Political Smokescreens

 Juan Orlando Hernández is still in campaign mode. And he's running against LIBRE.

How? by repeating a theme from the campaign trail: that LIBRE is allied with narco-traffickers.

LIBRE party leaders reacted strongly.

Enrique Reina, who was a candidate for LIBRE in the past election, said

It is dangerous that he links Libre with organized crime, we see it as a political theme of the president elect to generate a smoke screen and divert attention from the problems in health, security, and others.

Reina underlined  that Hernández, as head of the Congress during the Lobo Sosa administration, deserves blame for the current situation in Honduras:

He replaced the Justices on the Supreme Court, named all the lawyers in the Public Prosecutor's office.... He governed for the last four years and things remain the same or worse in the country.

In what was described as a confrontational manner, Hernández repeated the charge at a ceremony to honor the general in charge of the intelligence service:

The people who extort, the gangs, organized crime, they have few friends.  Among their few friends are some leaders of the Libre Party, which supports them.  They will not continue to do so, because if they do, they will be caught in collusion [with them].  The good Hondurans, those that wish to live in peace as God ordered.  We are more and I know that we will recover the peace of this country.

The new National party boss in Congress, Celine Discua, supported Hernández, saying

this is the time to assert the 'mano dura' and as he said he will do what he has to bring peace to the country.

Manuel Zelaya objected, and asked Hernández to name names. But it wasn't just LIBRE reacting skeptically to the latest airing of this accusation.

Lino Mendoza, a former member of the investigative committee that threw out the previous Public Prosecutor, Luis Rubi, and reorganized the Public Prosecutor's office last year, called on the Public Prosecutor to open an investigation.  He said of Hernández,

He better name names and once and for all end these signals that many times don't result in anything.

Omar Rivera of the Civil Society Group (which claims to represen  the poor of Honduras), reportedly said that

to launch such an accusation, the President-elect, the Public Prosecutor's office, and the police should initiate an investigation to confirm or deny the accusation.

Assistant Public Prosecutor Rigoberto Cuellar told the press,

We are not going to open an investigation based on the declarations of one person; we can't do that; everyone is in charge of their actions and you have to consider the context in which he [Hernández] said it, and for me, those factors are unknown.

Cuellar continued:

People are responsible for crimes, not a political party; whoever commits a crime, its not a political party but rather individuals.

Cuellar said that the Public Prosecutor's office was willing to investigate illicit acts committed by individuals, regardless of their party affiliation, religious beliefs, or ideology.

If the history of the campaign is any guide, though, Juan Orlando Hernández won't be accusing any specific people. As Enrique Reina said: this is a smokescreen, meant to divert attention.

From what? Maybe from the weaker position he faces in the incoming Congress, and the alliances that might form between the three other major parties.

And then there's the vocal public opposition to the tax package passed on his behalf by the lame duck congress dominated by the National Party.

It would be convenient for JOH if people would stop paying attention to how he's governing and get caught up in a witch-hunt.

Or a smokescreen.

Fiscal Irresponsibility and the Security Tax

Who would think it was OK to spend 1,800 million lempiras ($90 million dollars) from a fund whose balance is only 500 million lempiras ($25 million dollars)?

That's spending more than 3 times your current balance!

Juan Ferrera, head of the government commission that decides how to spend the income from the security tax, thinks it's OK.  Not only that, but he plans to borrow perhaps 600 million lempiras ($30 million dollars) to cover the shortfall from his commission's irresponsible spending, as short term loans from domestic Honduran banks which will be at high interest rates. He proposes to pay the loans back with the projected income from the security tax in 2014.

The security tax, new in 2012, is a tax on bank transactions intended to pay for additional security efforts in the country in general. After the tax was approved, it was modified by Congress so that in addition to reinforcing security, it could be used to "fortify the finances" of the government. It has been used as a candy jar for everyone's pet idea of how to spend government funds, and ultimately, they spent more than they will take in this year, by a lot.

Ferrera made the astounding admission that his commission, which was set up to make decisions about administering funds from the security tax, has made no decisions.  Instead, he says the decisions were made by the Secretary of Defense and Security (Arturo Corrales), the Supreme Court (Jorge Rivera Aviles), the Public Prosecutor's office (formerly Luis Rubi, now Oscar Fernando Chinchilla), and municipalities. 

Basically, if anyone proposed using funds from the security tax for any old project, it simply was done.  The commission headed by Ferrera totally abdicated its responsibility.

Naturally they overspent. There was no one accountable. 

