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OAS Secretary General Praises Honduran President’s Efforts to Restore Democracy

The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, said today that President Porfirio Lobo of Honduras has done “almost everything he can do” to restore democracy in his country, but explained that some countries in the continent still strongly oppose the Central American nation’s return to the Organization.

The head of the OAS reiterated his position that, “I very much believe the government of Honduras should be reinstated as a member of the Organization of American States as soon as possible.” He added that “Honduras has paid a high price for the coup. To say that the instigators have gotten away with it is not to know what the political and economic situation of Honduras is today, how the deterioration of national unity and national consensus has had repercussions on society, and even in terms of a high rise in crime.”

Speaking at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, the head of the OAS said that since the deposition of President José Manuel Zelaya in June 2009, President Lobo, first as a presidential candidate and later as President, has adopted a “middle of the road” position vis-à-vis the coup d’état that has had some positive outcomes. “He has not had a confrontational attitude. He has not had a complacent attitude towards what happened. He has tried in his own capacity to solve the problem without creating a further rift and another upheaval in Honduran society,” Secretary General Insulza said.

Later, Insulza emphasized that the hemispheric organization “could solve all these problems much better if we gave back to Honduras its seat at the OAS,” and added that the Honduran case must be considered in a special context. “A severe situation of a coup as happened in Honduras, a severe breakdown in democracy can hardly be restored from one day to the other. It is a transitional process. And from my point of view, President Lobo has started some kind of transition that I hope will bring back Honduras to a situation as it was before the coup,” he said.

According to the head of the OAS, President Lobo’s efforts are especially worthy under the circumstances, according to the head of the OAS. “We cannot demand from the President of Honduras the strength that we would demand from any normal, democratic government,” he asserted, though he emphasized that despite this there are still numerous countries that consider that the necessary circumstances are not in place to lift Honduras’s suspension, approved by acclamation by the Permanent Council in July 2009. For that to occur, he said, “two thirds of the Member States of the OAS must vote in favor.”

“I don’t think those votes are there,” Insulza continued. “What I am looking for is a vote that is not divisive. It would be very divisive if ten countries voted against Honduras, even if in the end we had a majority. With eleven against you are already out, and that from my point of view would not be acceptable. Let me say that I believe that if we took a vote today we would have eleven or twelve votes against.”

In his opinion, the major obstacle currently impeding consensus is the situation of President Zelaya, who is exiled in the Dominican Republic and who has not been allowed to return safely to Honduras. “I think that the situation of President Zelaya has to be resolved. I think he is being treated in a completely unfair way,” he said.

Despite this being the principal issue, the Secretary General said there could be other obstacles: “I think that with the normalization of the situation of the President we will probably have a large majority of Member States accepting the return of Honduras to the OAS, but it will not be unanimous.”

The event at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in which the Secretary General participated was titled, “Honduras and the Inter-American System: One Year After.”

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E- 485/10