The State Department and Human Rights

The United States State Department released its world wide human rights reports on Thursday with much fanfare.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a series of remarks.  After lauding her teams work on "advancing human rights in a twenty-first century landscape" she noted:

Now, every year that we issue this, we take stock of ourselves. We say: What more can we do? Where have we succeeded or are succeeding? Where are we falling short? And we know we have to recommit to the work of advancing universal rights, building the partnerships that will move us forward, helping every man, woman, and child live up to their God-given potential. And we know we have to be able to speak out and speak up for those unable to use their own voices.

It's that taking stock at the State Department that interests us. There's been a blind eye to certain kinds of human rights abuses in Honduras that happen, but don't seem to warrant action by the Secretary or her employees, including the Ambassador. So, we turned with some trepidation to the country report on Honduras

It emphasizes corruption within the national police force, an institutionally weak judiciary, and discrimination and violence against vulnerable populations as the greatest challenges to human rights in Honduras in 2011.

In the executive summary, which is all many people will read, it states:

Police and government agents committed unlawful killings. Vigilantes and former members of the security forces carried out arbitrary and summary killings. There continued to be reports of killings of agricultural workers, private security guards, and security forces related to a land dispute in the Bajo Aguan region. Other human rights problems included harsh prison conditions, violence against detainees, lengthy pretrial detentions and failure to provide legal due process, child prostitution and abuse, trafficking in persons, ineffective enforcement of labor laws, and child labor.

The government took important steps to strengthen respect for human rights and promote national reconciliation, as well as to prosecute and punish officials who committed abuses. However, corruption and impunity were serious problems that impeded the effectiveness of the National Police.

So that's the State Department's conclusion.  There are very few human rights triumphs recorded in the Honduran report, but they state "there were no acts of anti-semitism" in 2011.

Obviously, we would take issue with their statement that in 2011 the government took important steps to strengthen respect for human rights.

They didn't.

What Honduras did do was create a cabinet level position for a Minister of Justice and Human Rights, and appoint Ana Pineda to the post.  But it is at best a symbolic nod to human rights, without effect in the real world, and at worst-- as here-- serves as a kind of blind to serious assessment of the government's abysmal human rights record.  When Pineda has criticized Congress for proposing laws that tread on human rights, or criticized the police for their handling of protests, she's been ignored.  Congress extended the period in which an arrested person may be held without charges from 24 to 48 hours despite Pineda's criticism of the change, as they have ignored her every time she protests their actions.  Her position lacks any kind of authority to actually compel observance of human rights.

Pineda did manage to get a government statement that Ricky Martin should be admitted to the country and allowed to perform his show, after immigration authorities and the government censorship committee threatened to ban him.  The State Department report also credits her as instrumental in getting an LGBT crimes investigation squad created, though its actual accomplishments are small: according to the State Department, they have filed a couple of cases, although nothing about these has appeared in the Honduran media, and none have come to trial. So we think we can reserve judgment: neither of these are significant antidotes to the wave of killings of LGBT activists, the most recent, the murder of journalist Erick Martinez. 

We won't dwell in detail on the many human rights violations the State Department country report describes because as a reader of this blog, you're familiar with many of them, but we would like to linger on the mention of police harassment through arrests, especially in light of events that happened on Thursday, the same day that the State Department released its human rights reports.

The State Department report on Honduras gives a good summary of Honduras's arrest laws, what police can and cannot do:

The law provides that police can arrest a person only with a court order, unless the arrest is by order of a prosecutor or is made during the commission of a crime, when there is strong suspicion that a person has committed a crime and may try to evade criminal prosecution, or when the person is caught with evidence related to a crime. 

 They add, "but authorities at times failed to observe these prohibitions (against arbitrary arrest)."

That's what happened to yet another group of campesinos involved in the dispute over land in the Bajo Aguan yesterday.

The government still has not paid Miguel Facussé for the land it agreed to compensate him for in the Bajo Aguan. Facussé issued an ultimatum this last week, saying that he would go to court and get the campesinos thrown off the land if he was not paid by June 1.