The biggest winner by far has been the Secretary of Defense and Security, who assigned himself a whopping 716.7 million lempiras ($35.8 million dollars).  This includes paying for both the new Military Police (24.5 million lempiras), and a Police Special Operations Unit (los Tigres), both championed by Juan Orlando Hernandez and approved by the Honduran Congress.  While the Military police unit has started operations, with between 600 and 1000 troops chosen from existing soldiers, the Tigres unit has not even begun organizing itself, despite having been authorized last spring.

The latest proposed charge to the security tax:  800,000 lempiras to electrify the island of Isla Conejo, subject of a dispute with El Salvador.  Ferrera said

"There's no doubt that it's part of our territory and we need to exercise sovereignty in this place and because of that the petition [to electrify the island] was immediately approved....the money is already in the hands of the company that will carry out the project."

Has any of this spending spree made a significant change in the security of the Honduran people?

Not significantly by any of the measures that matter.  The government predicts that the murder rate will be around 80 per 100,000 population, while the National University's Observatory of Violence sees the rate continuing at 85 per 100,000 for the rest of the year, off slightly from its observed rate of 91 per 100,000 in 2012.

More militarization of policing, and intensifying a border dispute with a neighbor over an uninhabited island hardly seems like enough to justify the over-spending and lack of accountability demonstrated.

First Heads Have Rolled, Sort Of....

Well, heads have rolled in Honduras, but no one has actually lost a lucrative government job-- so far. 

As we previously reported, the Honduran Congress passed a law giving itself remarkably broad powers to open an investigation of any member of the government. In response to that threat, the cabinet of Porfirio Lobo Sosa has undergone some major late term shifts.

First removed was Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla.  He was replaced immediately as Security Minister by the Foreign Minister, Arturo Corrales.  It's not that Corrales has any actual ideas about how to better the security situation in the country, but rather that Pompeyo Bonilla was so bad at doing it.

Among his failings:  sitting on the dismissal orders for 223 police officers who failed one or more of the confidence tests.  Only about 7% of those were failures of the drug testing.  The rest failed combinations of the psychological, lie detector, and financial history tests meant to point at unfit or corrupt police.

Bonilla admitted delaying their dismissal in Congressional hearings last week but failed to offer any explanation.  He also admitted promoting several of them, knowing that there were outstanding requests for their dismissal, again without explanation.

Another failing:  since he assumed the position of Security Minister in September, 2011, there have been 11, 199 murders, of which fewer than 20 percent were investigated.  He was in office both for the murders of two university students (including the son of Julieta Castellanos) by the police, and the assassination of Alfredo Landaverde.  No one has been tried for either case, and there are no suspects in the Landaverde case, where there are also indications the police were involved.

Not that Corrales was all that good at his last job of Foreign Minister.  He failed to reform the consular service, which is filled with unqualified political appointees who line their pockets charging Hondurans for services that are supposed to be supplied for free.  He presided over a consul who hired prostitutes for an official party.

So Corrales is in as Security Minister, and actually reportedly has expanded powers over other ministries, including Defense.

But Pompeyo Bonilla isn't exactly out on the street.  He will have a new title on May 1,  Private Secretary to the President, replacing Reynaldo Sanchez, who will depart to run full time for the Congress.

Corrales will be replaced as Foreign Minister by Mireya Aguero, the current Vice Chancellor in the Foreign Ministry.

Thee Honduras Congress also decided to intervene in the Public Prosecutor's office, effectively taking over control, removing the Public Prosecutor, Luis Rubí, and his deputy Roy Utrecho from any decision making.  Luis Rubí admitted in his Congressional testimony that only about 20% of murders get any investigation.

These two are sidelined for the next 60 days while an appointed committee will make decisions about what the organization does, and how to reorganize the office to (it is hoped) be more effective.   In addition to making the office more effective, the committee was also charged with applying confidence tests to all prosecutors, similar to those used for the police.  To accomplish this, they will assume all the powers delegated to the Public Prosecutor and his deputy.  The US Embassy has previously offered to provide expert support in re-organizing the Public Prosecutor's office.

But Luis Rubí hasn't lost his job, and Marvin Ponce says that Rubí won't. Ponce says Rubí secured his job going forward by agreeing to throw many of his top prosecutors under the bus. For the duration of the commission's term, he'll have to sit on his hands and get paid to do nothing, watching what changes the commission implements and awaiting any recommendations the commission makes back to Congress for its action. 

The Association of Prosecutors of Honduras had a meeting scheduled for yesterday afternoon to discuss whether Congress acted within the law, and whether the Public Prosecutor's office (constitutionally supposed to be political independent) has to obey this order or not.

The legal secretary of the Public Prosecutor's office, Rigoberto Espinal, called Congress's action unconstitutional, pointing out that the Prosecutor's office is neither a part of the Executive, nor Legislative branch of the government, and therefore neither is allowed to mess with it.  Espinal asserted that Congress wants to remove Rubí for his involvement in the 2009 coup.

