It was reported at about 10 PM on July 18th that Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, the wife of Mel, said that he would be back in “the coming hours, nevermind the machine guns and bayonets.” I said that Sunday was a likely time for return, but it’s getting late in the day. Update: He says he returns next weekend. This is an awfully long time to make the Honduran people wait.
In that regard, Oscar Arias announced a weaselly little plan for reconciliation. Fortunately, the coupistas rejected it. If Zelaya can re-take the country, now is the time. I don’t like the plan because (a) it forbids Zelaya from trying to hold a referendum on having a constitutional convention, thereby intruding into sovereign legal processes and indirectly validating the complaints of the coupistas and because (b) it moves up the elections, which really should be moved back to allow the country to settle down. Of course, if the coupistas prevent Zelaya from serving out his term, he might have a case for running for office again on the basis that he wouldn’t actually be getting a second term, but more like a 1.9th term.
Al Giordano of Narconews reports on the non-violent battle for Zelaya’s home in Catacamas. Also: TeleSur is back in Honduras. And he steers us to The Liberator, an Eastern Honduras paper that treats Zelaya as the legitimate president.
TeleSur is showing footage of (I think) Oscar Arias arriving by motorcade and walking into the building and looping it so rapidly that it looks like a clip from the Daily Show. Now (at about 3PM Eastern) Finance Minister Patricia Rodas is saying that this is the end of the process, that they can’t wait for the coup. The announcer says that Zelaya has accepted the Arias proposal, though I would guess that that’s in principle. Helicopters from the Armed Forces are overflying the presidential home in Catacamas. The people occupying Zelaya’s home to defend it from the military say they will continue fighting for a constitutional convention no matter what happens in the Arias discussions.
Mark Weisbrot has an important article at The Guardian in which he points out how self-contradictory the US response to the coup has been (via t/o)
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