Thursday, more than eighteen campesinos, both directors and rank-and-file members of Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Aguan (MUCA), were arrested in the Bajo Aguan and El Progreso, Yoro.  Their only apparent crime, being members of MUCA.

In the Department of La Paz, sixteen or more members of Consejo Civico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (COPINH) were arrested while out working on their communal lands. Children who were part of this group were forced to perform yard work and clean out the latrines of the police post before being freed.

So, yeah, "authorities at times failed to observe the prohibition" against arbitrary arrest.

And that's just some of the evidence that Honduras has a long way to go, and why it will be interesting to see what changes in US policy towards Honduras come out of the State Department's process of "taking stock" of what's in their own country report on human rights in Honduras.

US Media and Honduras: Violence and Elections

US news media coverage of other countries tends to be spotty and idiosyncratic.

For example, when CNN picked up the news about members of Congress calling on the Obama administration to put pressure on Porfirio Lobo Sosa over impunity for violence against Honduran citizens, the article reduces the issue to one thing: the horrific record of murders of journalists. Lost in translation: the actual well-informed breadth of the Congressional letter, whose first sentence reads "We are concerned with the grave human rights situation in the Bajo Aguán region of Honduras and ask the State Department to take effective steps to address it". Where CNN selectively emphasizes the deaths of journalists, the Congress members actually present a comprehensive, shocking overview of the unchecked human rights situation:

human rights violations in Honduras where human rights defenders, journalists, community leaders and opposition activists are subject to death threats, attacks and extrajudicial executions....

In the Bajo Aguán region, forty-five people associated with peasant organizations working to resolve ongoing land disputes have been killed since September 2009, as well as seven security guards, a policeman, a journalist and his partner, and three other persons....

These cases have yet to be investigated and prosecuted, resulting in a climate of impunity. In September 2011, Human Rights Watch reported that while some arrest warrants have been issued, no one has been arrested or charged for these killings. While the legal system has failed to effectively prosecute perpetrators of extrajudicial executions, legal proceedings have been initiated against at least 162 small farmers and more than 80 were temporarily arrested, largely on charges of trespassing and theft of farm produce, between January 2010 and July 2011.

And then the US media moved on to the next story. What attracted their attention? The official recognition of a new political party in Honduras, Libre, led by Mel Zelaya.

Not that this isn't important news; anything that shakes up the political landscape in Honduras is worth attention. The trigger for the coverage is the certification of 62,000 signatures on the petitions to establish the new party. Honduran electoral regulations required 42,290 signatures.

Also drawing attention in US media coverage of Libre's official establishment is the fact that Xiomara Castro, wife of Zelaya, will be the party's presidential candidate in the next election in 2013. The Chicago Tribune article cites unnamed "opinion polls" that they say "have shown her running first or second". But like most US reporting on Honduran politics, what is missing here is all the context that would make sense of this isolated statement.

Early political polling in Honduras does suggest shifts in the electorate. In January, Dick Emanuelsson wrote about a poll on party preference by CESPAD (Centro de Estudios Para la Democracia). Honduran news media at the time (September 2011) found support for Xiomara Castro at 85% among supporters of the resistance. The apparent source of the Chicago Tribune's claim that Xiomara is "running first or second" likely is the poll's finding that among likely presidential candidates, Salvador Nasralla had support from 27.9% of respondents while Xiomara had 18% support

The main findings of CESPAD's 2011 polling, though, show a lack of enthusiasm about electoral politics. They note barely 7% of the population reported being very interested in participating in politics.

The main deterrent: unhappiness with the two traditional parties. CESPAD found that 66% of those they polled were prepared to change their traditional voting pattern, indicating a great shift away from the tradition of two party domination of Honduran elections. The high popularity of Nasralla and Xiomara reflects this: neither is a candidate of a traditional party.