Edmundo Orellana of the Liberal Party and himself a former Public Prosecutor, said he was considering bringing a legal challenge to Congress's action before the Supreme Court.

Heads May Roll....

Juan Orlando Hernandez aspires to be president, and things he controls are changing in Honduras.

With Porfirio Lobo Sosa's help, he has re-instated the "voluntary" contribution every government employee makes to the ruling political party.  Both parties have been accustomed to collecting "voluntary" payments from government employees, with people who decline being marginalized in their positions. What is new here is that a specific level of "contributions" has been set up, to be deducted directly from the workers' salaries and deposited directly into bank accounts controlled by the National Party. In theory an employee could not agree, but what government employee is going to risk that?

Hernandez isn't limiting himself to political jostling for the benefit of his party. Under his leadership, the Congress has been asserting more power over the other branches of government. He now says he will put the judicial branch, the public prosecutor's office, and the police in order by "supporting the good judge, the good prosecutor, the good policeman."

We've written about Congress and the not-so-Supreme Court before. Analyst Raul Pineda Alvarado told the press this morning "now they have a Supreme Court in tune with their plans, and intimidated."  Pineda Alvarado went on to remark on the amount of power now centralized in Hernandez and Lobo Sosa, noting that they will remove anyone who gets in their way.

Hernandez' current target is the executive branch.  He has been holding hearings in Congress where each cabinet-level official has come to give a report on their progress towards providing a secure life for Hondurans.  According to Hernandez, only General Julian Pacheco has performed well.  Pacheco is head of the intelligence service, and is widely rumored to be using the position to listen in on the phone calls of politicians. Not the person you want lined up against you if you are an ambitious Honduran politician.

Hernandez is reportedly going to demand replacement of Eduardo Villanueva, head of the Dirección de Investigación y Evaluación de la Carrera Policial (DIECP). The DIECP was created to manage the police cleanup process. Villanueva volunteered for the post after the original director quit in disgust from waiting for Congress to allocate a budget for the unit.  Instead of managing the police cleanup, Villanueva gave control of the process to the Police command, the very group that should have been the first to undergo the confidence tests.  Of the over 200 police who have failed the confidence exams, several have since been promoted, and only seven have been dismissed by Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla.

Hernandez has also put in motion mechanisms to remove the Public Prosecutor Luis Rubí and several other top prosecutors.  After Rubí's Congressional testimony last week it was privately suggested Rubí resign. He chose not to, so now Congress is getting ready to formulate a "political trial" using the recently adopted law that gives Congress the power to review, and fire, without the right of appeal, any top government official, including the president, for anything Congress decides is negligent or incompetent or if there is an accusation of a serious crime or the person has worked against the constitution or national interest (Article 5 of the Ley de Juicio Politico).

Lobo Sosa has recently taken pot shots at Ramon Custodio, the Honduran Human Rights Ombudsman, calling him dishonored and unable to serve in international bodies.  Jimmy Dacaret of the right-wing UCD fears that Custodio is one of the people targeted by Lobo Sosa.  Dacaret supports Custodio because of Custodio's unwavering support of the pro-coup forces in Honduras.

German Leitzelar, a PINU party Congressman, is of the opinion that "no heads should roll because all of them would have to roll".  The failure he says, is one of not having a state security policy, and replacing a director here and there will not solve this.

Edmundo Orellana, a Liberal Party member, has said that what Hernandez desires is to place people loyal to him into positions of power. This is an opinion shared by Raul Pineda Alvarado, who said that Hernandez and Lobo Sosa are playing a political game.  Jimmy Dacaret, of the right wing UCD agrees that Lobo Sosa and Hernandez are playing political games in concentrating power in themselves.

This is the new face of the National Party, the candidate for next president of Honduras. Not a pretty picture.

Controlling the Supreme Court

The Honduran Supreme Court last week rolled over and offered its belly to Congress, voting 10-3 to open a disciplinary investigation into justice Marco Zuniga.

Zuniga, you will recall, wrote a scathing letter which he made public to chief justice Jorge Rivera Aviles in which he accused Rivera Aviles of being an alcoholic.

The Supreme Court vote came shortly after Congress threatened to dismiss Zuniga if he maintained his confrontational attitude with Rivera Aviles.  The threat came from Congressman Oswaldo Ramos Soto, chief author of many of the laws the previous Constitutional Branch of the Supreme Court found unconstitutional.  Ramos Soto says that Congress gave Rivera Aviles special powers to have full authority over personnel within the court, to re-assign justices to other positions within the Supreme Court, and to appoint the new council that will in the future, review and appoint judges. 

