MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Honduras return to OAS begins next week in Washington

President Porfirio Lobo has the support from the US and most of Central America

The Organization of American States, OAS, is set to begin next week discussions on the integration of a special committee that will make proposals to end the international isolation of Honduras, which has been an OAS outcast since June 2009 when a coup deposed President Manuel Zelaya.

The committee will work from Washington and its integration, tasks and timetable will be determined by OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza, according to reports from Lima, Peru where the inter American multilateral organization is holding its general assembly.

From Honduras capital Tegucigalpa, Foreign Affairs minister Mario Canahuati said he expected the committee to act with “a neutrality spirit so they can really appreciate all that is being done by President Porfirio Lobo”.

He added that Honduras has given great strides in the “strengthening and advancement of democracy and national reconciliation”.

But Honduras Human Rights Commissioner Ramón Custodio criticized OAS decision.

“Here we don’t need any witnesses of what’s going on because all is working normally”, said Custodio. “Sending an OAS committee is a hypocrite attitude of international diplomacy…Honduras has shown the world how a small country can subsist without the OAS”, he underlined.

Panamanian Vice-president Juan Carlos Varela and pro tempore chairman of the Central American Integration System, SICA, said he hoped Honduras return to OAS will be as soon as possible since all Central American countries with the exception of Nicaragua have recognized the government of President Lobo, who was democratically and legitimately, elected following the coup.

Varela said that the committee will have a mandate until some time in July and that Central America will facilitate the task.

“We hope Honduras can be present at the June 30 Central American presidential summit to which Italy and South Korea have been invited”, he emphasized.

Insulza said the panel will be named next Monday in Washington and it is expected to have besides the OAS Secretary General, current ambassadors before OAS or special emissaries with a long distinguished diplomatic career.

The agreement on the committee was reached at closed doors in private meetings among ministers during the OAS General Assembly in Peru, following on suggestions that Honduras suspension was more punishing for the Honduran population than to its political establishment.

The OAS special committee is expected to send a mission to Honduras to assess on the ground the state of democracy and produce a report that would be one of several elements to be used to decide on Honduras return at a future date.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said before the OAS General Assembly that “this is the right time” to end with Honduras isolation and that the job displayed by president Lobo should be acknowledged and the foundation for a definitive solution.

However the committee is expected to have one pre-condition and that is the return with full immunity of former president Zelaya to Honduras. Zelaya is living in exile in the Dominican Republic and has pending court demands which were initiated following his ousting of office.

“The unconditional return of Zelaya is non negotiable”, said Antonio Patriota, special envoy from Brazilian president Lula da Silva. “There’s a consensus on that point among a majority of countries”, he added.

Several Latinamerican influential countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela refuse to accept Lobo as president since Zelaya was ousted by a coup, and given the history of the continent “the instigators and those with intellectual responsibility must be punished”.

The full return of Honduras to OAS must be considered and approved by the plenary of Foreign Affairs ministers because it’s only them that can revoke a similar resolution suspending the country allegedly because it violated basic principles of the Inter American Democratic Chart.

The chart makes democracy a civil right of all peoples, but according to Ms Clinton it’s “imperfect” and the US has proposed some changes. OAS was instructed by the General Assembly to consider and review the document before September 2011 when the first decade anniversary.