Dear Santa...

The Ultimate Option

Letter for Santa
Restitution to power
I've been super good.
Sincerely,
Mel Zelaya

Oh, well. Truthfulness is not one of Mel's strong points. He forgets that this is the age of the internet and everyone knows everything.

Reuters did this sweet article about poor Mel's Christmas. "No family would want to go through what we are going through unless they were perverse, cruel or heartless," Zelaya said. I would say: No leader would put his country through what they have been going through unless he was perverse, cruel, or heartless. Mel always loved to play the victim, long before June 28, too.

Llorens visit to Zelaya

Several articles were written about US Ambassador Hugo Llorens' visit to Zelaya over the weekend, but only the Honduran La Prensa and El Heraldo newspapers noted that he was accompanied by Zelaya's three Guaymuras negotiators. Maybe the others didn't realize the significance of that.

With all of Zelaya's claims about what the Tegucigalpa Accord was "really" supposed to do (return him to office, as dutifully and erroneously reported by all of the news media outside of Honduras), no one seemed to notice that the three Zelaya negotiators never backed up his claims. They have been completely out of the public eye since the Accord was signed.

To me, that signifies that they were completely aware that there was no guarantee that Zelaya would be returned to office and that they only agreed to the congressional vote and the removal of any amnesty provision precisely because Zelaya demanded it.

I think their visit to Zelaya was to remind him of exactly what he agreed to and possibly to put pressure on him to give it up. A deal is a deal and their signatures on the Accord should mean something.

There is talk now of asylum in the Dominican Republic. But as someone in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs put it, "The only way Zelaya is leaving Honduras is by political asylum or flying saucer." Political asylum would mean an end to his political actions against Honduras. Foreign Relations Minister Carlos López Contreras says that they are perfectly willing to grant a salvoconducto as long as any request meets the standards of international law. To date, they have received no request.

I'm not sure what political asylum would mean as far as his and his associates' crimes of corruption. All of the Hondurans that I know want them all to be tried and punished for those crimes. Comments from Hondurans on newspaper articles and TV polls are overwhelmingly against granting him amnesty for either political or common crimes.

(TV poll: Do you agree with giving ample and unconditional amnesty to Manuel Zelaya and his associates? Yes - 18%; No 82%)

I'm not sure that the freakin' 'international community' would ever allow him to be tried for any crimes − in the interest of 'reconciliation'. On the other hand, they will continue to blast Honduras for corruption, even though the US is leading the pack for institutionalizing Honduran corruption by forgiving Zelaya. If Zelaya is granted amnesty, how can the others be charged? That is just not right.

I realize that Pepe Lobo is between a rock and a hard place − trying to please the international community as well as Hondurans. But I hope that he thinks deeply about what he plans to do.