Ramos Soto said:

It's too bad that in the highest court of justice you have this type of problems.  I recommend to the magistrates involved that they moderate their tempers, calm down, because if it comes to Congress, Congress is ready to make the call, including firing them for insubordination in the Court.

The Supreme Court took the action of opening an disciplinary investigation into justice Marco Zuniga after voting 10-3 to confirm that Chief Justice Rivera Aviles was authorized by Congress to move judges around between the branches of the court, an unprecedented action.  Neither Rivera Aviles nor Marco Zuniga participated in the voting.

Congressional threats are not limited to the Supreme Court.  Now that Congress has given itself the power to remove anyone in government, it is considering removing the Public Prosecutor, Luis Rubí, who has a lousy investigation and conviction record. 

During the discussion of a revision to the law code to address hate crimes against women, Juan Orlando Hernandez said:

In advance, I tell you, I would not take it badly that as we are evaluating the performance of the Supreme Court and the Police, that this be done with the public prosecutors.

Marvin Ponce has said Rubí will be the first political justice case tried under the new law. 

This statement comes just after the Comisión de Reforma de la Seguridad Pública (CSRP) issued a report requesting the anti-corruption prosecutor be removed for corruption and incompetence, and a second report supposedly financed by the US Embassy was produced, recommending a complete reorganization of the public prosecutor's office. 

Marvin Ponce, vice president of Congress, confirmed he's heard of these reports, but the actions that might be taken are just rumors.

As Rafael Padilla of the Lawyers Against Corruption said:

The tragedy of Honduras is that justice is political, not legal, a product of the autocratic government that prevails.

As if to underscore Padilla's point, the Supreme Court ruled 9-4 with two abstentions to uphold the police cleanup law, the very same law that the four justices illegally fired by Congress said was unconstitutional because it failed to provide for the due process rights of the accused. So Congressional moves to remove justices who dared to disagree with them worked: from here on, expect Congress to be able to act with impunity.

Appeal Filed

The Bar Association of Anti-Corruption Lawyers in Honduras has brought a legal appeal of Congress's dismissal of four Justices.  Their lawyer said he brought the action because the people who should have, the Public Prosecutor Luis Rubi, and his deputy prosecutors Danelia Ferrera and German Enamorado, had failed to act.  He asked:

Where is Luis Rubi?  Where is Danelia Ferrera?  And where is the prosecutor for human rights (German Enamorado)?

Luis Rubi demurred that he would do nothing until he had a copy of the Congressional findings and the text of the motion which he would then analyze, and act based on his office's findings.  

The Bar Association of Anti-Corruption Lawyers' appeal is based on the law, on the fact that Congress does not have the authority nor was ever granted the right under the constitution of Honduras to remove justices from the Supreme Court.  They wrote that the Congressional resolution separating the four justices violated the Constitution of the republic.

Luis Rubi: Police Cleanup Law Unconstitutional

We have often found ourselves critical of Luis Rubí and the Public Prosecutor's office. But we do agree with his latest finding: the law under which the Honduran police are being purged appears to violate the due process guaranteed by the Honduran constitution.

Here's the story: In late June of this year, 375 police officers filed an appeal of the May, 2012 law which Congress passed to clean up the National Police.

The law, decreto 89-2012 [note correction], created the Comisión de Reforma de la Seguridad Pública (Commission for the Reform of Public Security) with broad powers.

It also eliminated Articles 114, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131 y 132 of the Ley Organica, the police charter.  These were the articles that spelled out  due process procedures for firing a police officer of any rank. 

The Sala Constitucional, the five justices of the Honduran Supreme Court that hear constitutional cases, solicits an opinion from the Public Prosecutor about any law subject to challenge.  Luis Rubí filed his opinion, finding the new law unconstitutional. He argued that it denies due process rights to the accused police officers; implicitly presumes officers under investigation guilty; and demands that they prove their innocence.

Rubí said:

There is no doubt that the decreto 89-2012 weakens the rule of law by openly contravening the constitutional disposition and the international order to protect human rights.

The presumption of innocence and the right to due process are guaranteed by the Honduran constitution.

This opinion really should come as no surprise to anyone in Honduras.  Back in February, the Association of Magistrates and Justices of Honduras issued a press release reporting their opinion that the law was unconstitutional, because it suspended basic, constitutionally guaranteed, rights.

The day the law was approved the Public Prosecutor's office said they would begin a review of the law to determine if it violated the constitutional rights of police officers.  Previous attempts to clean up the police had failed for precisely this reason.

Nonetheless, Julieta Castellanos, the Rector of the National Autonomous University, criticized Rubí:

The Public Prosecutor will do harm by opposing a cleanup of the police and I think that there will be sufficient power in society to be able to succeed in the fight that we are all interested to put in order.

