ホンジュラス関係 今日のTHE JAPAN TIMES の記事です。
Isolated Honduras readies for austerity
Ousted Zelaya eyes comeback as governments suspend credits
Tegucigalpa
Reuters
Politically isolated Honduras braced Saturday for months of austerity under the weight of economic
sanctions imposed after a June coup and ousted President Manual Zelaya vowed actions to support this
reinstatement.
With the textiles and coffee exporting economy seen contracting this year amid the global economic
crisis, the interim government that replaced Zelaya estimates it already has been denied about $200
million in suspended credits.
The United States has cut $16.5 million in military assistance and warned a further $180 million in
other aid is at risk; and any repeat of a brief boycott by neighboring trade partners will choke one
of Latin America’s poorest countries.
“We have to think in terms of austerity and we want to ask the people to do the same,”interim
President Roberto Micheletti said Friday. He had asked his finance minister to find ways to cut state
spending to ride out the coming months.
The interim government, installed by Congress after widely unpopular Zelaya was booted out of the
country in his pajamas last month by soldiers, has resisted international pressure and says Zelaya’s
reinstatement is not negotiable.
It accuses Zelaya, who ran afoul of his political base and ruling elites in the conservative country
by allying himself with Venezuela’s leftist President Hugo Chavez, of contravening the constitution
and seeking to illegally extend his rule.
That has left little wriggle room for talks brokered by Costa Rica aimed at defusing one of the worst
crises in Central America since the Cold War. The talks have resulted in little apparent progress,
aside from an agreement to keep talking.
“Here we are, with irreconcilable positions, but I believe that these positions will ease as we
advance in the dialogue,”Costa Rica President Oscar Arias, who is acting as mediator in the Honduras
crisis talks, told CNN Espanol.
Arias, who won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in ending Central American conflicts, said
talks held so far between the rival delegations have been frank but respectful.
Zelaya’s term was due to end in January and local commentators suspect the interim government is
seeking to buy time to make his reinstatement obsolete.
The United States, facing a major test of President Barack Obama’s promise of a fresh start in
relations with Latin America, has joined many regional governments in strongly condemning Zelaya’s
ouster but has urged him against trying to return unilaterally to avoid stoking tensions.
At least one pro-Zelaya protester was killed in clashes at Tegucigalpa’s airport last Sunday when
Honduran troops blocked an attempt by Zelaya to return in a plane provided by Chavez.
Around 1,000 protesters marched to the airport Saturday for a ceremony to remember the clashes and
victims, complete with music and theater and attended by Zelaya’s wife, Xiomara Castro.
Zelaya flew from the Dominican Republic to Washington on Saturday, where he met senior State
Department officials who a White House official said reaffirmed U.S. support for restoring democratic
order in Honduras and for Arias’s mediation efforts.
Before flying out, Zelaya said the talks in Costa Rica had opened a “window”for a deal, and vowed
unspecified actions to back his case for restoration both at home in Honduras and in the international
arena.
“The United States cannot live with a de facto, unconstitutional, coup regime in the Americas, ”
Zelaya told CNN Espanol in Santo Domingo before boarding for Washington.
“The people have the right to insurrection. It’s a constitutional right,”he added, saying the
Honduran Constitution stipulates that no citizen has to obey a “usurper regime.”
His wife, Xiomara, who attended the demonstration in the capital, Tegucigalpa, said Zelaya “is very
excited, confident”that he will return to power with the help of the Organization of American States,
the United Nations and “especially the United States,”which have all denounced his ouster.
A delegate of Micheletti who participated in the talks in Costa Rica on Friday, said his side has not
ruled out the possibility of early elections as a way out of the conflict.
Former Cuban President Fidel Castro, whose country backs Zelaya, wrote in a column late Friday he
fears a wave of copy-cat coups in Latin America unless Zelaya is reinstated.
Vowing not to back down, Micheletti is expecting a tough five or six months.
So are ordinary Hondurans.
Interim Finance Minister Gabriela Nunez said last week she expects the economy to shrink by up to 2
percent this year after growing by 4 percent in 2008 ----- a far cry from forecasts for 2 percent to 3
percent growth predicted earlier this year.
“We have to guarantee food security given this critical situation, but if there are job losses and
investment projects are stalled (due to cuts in multilateral aid), that would be really serious,”Nunez
said.
Economic sanctions will hammer a land where 70 percent of the more than 7 million population is
poor.
