by the El Reportero’s news services
Manuel Zelaya
Members of the National Front against the Coup d’Etat in Honduras will start Monday permanent vigil in front of the Congress headquarters until restitution of legitimate President Manuel Zelaya is approved.According to agreements signed on Friday between the constitutional government and the de facto regime, the legislative organization has to decide the statesman’s return, prior consultation to the Justice Supreme Court.
“We will be there until achieving our objective,” said Juan Barahona, leader of the Resistance Front, comprised of union, indigenous, rural, academic groups and other sectors.
People’s organizations denounced the possibility that the Parliament, which backed the June 28 coup, resorts to dilatory tactics to extend putschists’ presence in power.
They still do not know what the Congress voting result will be, but do know that the National Party’s stance is decisive, because it has 54, of the 128 seats in the Legislature and could vote en bloc.
The Liberal Party, to which Zelaya and the de facto regime chief Roberto Micheletti belong, has 62 legislators, but their stances are divided, while the rest of the seats are distributed in three minority parties.
Zelaya asserted that the Congress has a moral obligation to restore the democratic order existing before June 28, although there is always the possibility that they try to evade the accord.
Sandinistas protest U.S. ambassador for criticizing Nicaraguan leader’s re-election bid
The Nicaraguan government accused the United States of applying an “interventionist and destabilizing policy” Thursday after the U.S. ambassador criticized a ruling allowing leftist President Daniel Ortega to seek re-election.
The Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that it “considers unacceptable the intervention of the United States in internal affairs and sovereign decisions,” but added that it wants “relations of understanding, cooperation, and respect with all governments in the world, including the United States.”
Ortega’s supporters protested outside the U.S. Embassy in Managua, the capital, Thursday, and called for U.S. Ambassador Robert Callahan to be declared “persona non grata” for criticizing last week’s Supreme Court ruling.
Colombia-U.S. base deal triggers fresh spat with Venezuela
The Colombian government is poised to sign a contentious military-base accord with the US before the end of this week, the defense minister, Gabriel Silva, revealed after a trip to Washington. The Venezuelan government – the most outspoken critic of the accord – expressed its displeasure by engaging in a tangentially related spat over the repatriation of eight Colombians killed by an armed group on Venezuelan soil earlier this month. It also sent two protest notes to Colombia: one in response to incendiary comments by Silva about alleged drug flights out of Venezuela; the other, related to the arrest in Venezuela of two alleged agents from the Colombian secret police (DAS) accused of spying.
Is Brazil fuelling the perceived South American arms race?
Increased arms purchases by South American countries have prompted much talk about an arms race in the region Ñ something all the governments involved strenuously deny. What is undeniable is that arms acquisitions have become part and parcel of regional geopolitics: Brazil and Venezuela have been competing with donations of surplus military hardware as instruments of political influence, and Brazil has been successfully turning into an important supplier of advanced defense equipment. (Latin News, Prensa Latina, and Associated Press contributed to this report.)