Castellanos suggested that Rubí is opposed to cleaning up the police because the same law covers his office as well.

What she doesn't do is provide a counter-argument to his finding, echoing that of the Association of Magistrates and Justices, that the new law violates guarantees of due process.

The Sala Constitucional has not ruled on the case, and the opinion submitted by the Public Prosecutor is not binding on the court, so for now, the process of purifying the police will continue.

Political Prisoner Released

Humberto Castillo, held since 2009 on meritless charges filed by the de facto regime, is finally out of prison, awaiting trial on terrorism charges.

Castillo was captured in a raid on the property of SELCOM, a computer repair service, where he was employed as a night watchman on November 28th, 2009, the night before the presidential election held under the de facto regime.  When captured, he had a backpack with two cellular phones in it. Police claimed they found arms on the property.

Castillo's actual crime?

Public Prosecutor Luis Rubí chose to charge him with terrorism, illegal possession of arms,  and illicit association.  I say "chose to" because, as the courts eventually found, there was no evidence he possessed any weapons (the official report states he was unarmed).

The main argument to arrest him for terrorism was based on illicit association. With whom? I'm glad you asked.

At his preliminary trial over detention in December 2009, the judge who heard the proof of "illicit association" found the charge had merit because Castillo was a a supporter of Manuel Zelaya, and ordered him held in prison to await trial, according to lawyer Kenia Oliva of COFADEH.

About a year ago, the Appeals Court ordered a definitive dismissal of the charges of illict association and illegal weapons possession. They, however, continued to hold Humberto Castillo as his charge of terrorism remained waiting to be heard.

The first judge assigned the case, Thelma Cantarero, was already steeped in controversy.  She was one of three judges to hold a reporter guilty of slander in 2004 for reporting that a government report to then Security Minister Oscar Alvarez called out a high status individual as a drug trafficker.

She also held a bail hearing for Marcelo Chimirri, ex Director of Hondutel charged with corruption, and set him free on a four million lempira bond.  She was one of three judges, along with  Raul Chevez, who voted to acquit police for abuses when they arrested and beat La Tribuna cameraman, Martin Ramirez in 2009 as he attempted to photograph a car accident in Tegucigalpa.

In January 2012, she twice postponed Castillo's trial, first on January 11, then again on the 18th, before holding a hearing on January 26th at which both sides presented their arguments.  At that point she suspended the trial again because Judge Raul Chevez had suddenly noticed that the person who created the case against Castillo was his wife, prosecutor Daniela Galo.

Now Humberto Castillo is free to await trial on the terrorism charges, after two and a half years in prison.  He must register with the court each week. He also has been ordered to avoid attending meetings of the Resistance-- part of the court order that continues to suggest that for this judge, at least, having the wrong political opinions is evidence of a crime.

Kenia Oliva of COFADEH made it clear: Castillo was a political prisoner

the legal panorama for a political prisoners in the country is awful because there are no judicial protections for him and this makes the process more difficult, because it depends on the political will.

While Castillo was held the legal maximum in preventive detention, the owner of the business where arms were found-- the only actual evidence of a possible crime-- was only held 10 days before he was given house arrest.

Humberto served two and a half years in prison awaiting trial. Under Honduran law that limits imprisonment while awaiting trial he had to be freed, but nonetheless, the Public Prosecutor's office opposed freeing him.

It is worth celebrating the release of one more of Honduras's political prisoners, even if it is only on procedural grounds and even though he still faces the meritless charge  of terrorism.

But it is also a reminder that the he de facto regime's persecution of those who opposed it continues to fester in the Honduran legal system.

Investigate Anti-Corruption Prosecutor

Henry Salgado, the anti-corruption Prosecutor, must step aside; that's the request of the Comisión de Reforma de Seguridad Publica.

That is the commission composed of three Hondurans and two foreigners charged to oversee the cleanup of the police, judiciary, and prosecutor's office.

Their first act was to ask for a meeting with the Public Prosecutor, Luis Rubí, to request that he follow recommendation 42 of the official Truth Commission, and put the anti-corruption Prosecutor on leave while his actions over the last several years are investigated.

The commission has no enforcement powers and can only make recommendations. Nonetheless, this is significant for a number of reasons.

In reiterating the Truth Commission recommendation, they noted that Salgado appeared to have not properly done his duty in investigating the Zelaya and Micheletti governments. Specifically, he only investigated and accused officials of the Zelaya administration. and did not investigate acts of corruption in the de facto government.

Rubí announced he would meet with the Comisión de Reforma de Seguridad Publica Monday so that they could discuss their letter and turn over any information they had. Asked if he will open an investigation, he replied:

We have to reach an agreement and follow procedures. We must follow the proper procedures.