Describing a "crisis of legitimacy", CESPAD found that most political figures, and those religious figures who had become involved in politics during and after the coup, had high negative assessments. Here, the report says that the highest any major political figure can manage is Porfirio Lobo Sosa (with an approval rating of 16), Xiomara (at 13.9), and Manuel Zelaya himself (at 12.1).

Remarkably, among the contenders for the presidential nomination of the Partido Nacional, only Oscar Alvarez (ex-Security Minister, and architect of mano dura in Honduras) was in positive territory, with a meager 6.5 approval rating. But the Partido Nacional was actually better off than the Liberal Party, whose declared candidates at the time were suffering from high negatives (-37.9 for Yani Rosenthal, and -55.9 for Edmundo Orellana). CESPAD notes that a majority (59%) of Liberal Party affiliates polled still recognize Manuel Zelaya as the leader of the party.

And that brings us to the real punchline of the Honduran political polling, which is lost in US media coverage that emphasizes Xiomara's candidacy and the founding of Libre solely in terms of the personal political career of Mel Zelaya. Libre's success in gaining legitimacy is part of a strong trend away from traditional two-party politics documented by CESPAD.

At the time-- before Libre had filed its signatures-- the Partido Nacional had the highest prospective support, but nowhere near a majority. In response to the question, "If the election were held today, for which of the following parties would you vote?" the PN polled 29.9%.

The Partido Liberal registered 24.1% in response to the same question, while the traditional small parties-- UD, DC, and PINU, all scarred by their stance during the coup and de facto regime, and all collaborating with Lobo Sosa in the current government to some extent-- together didn't manage to reach even 4% support.

Where are the rest of the voters? With the Partido Anticorrupción of Nasralla, described by the Chicago Tribune as a "sports commentator" who "quickly gained popularity thanks to his appearances on game shows, where he often appears with scantily clad models". The new PA polled 18.7% in the CESPAD tally.

Then there was the Frente Amplio de Resistencia, precursor to Libre, which, before being established, already was polling at 15.5%.

Oh, and one last point: in a footnote on these results, CESPAD wrote

The poll reveals that 93% of the sympathizers of the Partido Nacional would vote, today, for that party. Nonetheless, the "hardness" of this vote seems relative: 60% of those that today subscribe to the Partido Nacional could vote for another candidate or political party, if it had a better program or proposal.

Doesn't that seem like news? What if polling in the current Republican campaign showed that 60% of its voters said they would switch parties if someone else had a better platform? Do you suppose the news coverage would be solely about Mitt Romney being the heir apparent of his father's political legacy?

Oh wait. That is how the US media report US elections. Never mind.

Reactions to the Cartagena Accord, Part 4: The UCD responds

The Union Civica Democratoica (UCD) has spoken, and they don't like the Cartagena Accord.

No surprise there.

Speaking for the UCD, Fernando Anduray said

"What we are not in agreement with is an accord that was signed to aid the initiatives of the government of Venezuela and the president of Colombia without consulting Honduras."

So, Porfirio Lobo Sosa clearly doesn't speak for Honduras in Anduray's universe.

The directorate of the UCD held a press conference on May 26 to denounce the accord. According to Rina Callejas de Guillen

"I regret that President Porfirio Lobo Sosa continues to humiliate and act behind the back of the Honduran people, officiating and sacrificing our dignity to the highest bidder..."

Callejas de Guillen was speaking as the new President of the UCD.

Their "constitutionalist", Irma de Acosta Fortin got right to the point, following the lead of Jimmy Dacaret and Fernando Anduray of a few days earlier.

"the pretense of the Cartagena Accord is to make possible the installation of a National Constituent Assembly, which is absolutely unconstitutional."

She sees no reason for constitutional reform anyway; she noted that after all, 98 percent of the constitutional clauses can be modified without resorting to a National Constituent Assembly.

I guess she missed the discussion over the last two years that made it clear there was a significant desire to reconsider all of the clauses of the 1982 constitution, which was crafted largely with US help and with an agenda that had more to do with ensuring governmental rigidity than allowing change.

