The former Honduran president attempted to return today and his aircraft was not permitted to land which forced him to go to El Salvador. It seems that this stunt and the protests which preceded it have now cost someone their life as CNN is now reporting that at least one person has died today as protesters were removed from the airport through the use of tear gas and gunfire. As I mentioned in my previous article, I see no way that this could end well if the former president is permitted to return to Honduras. The best he could hope for is to spend the remainder of his presidency in a stalemate with the Congress, Supreme Court, and the military; the worst could be a civil war. If President Jose Manuel Zelaya loves his country and his people as much as he says he does he should respect the value of their lives and work from outside the country to achieve the changes he so desires and spare his country the cost of civil war. I do not know if his intentions were to extend his presidency there by making himself a dictator or to improve the situation for his people, more than 65% of whom live below poverty. Either way he is in a no-win situation and the best course of action would be to swallow his pride and let his people continue to live in peace. The new president, Roberto Micheletti, has no intentions of keeping the office after the up-coming election in November. He plans to transition power to which ever president is newly elected on January 27th, as former president Mel says he would have. The settlement that I would suggest is that perhaps Mr. Zelaya should not be exiled from his home in Honduras for the remainder of his life but only until the end of his presidency, or perhaps the elections could be moved up and he could be permitted to return under the newly elected president. One thing Mr. Zelaya does have going for him is that the military is against him, so once he is no longer president he will pose no threat to the Congress, Supreme Court or military and they should consider permitting him back into the country.
I have to admit that I am a little biased about this situation because the stability of the region will determine if I am able to visit Honduras in August as part of a volunteer trip though UNCA. It seems that if Mr. Zelaya returns the country will become even more polarized and violence and bloodshed may become far more common. Also, I am basing my suggestion almost entirely on information from the media which could be a little biased. I do try to avoid the biases by reading from multiple sources on the same topic and to that end recieve a list of the major stories about Honduras delivered to my inbox daily through Google.