Salgado pursued prosecutions against Zelaya and others for corruption, but has either lost those cases in court, or had them dismissed due to procedural improprieties. But Rubí isn't really any better: he has been a particularly ineffective Public Prosecutor, and his office has won few convictions. And then there's his role in the 2009 coup d'etat. It would seem that he should be a target for the commission, not the person in control of whether their recommendations are followed.

Ex-Police Kidnap Reporter

Radio HRN reporter Alfredo Villatoro was kidnapped at 4:30 this morning while on his way to work.

A ex-police sergeant dismissed from the force in September, 2011, has been arrested for participating in the early morning kidnapping of Villatoro.  The ex-officer, Gerson Basilio Godoy, was dismissed for suspicion of belonging to a band of kidnappers and extortionists.  He was caught by a police checkpoint driving a Toyota pickup that had been seen parked in front of the reporter's house early this morning, and which had collided with the reporter's car, transferring paint.  Two other occupants of his truck,  Alpidio Fernández (father in law) and Allan Padilla (brother in law), were detained on suspicion of having participated in the kidnapping as well.

Godoy was also stopped in March and questioned regarding an attempt on an official who had just withdrawn a large amount of cash from the bank.

Alfredo Villatoro has not been found, but his kidnappers have communicated with his family.

As we reported back in early March, Minister of Security Pompeyo Bonilla continues to stonewall the Public Prosecutor, Luis Rubi.  Bonilla has failed to transfer the files on more than 100 police officers dismissed since last fall for alleged corruption or linkage to organized crime.  He transferred an initial 18 files, in early April then stopped.

Nor has there been one iota of progress in cleaning up the police since we last reported on this in early March.

Reporters Without Borders has condemned the kidnapping, along with the murder of another journalist, Erick Martinez, just days ago, .

There is no police cleanup.

 It is being actively blocked by Pompeyo Bonilla refusing to turn over the case files to the Public Prosecutor, by the Government of Canada which has stonewalled on nominating a candidate to the Consejo de Seguridad Publica,  There's the acceptance of a Chilean member of the Consejo who in turn has been accused of corruption in his own country, and the obstruction by the Government of Canada, which has so far refused to name a member of the commission despite lengthy security negotiations.  There's the failure of Lobo Sosa to exhibit any leadership.  We could add the apparent incompetence of the Public Prosecutor's office, which seems to lose most cases it does bring, but why bother.  The police in Honduras will not be cleaned up by any of the proposed processes.

And Alfredo Villatoro is still missing.

(Updated 3:50 PDT to correct names of those arrested.)

Backdated Charges?

Was the paperwork that provided the flawed legal justification for the coup backdated?

A cable recently posted to Wikileaks provides hints supporting this conclusion, widely held by opponents of the coup.

This cable, send on June 28, 2009 from Ambassador Hugo Llorens to the State Department, announced the forced expatriation of Zelaya. It notes that the Honduran military told the US Defense Attaché that they had acted on instructions from the National Congress and Supreme Court to prevent President Manuel Zelaya Rosales from carrying out the Cuarta Urna poll scheduled for that day.

However, the very next paragraph of the cable notes that members of Congress and the Public Prosecutor, Luis Rubí, when contacted by the Embassy, said they had only ordered the military to confiscate the polling materials, and had not requested that Zelaya be arrested.

Roberto Micheletti, when contacted by the Embassy that day, repeated the claim that Zelaya had planned to convene a National Constituent Assembly right after the poll, and "that Congress had acted to preempt him."

The contradiction between what Micheletti, then head of Congress, and other members of congress told the US ambassador simply underlines what has long been clear: Micheletti and other agents of the coup deliberately ignored due process, denying many members of congress who opposed the coup the right to participate in the voting that attempted to legitimize the coup after the fact on Sunday morning.

But the reported comments of the public prosecutor, Luis Rubí, add something new to the mix.

Shortly after the coup, the Supreme Court posted online voluminous documents they claimed justified the actions legally. This included a long legal case, said to have been filed by Rubí under a request for secrecy, dated June 26, two days before the coup.

This date would have come just after Ambassador Llorens had a conversation with Chief Justice Jorge Rivera Aviles, in which Rivera Aviles said the only way a sitting president could be constitutionally removed from office was through the Public Prosecutor filing a criminal case with the Supreme Court, and being adjudicated guilty of a crime.

Yet on June 28, Luis Rubí denied to Llorens that he had requested the arrest of Zelaya; the military did not say they were acting for the Public Prosecutor; and Micheletti attributed the orders to "preempt Zelaya" to Congress, not the Supreme Court or the Public Prosecutor.

Either the Supreme Court paperwork was backdated to June 26, or everyone was lying to Ambassador Llorens on June 28.