Also at the press conference was a spokesperson for the Association of Reservists of Honduras, Aversio Navas, who suggested that the US might reject the actions called for in the Cartagena Accord, and cut off economic cooperation with Honduras.

In fact Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, has already lauded Lobo Sosa for carrying out the negotiations, so Navas's profession of fear of US rejection was already without merit when pronounced.

(You will remember that it was the Association of Reservists who responded when the UCD issued its call for marches in support of Roberto Micheletti Bain, the so called "white shirts".)

So the UCD proves true to form.

They think the fix is in for a National Constituent Assembly. It's not.

The Frente could try to make a call for a National Constituent Assembly by means of a plebiscite or referendum thanks to the new set of laws passed by Congress, but in order for that to get on the ballot, it will require the approval of Congress.

It would surprise me if this conservative, Nationalist party dominated, neoliberal Congress would approve such a referendum.

The UCD is still fighting the ghosts of the 1980s, not "twenty-first century socialism", its professed enemy.

Everyone else has moved on; it's time they did too.

US "dangerous approach rewards illegal and violent regime change"

The Center for Constitutional Rights has released a letter sent to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opposing easy readmission into the OAS for Honduras. CCR is a highly credible institution; its opinion that "The human rights situation in Honduras is dire and has continued to deteriorate" represents a consensus of international human rights organizations.

The language Vincent Warren, executive director of CCR, used to characterize the US role is blunt:

The United States is taking a dangerous approach in leveraging its influence to lobby for the normalization of relations by the OAS. It rewards illegal, anti-democratic and violent regime change and should be abandoned.

CCR's letter (which you can download here) is a searing indictment summarizing clearly the evidence that the human rights situation did not turn around with the inauguration of Porfirio Lobo Sosa. From the issue of violence against journalists to the persecution of judges opposed to the coup, from Reporters Without Borders to the IACHR, the CCR letter marshals the evidence that repression and violence continue.

And it calls out Secretary Clinton for repeating the falsehood that the November election was "free and fair". Citing the Carter Center's statement when it decided it could not send observers, that

restrictions on press, protest, and movement have occurred since the presidential coup on June 28, 2009, and into the formal campaign period, impinging on the electoral rights of Hondurans

CCR shows that it understands what the requirements are for a "free and fair" election, and asks that Secretary Clinton cease the pretence that the November election met these requirements.

CCR also has the courage to call out the failure of the US government to insist on the truth, and the implication that this resulted from the influence of lobbyists:

we are concerned also about the role that a number of U.S.-based lobby and public relations consulting firms may have played in helping to muddy the waters in this respect, and the effect that may have had in shaping U.S. policy.
...
We believe that the extent to which these firms helped paint a portrait of the situation in Honduras that was at odds with the reality of the situation in order to manipulate public opinion and policy is further evidence of the anti-democratic forces at work behind the coup and should be inquired into and investigated, particularly when so many lives have been lost and affected.

Finally, the CCR exposes the truth about the "Truth Commission" (or CVR):

the mandate, methodology and scope of the CVR have been criticized from the outset by the Human Rights Platform and the Honduran civil society....Additionally, the CVR has been criticized by international human rights organizations that question its legitimacy.

CCR cites The International Center for Transitional Justice as saying

the decision to establish the commission seems to have more to do with a hasty desire to turn the page, rather than clarifying last year’s disruption of democracy and the serious crimes that took place.

The CCR concludes that

Honduras today presents a moment and an opportunity for the U.S. to proceed on the right side of history.

We wish this powerful document could move the US to at least a position of neutrality, instead of its crass pragmatic stance that winks at the coup because it is "in the past" and seeks to "put behind" the reality that Hondurans still have to live with daily.

Instead, we expect we are likely to see a continuation of the exploitative history for which the CCR calls the US to account:

an ignominious past in which Honduras was used in the Cold War era as a springboard for U.S. policy and an ill-advised, illegal and ultimately unsuccessful counterinsurgency effort in Central America that resulted in countless violations of human rights and lives lost.

