Republicans visit Honduras despite US coup policy

Friday, October 2, 2009 at 9:17 PM Posted by Beijing News


TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Honduras' coup-installed president told a U.S. congressional delegation Friday that full civil liberties would be restored within days, a spokesman for one of the lawmakers said following a meeting that challenged Washington's attempts to isolate the interim government.

Interim President Roberto Micheletti said an emergency decree limiting civil liberties, including freedom of the press and assembly, would be lifted no later than Monday, said Wesley Denton, a spokesman for South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint.

The Republican lawmakers received the assurances in a private meeting with Micheletti earlier at the presidential palace, said Denton, who spoke to the senator as he was changing planes in Miami after the meeting.

"DeMint and the delegation pushed him very hard on that issue ... and stressed that it was very important that civil liberties be restored," the spokesman told The Associated Press in a phone interview from Washington.

The controversial decree shuttered two broadcasters that criticized the June 28 coup that toppled President Manuel Zelaya — although one, Radio Globo, was transmitting over the Internet after police raided its offices and confiscated equipment.

It was imposed Sunday following the return to Honduras of Zelaya, who remains holed up with supporters inside the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa. Micheletti had said earlier this week that he would lift the decree but it remains in effect.

U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens had urged the interim government Friday to "immediately" reverse the decree, which prohibited gatherings of more than 20 people and allowed arrests without warrants.

"The decree of Sept. 26 damaged civil liberties like nothing else has in a long time here," Llorens told reporters. "It's just plain wrong."

Denton wasn't certain how Micheletti intended to restore the freedoms and DeMint could not be reached for comment.

The brief, amicable visit with the leaders of the coup highlighted a divide in Washington, where the Obama administration considers the interim government illegitimate and is working to reinstate Zelaya. Many conservatives, however, side with the government installed after soldiers arrested the president in his pajamas and flew him into exile.

DeMint said before the trip that even calling Zelaya's overthrow a coup is "ill-informed and baseless."

The lawmakers — the others were Aaron Schock and Peter Roskam of Illinois and Doug Lamborn of Colorado — smiled for photographs in a book-lined office of the stately presidential palace with Micheletti. They slipped out of the palace through a rear entrance, avoiding dozens of journalists waiting for a planned news conference that never materialized.

The delegation met with the major candidates in Nov. 29 elections that many call illegitimate, and with Supreme Court justices. They did not meet with Zelaya.

Nations around the globe have condemned Zelaya's ouster and many, including the United States and the European Union, have suspended aid to Honduras. Washington has also revoked the U.S. visas of interim leaders.

Republicans argue the actions were a legitimate reaction to Zelaya's attempt to hold a constitutional referendum that critics believed was an attempt to undo a prohibition on a second term. Zelaya denies that was his intention.

Many conservative American politicians see Micheletti as a bulwark against the expansion of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's socialist programs in Latin America.

It's not unusual for members of the U.S. Congress to visit shunned governments. Quite a few have visited Cuba in recent years, and both Republicans and Democrats visited Nicaragua when its Sandinista government was at odds with Washington.

Associated Press writer Catherine Shoichet contributed to this report from Mexico City.





giant marionette through Berlin. AP/Franka Bruns

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