A subsequent cable dated July 2, 2009 contains a timeline of events written by Ambassador Llorens to the State Department.

This timeline has no entry for charges filed by Public Prosecutor Luis Rubí on Friday, June 26, as claimed in the documents posted by the Supreme Court.

It only states that on June 30, e.g., two days after the coup d'etat, that Rubí filed 18 charges against Manuel Zelaya Rosales, in an ordinary criminal court, following a document issued by the Supreme Court that categorized Zelaya as a private citizen as a consequence of the congressional actions of June 28.

Llorens writes:

While there have been claims that the Supreme Court issued a warrant for Zelaya's arrest, the president of the Supreme Court has told us that this is not true. The only warrant we are aware of is one issued either late on June 25 or early on June 26 by a lower court ordering the seizure of polling material. It appears that the Attorney General, the military conspired with Micheletti and other leaders of Congress to remove Zelaya based on their fear that he planned to convene a Constituent Assembly immediately after the June 28 poll.

Either Rivera Aviles was lying to Ambassador Llorens, or there was no arrest warrant issued on Friday June 26, secret or otherwise, as stated in the Supreme Court documents.

These cables also go to the heart of the justification offered for the actual timing of the coup.

The crux of the justification is the allegation that Zelaya was going to call a National Constituent Assembly right after the Cuarta Urna poll. This was a rumor spread by the online newspaper Proceso Digital. On June 27, 2009, it falsely claimed that the proclamation establishing the Cuarta Urna published in the official Gaceta said this.

Llorens writes on July 2:

The online newspaper Proceso Digital prints an article alleging Zelaya's decree, published in the 25 June issue of the official paper La Gaceta, states that the 28 June poll will immediately convoke a constituent assembly. The newspaper reports that Zelaya has changed the rules at the last minute, and the poll will have consequences not previously reported.

This fits. It's the justification provided by Micheletti to Ambassador Llorens for the coup d'etat on the day of the coup. Llorens continues:

Micheletti's supporters say that publication calls for the convening of the Constituent Assembly. However, this is patently false, the publication simply states: "Are you in agreement that in the general elections of 2009, there be a fourth urn in which the people decide the convocation of a National Constituent Assembly."

What these cables are clarifying is precisely how much evidence there is for a conspiracy to sanitize the coup d'etat, a conspiracy that included producing documents purportedly from the Friday before the coup, documents that on the day of the coup, all involved disclaimed.

Hugo Llorens in the Run-up to the Coup d'Etat

Wikileaks has released another cable from Ambassador Hugo Llorens to the US State Department, this one dated June 26, 2009 and covering the events of the night of June 25, 2009, three days before the military carried out a coup d'etat.

A Spanish translation of the cable was published by Tiempo, although none of the other Honduran papers seem to be motivated to cover it.

In the summary paragraph, Llorens reports:

On the evening of June 25, the National Congress came close to bringing to the floor a vote on the removal of President Zelaya from office.

We already knew this. We were in Honduras watching events unfold on television, and we had been told to expect something like that.

Ambassador Llorens discusses how he and other senior US diplomats in the country worked to deter Congress from taking this step. He reports that they successfully deflected Congress into opening an inquiry into President Zelaya's possible legal violations. We believe this is the first confirmation of the rumored role of the Ambassador in ending the rush toward a vote by the Honduran Congress that night.

Immediately following the passage above, Llorens goes on to write

Supreme Court President Rivera told us that Congress does not have the power to impeach the President, since the repeal of such a law in 2005. Currently the only means to remove a sitting President is through the filing of a criminal case filed by the Public Ministry with the Supreme Court itself.

In other words, the Chief Justice of the Honduran Supreme Court told Ambassador Llorens on June 25, 2009, that Congress had no power to impeach a sitting President.

Notice that this cable is sent the same day, Friday May 26, that the filing by prosecutor Luis Rubí of criminal charges against Zelaya before the Supreme Court is dated as accepted by the court (Zelaya government members say this document was actually produced later and back-dated).

This is what later serves as the purported legal grounding for removing Zelaya from office, and replacing him with Roberto Micheletti.

The timing seems, at the very least, interesting.

Justice Rivera's analysis of how one can legally remove a sitting Honduran President matched our own arguments in the wake of the military kidnapping of Zelaya on Sunday, June 28.