We know now what motivated past interference in Honduras. For what gain now? Cui bono?

Letter to Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes: Rodolfo Pastor F.

Posted on Quotha:

In the face of the informality of my communication, you might ask-- before reading me-- Who is this? Giving me an excuse for vanity. I write as an historian and as a chronicler of what occurred in my small homeland, Honduras. I could presume on the basis of my curriculum vitae: honorary degrees that have been given me for my professorships or the seat of honor that has been conceded to me in some of the best universities in the world. Or I could boast to you of the high offices that have been entrusted to me, such as president of CERLALC, a decentralized organism of UNESCO, president of the Consejo de Integración Social de Centroamérica, which brings together the ministers charged with social policy. I could weigh my titles of Minister of Culture, Arts and Sports (two times) and coordinating minister of the Social Cabinet of my country in the recently passed administration. But I write as a historian.

I have listened to you today condemn roundly the magnificent reception that some politicians and businessmen gave, in your country, to R. Micheletti, who came to be dictator of Honduras, under whose government and with continued military and police repression, covered up and justified and with the suppression of media of communication of the opposition, there were carried out last November, the elections in which emerged elected the present President Porfirio Lobo. This condemnation of yours is important, given that Micheletti declared that, on the contrary, your government had offered him all security and your minister of governance had hinted at honors of a man of state. (Don't worry since no one believes the liar.) And I am not reaching out because I know that you have those who can inform you better and can confirm the repression before and after those elections, that only malice could describe as "the most free and fair elections in the history of Honduras" as H. Llorens declared.

I understand your celebrated pragmatism, President, and the urgency that you have to turn your back on this problem, in order to get on with your goals of governing for the benefit of the brother people of El Salvador. (My father received his doctorate in that country that he taught me to love, without delusion. Although it has had unjust wars, many times those of us who know this material have commented that it is difficult to encounter two peoples more similar to each other, in culture, religion, language and custom; which should make us more close.) I also understand that you wanted to take advantage of the fact that those elections were carried out within a formal framework to recognize President Lobo, which you have done diligently and amiably, and to procure for him the recognition of others. But when you justly accuse Micheletti of being a dictator, recognize that he committed a coup, and I am not going to presume to teach you that this situation will only be remedied by bringing about peace and forging a new legal order.

Nonetheless, you declare, sir, according to the press of your country: "Now that Honduras has recovered political and social stability, after the presidential triumph of Porfirio Lobo, El Salvador supports its re-entry in the multilateral organizations, that it lost owing to the Coup d'Etat".

Honduras has not recovered any stability, Sir. WOLA itself (Washington Office for Latin America, closely aligned with the State Department) recognized in a press communique today that "political instability and violence against the opposition continues". The golpista members of congress selected the current attorneys and judges. The military and congressmembers who supported the coup continue in power and the same Supreme Court that justified it a posteriori and that finished by granting impunity to their partners. Right there, in El Salvador Micheletti has hinted again, and even though there are those that disbelieve it, Lobo himself has disclosed a conspiracy to overthrow him. In Honduras, they are assassinating journalists at a rate of half a dozen a month and the leaders and relatives of leaders of the opposition every day.

I want to defend this rationale of yours and agree with ex-President Zelaya in the thesis that, if Honduras comes to comply with various difficult conditions, President Lobo will have to be recognized, in order to make firm a route to a future without war, without blood. (I understand you and your companions in arms in the Frente Farabundo Martí know about blood, understand the suffering of war and want us to avoid it.) The continued repression must cease, which will not end, Mr. President, while the present Attorney and the Justices of the Supreme Court that direct the system of justice continue in their positions, who just fired six justices and a magistrate that opposed the coup and while the same military group that committed the coup continues in arms.

