Update 12: Honduras Share This /

Negotiations in Honduras have reached another standstill, as the 6th point of the San José Accord - Zelaya's return to the presidency - remains the major sticking factor. On Monday evening, both ousted President Manuel Zelaya and de facto President Roberto Micheletti said they are open to new proposals and that negotiations have not failed, yet they both have repeatedly rejected any proposal offered by the other side. Last week, Zelaya set a deadline for negotiations to end on October 15th, or risk a delay in the planned November 29th elections. October 15th passed with no agreement. Since then, the deadline has been extended at least three times: first to Friday October 16th at noon, then to 4:00 pm on Friday, and then to Monday evening. Here is an overview of the past week's events in Honduras. All of our previous updates on Honduras can be found here.

• Last Wednesday, reports emerged claiming that negotiators had reached an agreement on wording regarding the return of Zelaya to the presidency. The only step remaining was to run the new wording by Zelaya and Micheletti for approval. Micheletti rejected the text, and restated his view that "The 29th of November, no one, absolutely no human being, will be able to stop the elections in this country. They will be free and transparent. Here the anger, we won't permit it, nothing from nobody."
• Last Friday at 4:00 pm, which was the third deadline offered by Zelaya, the Micheletti delegation made their "final" offer to Zelaya. Micheletti's delegation proposed that the Supreme Court decide the issue of restitution, stating "As for the pretense of citizen José Manuel Zelaya Rosales to return to the Presidency of the Republic, we condition our accord on the institutional criteria of the Supreme Court of Justice, as the entity constitutionally charged with the application of the law." In response, Zelaya suggested that Congress, not the Supreme Court, decide on the agreement: "We respectfully solicit the National Congress that, following the opinion of the pertinent instances, including the Supreme Court of Justice, if it considers it necessary, emits the corresponding decision to this point of the proposal of the San José Accord." Neither delegation agreed to the other's proposal, and the deadline to reach an agreement was extended again by the Zelaya delegation, giving Micheletti the weekend to decide whether to accept his proposal. A representative of Zelaya said on Friday that if no agreement was reached by Monday, "then the dialogue is broken."
• Late Monday, the Micheletti negotiators offered a new proposal: to wait for reports from the Congress and the Supreme Court to be published before taking up the question of Zelaya's return to the presidency. Following the trend that has emerged throughout the negotiation process, Zelaya immediately rejected this proposal, calling it "insulting". Both parties declared talks suspended once again, but stated they would remain open to new proposals.
• Also on Monday, Micheletti repealed the decree that restricted constitutional freedoms, including curbs on protests and opposition media. As a result, Radio Globo, one of the media outlets shut down after the enactment of the decree, returned to the airwaves.
• Former Secretary of State James Baker had an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for people to "stop looking backward" and instead to "look forward" to the November 29th elections and a compromise between Zelaya and Micheletti. He ends the op-ed, writing "The United States should embrace this realistic compromise and announce its support for the pending election in order to persuade the parties in Honduras and the countries of the Organization of American States to do the same. And as it advocates international recognition of the results of the election, the United States should, of course, do everything possible to help ensure that it is free and fair."
• Time's Tim Padgett had an article on Friday suggesting that the United States may be changing its position on the November 29th elections. Padgett writes that "there are growing signs that the U.S. may be willing to abandon that condition. A number of well-placed sources in Honduras and the U.S. tell TIME that officials in the State Department and the U.S.'s OAS delegation have informed them that the Obama Administration is mulling ways to legitimize the election should talks fail to restore Zelaya in time."
• At the State Department's daily press briefing today, spokesman Ian Kelly said, "We just urge the two sides to stick to it, and we urge the de facto regime in particular to help open a pathway for international support of the election by concluding the agreement. We believe that an agreement is – could lead to elections that are internationally recognized, and is ultimately the way out of this crisis."
• At the end of last week, at the meeting of the Bolivarian Alliance for Peoples of Our America (ALBA) in Cochabamba, Bolivia, the organization's members discussed the possibility of imposing an economic embargo/blockade on Honduras. However, by the end of the meeting, the organization's declaration only expressed support for democracy in Honduras and recognized ousted President Manuel Zelaya as the legitimate leader of the country.
• A Reuters article reported last week that human rights groups have linked "at least 10 deaths to de facto rule under Roberto Micheletti." The article continued to cite reports of beatings by soldiers, police using tear gas to disperse protesters, and threats being sent via text message to pro-Zelaya activists. A delegation from the Organization of American States went to Honduras yesterday to look into the reports of possible human rights violations since the June 28th coup d'etat. According to AFP, the delegation will spend two weeks in the country investigating the claims and speaking with members of both the de facto government and the groups opposing the coup.