Tuesday, January 19, 2010

interview of President Micheletti

Interim Honduran President, Roberto Micheletti, gave an interview to El Heraldo today in which he shared his opinion as well as some insider information about the events leading up to and following June 28, 2009, when Manuel Zelaya was removed from the Honduran presidency. I'm going to translate key excerpts of the interview over the next few days. It is very interesting stuff.

[President Micheletti finalizing answer to previous question]: The facts clearly demonstrated what Mr Zelaya wanted: he wanted to remain in power through an unconstitutional act and take the country into a dictatorship.

[Reporter] You and others made Mr Zelaya see that what he was doing was illegal. What really happened with him? Did he not understand or did he not want understand?

[President Micheletti] I think he had made such extreme commitments  with those people from South America that he could no longer turn back.  On one occasion present at a meeting were [former President Carlos] Flores, [presidential candidate] Elvin Santos and myself; with him [Zelaya] was Patricia Rodas and [Enrique] Flores Lanza; also present was the U.S. ambassador, [Hugo] Llorens, and another man named Simons, who is second after Llorens. We asked, we begged him [Zelaya] on several occasions not to commit the crime of calling a constituent assembly. [Calling a constituent assembly] is a crime. He talked with us but never seemed to understand. There were five such meetings held, I attended three. In the last two [Arturo] Corrales Alvarez attended with the idea of letting him know that there was disagreement [with Zelaya's constitution change project] on the part of a large proportion of the population. He did not listen, he had a plan set up, and things happened the way they happened.

Everyone knows that Zelaya's attitude when he entered the Honduran Air Force base was an act of violence, irresponsible, and I think even abusive in the sense that he went into a military installation. [Air Force] General Prince allowed this man [Zelaya]to enter there almost by compulsion to steal the ballot boxes [for Zelaya's June 28 referendum] that had been confiscated by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and the Prosecutors of the Republic. But it happened, he [Zelaya] starred in this shameful act for the world to see, mounted in the door of a passenger bus along with the people who accompanied him there.

Translated from El Heraldo

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