When Mrs. Clinton-- with whom you have had a useful friendship-- asks "what are the rest of the countries of the continent waiting for to recognize Pepe Lobo?" the response is simple: they are waiting for him to remove from office the officials who led the coup and the repression and change the attorneys and judges who have given those repressors judicial impunity while they refuse to protect the rights of the Honduran people.

They are not, counted out, many things; nor are they easy to obtain. But only if we achieve a unified voice of the international community can there prevail in peace the good intention to convene a Constituyente that will bring us peace. For this end, Mr. Lobo will need the recognition of the Resistance, that only the FNRP can give, that today recognizes the leadership of ex President Zelaya. It may appear paradoxical, but the worst that you could do for President Lobo is award him the unrestricted and unconditional support that Doña Hillary asks, because that will put him in the hands of the same golpistas that, in a show similar to that which you witnessed, pass here boasting that, if he does not respect their bizarre interpretation of the constitution that they throw in the trash, they will also commit a coup against him. For the Señora it will be difficult to understand. But perhaps you do not see the danger for your country in the instability of ours? I am sure you have studied history.

Recognition or Probation?

A recent email asked us which countries have officially recognized the Lobo Sosa government. Our reply to this correspondent, a fellow academic, was disappointing for his purposes, but encouraged us to consider a post; because the answer is, it depends. Depends on what "recognition" means; depends on who's identifying "recognition"; and depends on what is being recognized.

Honduran Secretary of State Mario Canahuati claims that the total is up to 50 countries. He had been previously quoted as saying Honduras had "succeeded in re-establishing relations with 29 countries of the 39 which which we have relations of diplomatic representation". Clearly, even he is using shifting criteria for what "recognition" means.

So let's start with the easy things first. Honduras is still, as of this writing, outside the OAS. Of course, the OAS feels this is a result of their expulsion of Honduras; but wait, remember: Micheletti claimed that Honduras withdrew from OAS before it was expelled.

As US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explained in her road trip throughout Latin America, the US recognizes the November election as legitimate (despite the lack of any independent international observers) and thus the Lobo Sosa government has US recognition. And she wonders what some Latin American countries are waiting for. Except that as of this writing, the US has not in fact accepted the credentials of a proposed ambassador to Washington. According to La Tribuna on March 21, the current candidate is Jorge Ramón Hernández Alcerro, who some sources say was selected from a short list of five candidates proposed to the US, after Roberto Flores Bermúdez, who notoriously aligned himself with the regime of Roberto Micheletti, was not given US approval. And of course, the US laid down a set of conditions for Lobo Sosa to fulfill for recognition, including the farce of a "reconciliation government" and the (apparently permanently stalled) "truth commission", so even US recognition has been complicated. Most significantly, it has meant letting aid money flow again.

International lending agencies have in fact led the way in "recognizing" the Lobo Sosa administration, opening the purse strings for the kinds of loans that are critical for a government facing a treasury exhausted by the policy of Roberto Micheletti. Among those back in Honduras are the IMF, BID, World Bank, and the BCIE. Some countries that have agreed to restart financial assistance have been counted as "recognizing" Honduras, but not all of these have sent diplomats back to Tegucigalpa, or those diplomats have not tendered their credentials to the Lobo Sosa government.

Here's the crux of the matter: international diplomacy is not an on/off switch. Diplomatic protocol provides an exquisite variety of ways to establish relations, even with what are considered rogue states. On January 26, when Lobo Sosa was inaugurated, only the presidents of Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Taiwan attended, and only the US, Costa Rica, Colombia, Panama, and Peru were counted as fully recognizing Lobo Sosa's government. As of April 5, Honduran Foreign Minister Mario Canahuati reported approval of the Honduran ambassador to Costa Rica, and expected approval this week of those to Panama, Colombia, Spain, Guatemala, and El Salvador, out of a dozen nominations reportedly proposed by March 21.

The spectrum of available diplomatic approaches provides the international community, even the booster-ish US, with options to apply pressure on the Lobo Sosa administration. Some of that pressure can be seen as directed to whitewashing the coup and its aftermath. And some may be less cynical than that-- but the more serious the pressure, the less likely we will see it reflected in news media.

