Honduras’ deposed President Mel Zelaya was here in Washington the week prior to Labor Day urging the United States, without a hint of irony, to re-install him in power as soon as possible.  At the same time, he told a late summer audience that as the diplomatic process grinds on without clear prospects for resolution, he was building support for another attempt to re-enter Honduras.  His last two attempts having failed, first by air and then by land, his next option would appear to be by sea, a la Fidel’s famous journey in the Granma.  At the very least, this would do away with a reprise of the Honduran version of the hokey-pokey (you put your right foot in, you take your right foot out, you put your left foot in and then you shake it all about….), or the Python-esque flying circus aspects of his first attempt in July.  On a more serious note, though, during his visit Zelaya also pointedly refused to speculate to the Washington Post’s Mary Beth Sheridan whether or not violence would be a part of his ramped up strategy of return. 

Nonetheless, on September 3 the State Department announced the termination of assistance to Honduras and revoked additional visas.  Prejudging the November elections, Department spokesman Ian Kelly also said that the United States would not be able to support their outcome, suggesting that they would be illegitimate unless a positive conclusion of the Arias process had already occurred.

Things aren’t going well in Honduras. Lines have been drawn on both sides now, pitting the ousted president Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales (backed by the international community, including the U.S.) against the de facto government, led by Roberto Micheletti (backed by the Honduran Congress—where he came from—a majority of the Honduran people and a handful of conservatives.) The question is, now that the Organization of American States (with the support of the U.S.) has declared the June 28th removal of Zelaya an “unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional regime," denounced the military’s actions of June 28th, and called for his return, what’s going to happen?

The international community is squarely in favor of declaring this a coup and having Zelaya returned to power. The Honduran Congress, armed forces, Supreme Court, and many of its people refuse to allow it. Just yesterday when Zelaya (unwisely) chose to try to return on (again, unwisely) a Venezuelan jet, he was turned back by the military blocking the airport.

Meanwhile, the OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza is engaging in shuttle diplomacy, going between the different actors in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, and trying to foster some compromise.

Before laying out my position on this, to avoid any confusion at a time (and in a region) where people like to ideologically pigeonhole others and claim that one or the other is not on the “side of freedom,” let me say the following in as direct a fashion as possible: