 2,000 demonstrated peacefully yesterday near the presidential palace.
Diplomats with the United Nations, the OAS, the United States, and European countries worked behind the scenes yesterday to seek common ground with Roberto Micheletti, who heads the government that replaced Zelaya and has adopted the title of interim president. But Micheletti has vowed not to negotiate until “things return to normal.’’
The Obama administration has made few public moves since Zelaya was deposed, deferring to the OAS.
The United States has had limited military-to-military contacts and has frozen programs that directly aid the Honduran government. But it has not yet determined whether Zelaya’s ouster should trigger an automatic suspension in all nonhumanitarian American assistance to Honduras.
State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said yesterday that the United States “deplores the use of force against demonstrators in Tegucigalpa’’ and called on “the de facto regime and all actors in Honduras to refrain from all acts of violence and seek a peaceful, constitutional and lasting solution to the serious divisions in that country through dialogue.’’
The government that replaced Zelaya has vowed to charge him with 18 alleged criminal acts, including treason and failing to implement more than 80 laws approved by Congress since he took office in 2006.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