So. Who's recognized the Lobo Sosa government fully, by which I mean, sent a new ambassador, sent back the ambassador they had withdrawn, or either accepted the credentials of the Honduran ambassador or indicated that they will?

Shortly after the November elections, Panama, Colombia, Costa Rica and Peru were the first Latin American nations to indicate they would do so. They were joined in early 2010 by El Salvador, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic, in an openly reported quid pro quo for safe conduct out of Honduras for former president Zelaya.

Mexico's position appears a little ambiguous, despite my best attempts to confirm reports that they have also recognized Lobo Sosa. Taiwan and Israel never actually clearly withdrew recognition from the Micheletti de facto regime, and both countries are said to be actively supporting the new Honduran government. And while Canada followed the US lead in supporting Lobo Sosa's advocacy for normalization, to the disgust of progressives in our northern neighbor, its official website on relations with Honduras as of March 4 said Canada was just "moving to normalize relations with the new, elected government of President Pepe Lobo".

Adamantly resisting are, as expected, the ALBA nations (most important being Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela). The largest South American nations-- Brazil and Argentina-- were rather polite but firm in resisting Secretary of State Clinton's coaxing to come on board. Speaking more diplomatically than Clinton, Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim noted that a coup is hard to forgive and forget.

On February 21, Mario Canahuati counted ten countries that were resisting re-establishing diplomatic missions with Honduras, including Brazil, Uruguay, México, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Chile. While Uruguay has been recorded consistently as not recognizing Lobo Sosa's government, Chile was briefly counted by the Honduran press as recognizing Lobo Sosa by virtue of Lobo Sosa's plans to attend the inauguration of its new president, plans he had to cancel after Honduras charge d'affaires in Chile communicated that he was not, in fact, invited to Pinera's inauguration.

France and Spain were noted as returning recalled ambassadors to Honduras in early March, yet coverage on April 2 of Spain's advocacy of including Honduras in EU discussions of an economic agreement with the Central American nations quoted Spanish minister of Foreign Affairs Miguel Ángel Moratinos as saying that Spain "has decided that its ambassador should return to Tegucigalpa" as a first action toward the normalization of diplomatic ties.

On March 24, El Heraldo reported on seven ambassadors presenting credentials to the Lobo Sosa government, from Finland, Germany, Israel, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Czech Republic, and India. Several will serve at the same time as ambassadors for other Central American countries. Other coverage cites Canahuati as listing Italy among those recognizing the Lobo Sosa government.

Meanwhile, Honduras has yet to confirm its ambassador to the United Nations, although the Zelaya appointee, Jorge Arturo Reina, was happy to announce that he would be staying on (prematurely, and perhaps inaccurately, as he is also reported to be Lobo Sosa's delegate to represent Honduras to the ALBA countries). Honduran press counted the UN as "tacitly" recognizing the Lobo Sosa government as of February 1, by including it in documents.On April 1, Mario Canahuati attended a meeting about aid to Haiti at the UN, credited as having recognized Lobo Sosa as of February 3.

So perhaps the best way to think about all this is that the Lobo Sosa administration is on global probation.

Skepticism about the new administration will not be easily erased as long as it continues to incorporate supporters of the coup d'Etat in prominent posts. The fact remains that Lobo Sosa never has disclaimed the Micheletti regime, or the coup itself. There are countries more scrupulous than the US that, while accepting that electoral politics is never completely clean, balk at affirming an election conducted under transparently repressive conditions.

Instead of thinking of this as a recognition tally, what should concern us more is how the nations skeptical of Honduras will exercise whatever influence they have on the new regime. By so quickly accepting the new government as entirely legitimate, and refusing to even acknowledge the existence of a broad popular movement for constitutional reform, the US has given up the potential to encourage new directions. Worse, it seems committed to policies of co-optation and token representation of other voices that ignore the wider community mobilizing for a new Honduras.