TEGUCIGALPA – The U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs said here Wednesday at the end of a visit to Honduras that Washington supports the country’s Nov. 29 presidential election and the accord meant to resolve the crisis sparked by the June 28 departure of former President Manuel Zelaya.

“Nobody has the right to take from the Honduran people the right to vote, to elect their leaders,” Craig Kelly said, asking that violence be avoided during the process and emphasizing that the United States maintains its “commitment to continue working to implement the accord.”

During his two-day visit, Kelly met separately with Zelaya and the head of the current government, Roberto Micheletti, to analyze the implementation of the pact signed by representatives of both sides on Oct. 30.

Zelaya pronounced the pact dead early this month after Micheletti pressed ahead on schedule with formation of national unity government – which was mandated by date in the pact. Zelaya's side in the dispute put forward no candidates for the unity government, insisting that the Honduran Congress had to vote on his return first. According to the agreement, Congress is to decide whether Zelaya should be reinstated.

But the text does not lay down a timeframe for that congressional vote and the congressional leadership has put off a debate, choosing instead to first seek an advisory opinion from the Supreme Court, which had already ruled to remove Zelaya from power for violating the constitution in an earlier ruling.

Zelaya currently enjoys the support of only about a fifth of the legislators, and Congress had before his ouster already opened an investigation into whether he was mentally fit to govern, voted to disapprove his violations of the Constitution and replaced him with Micheletti after he was ousted. The Supreme Court already ruled back in June that Zelaya was replaced as president on June 28 because he violated the Constitution.

Critics say the Micheletti government was emboldened when Kelly’s then-superior, Thomas Shannon, said early this month that Washington would recognize the winner of the Nov. 29 election regardless of whether Zelaya was reinstated for the roughly two months left in his term.

While a broad sector of the international community continues threatening not to recognize the elections if Zelaya is not reinstated, the United States feels that “an important part of the solution for peace for the future are the Honduran elections,” said Kelly in remarks he read to reporters.

To date, only the United States and Panama have expressed support for the Honduran elections, while the Supreme Electoral Tribunal has announced that some 250 international observers, including several former presidents of Latin American countries, will monitor the vote.

The head of the Organization of American States, Chile’s Jose Miguel Insulza, ruled out sending OAS election observers to Honduras under the current circumstances.

And most members of the OAS and the Rio Group, a hemispheric club that excludes the United States and Canada, have indicated they will not recognize the elections as valid without Zelaya’s reinstatement beforehand.

Kelly urged Hondurans to “make gestures to advance reconciliation in the country” and he insisted that “it is very important for the authorities to respect human rights.”


The U.S. diplomat also said that “it is important that all actors avoid provocations, calls to violence, because what the country needs is calm, an environment of peace, to move toward that date that is so important.”

Kelly emphasized that “an important part for the United States, in implementing the accord, is the principle of restoration of the democratic constitutional order following the coup d’etat that occurred on June 28.”

“We’re going to continue working with our Honduran friends to achieve important objectives under the accord,” said Kelly.

On Tuesday, leaders of the Honduran Congress scheduled a debate on Zelaya’s reinstatement for Dec. 2, after the election to choose his successor and less than two months from the end of the ousted incumbent’s term.

“The intention of the National Congress is not to support reinstatement, at least among a large part of the deputies, not of all,” Zelaya told Radio Globo.

However, “We’re going to see, in the first place, what the result of the election is ... and what the political forces are that arise in this process, which are also going to have the power to express an opinion after Nov. 29,” he said.

Meanwhile dozens of members of the Resistance Front organized in response to the coup on Wednesday staged a new sit-in protest in front of Congress.

Zelaya said last week that the coming ballot in Honduras could not be free because “there are thousands of citizens repressed” by the de facto regime, which has killed a dozen coup opponents and jailed hundreds more.

In the eyes of Constituional scholars and most Hondurans, Zelaya’s ouster was not a coup. The soldiers who escorted Zelaya from the presidential palace were enforcing a Supreme Court order after Zelaya refused to comply with their earlier order banning his planned referendum on revising the constitution to allow for unlimited presidential terms. The Constitution calls for immediate disempowerment of any official who does so.


Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution says “Any citizen who has already served as head of the Executive Branch cannot be President or Vice-President again. Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform, as well as those who support such violation directly or indirectly, must immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years.”

In August, the U.S. Congress Law Library issued a report that calls the disempowerment of Zelaya, with the exception of the removal of Zelaya from the country, constitutional under Honduran law.

According to report author Norma Gutiérrez, the Honduran Congress has the power to "disapprove of the conduct of the president".

The Congress "implicitly exercised its power of constitutional interpretation in the case of Zelaya when it decided that its power to 'disapprove' the president's actions encompassed the power to remove him", the report says.