In paragraph 4 of the cable, Llorens makes it clear when his conversation with Justice Rivera Aviles took place:

In a meeting on June 25, Honduran Supreme Court President Jorge Rivera Aviles told the Ambassador that he was extremely worried about the planned Congressional action against the President. Rivera said that congressional leaders had approached him about their plans to remove the President. Rivera said he advised against such action, which he described as illegal. Rivera said that in 2005 the Congress repealed the impeachment law. Currently the only means to remove a President was through the filing of a criminal case by the Public Ministry (Attorney General) with the Supreme Court. In such circumstances, the Supreme Court would appoint a Supreme Court Magistrate to hear the case. A ruling by the Magistrate against the President represented the only means to legally separate him/her from the office.

Thus the Supreme Court's opinion confirms that when the Honduran Congress pretended to remove President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales on June 29, 2009, it was a patently illegal act for which it had no constitutional powers.

The "legal succession" was illegal. This will come as no surprise to any of our regular readers.

The cable portrays Roberto Micheletti, head of the congress, as actively pursuing the position of president through organizing votes and working for Zelaya's removal, rather than passively receiving the presidency by "legal" succession.

The cable portrays Ambassador Llorens in somewhat ambiguous relation to the unfolding pressures for a coup. In his dealings with the congress, he urges no "premature" action. That is somewhat less than arguing that they refrain from trying to remove the sitting president at all.

In his conversations with the head of the supreme court, he seems to be seeking to define a legal procedure for removing the president-- again, not precisely discouraging the effort to do so. And while we would not say he produced the rationale, what he reports on June 25 becomes the basis for those who claim the coup was legitimate: a case brought by the public prosecutor before the supreme court.

(We assume that the Ambassador understood that such a case would have had to be tried, not merely brought; on the Honduran side, for a complex series of reasons, simply bringing the charges seemed to be enough reason to consider the president impeached.)

Ambassador Llorens comes across as a confidante of those who become the authors of the coup d'etat.

An earlier cable from June 18, 2009 documents a breakfast meeting between Llorens and Generals Romeo Vasquez Velasquez and Miguel Garcia Padgett in which he told the Generals that "the heavens would fall" if the military made any unconstitutional move.

Of course, it didn't happen that way. The US was reluctant to cut off military aid after the coup, only taking that step months later.

Diplomacy is of course a difficult dance. Llorens does report talking to President Zelaya in his June 25 cable. But the tenor of his reported remarks there is much less pointed: he says he urged Zelaya to "to do everything he could to lower the tensions and send conciliatory public messages and engage in dialogue with the opposition". He reports urging Zelaya to remember that he is president of "all Hondurans".

Comparing the two sides of his diplomacy, it is clear that Ambassador Llorens wanted actions of a specific kind from President Zelaya; whereas he himself makes no reports of urging the Congress to engage in dialogue.

Is it any wonder why many Honduran intellectuals believe that the US was complicit in formulating the coup?

While former Minister of Culture Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle, in a recent interview, absolved the ambassador of direct responsibility, he concluded that the US

was, of course, directly involved. Of course, who—I’m not able to signal and say that Ambassador Llorens was directly involved in promoting the coup. Some people believe that. I know for a fact that CIA operatives and military personnel of the United States were in direct contact with the conspirators of the coup d’état and aided the conspirators of the coup d’état. The coup was not something improvised. It was something that was laboriously and in a very punctilious manner prepared in time, so that from January onwards, you have this media campaign. All national newspapers, all major television chains and stations are involved, in this long period, in a propaganda campaign against the government, Zelaya’s government.

This legacy of distrust is not going to disappear because Honduras was readmitted to the OAS. It has not been healed by the agreement that allowed Zelaya to return to the country without facing immediate imprisonment.

It will remain a lasting legacy of US diplomacy that, while attempting not to take sides in a Honduran dispute, managed to give the authors of the coup the impression that if they just did things with an appearance of legality, everything would be fine.

When the US actually reacted, initially denouncing the coup, and much later, imposing modest sanctions, the outrage expressed by the de facto regime and the Honduran Congress told one side of the story: these authors of the coup were not expecting to be punished.

Now we have a glimpse at the other side: the communications that gave these actors the impression that removing the sitting president would not be problematic, as long as it was done using the correct legal procedure, and as long as it did not lead to the imposition of a military junta-- even for the short six months of Zelaya's remaining term of office.

Legal Opinions

Legal opinions.

How do you assess them? Is it really good news that Honduran courts have nullified the final charges against Manuel Zelaya? If so, why is he not flying right back to the country now?

Certainly, the US State Department is overjoyed, and through the Voice of America, is promoting the idea-- yet again-- that the coup is now completely behind Honduras. On with business!

Honduran lawyer Carlos Augusto Hernández Alvarado is not convinced.

The law professor at UNAH, previously a Professor of Constitutional Law at the Universidad de San Pedro Sula, provided an illuminating commentary about the nullification of charges against José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, which he describes as a "blackmail ploy".

His argument is that the opinion rendered is "a trap", because the nullification was based on errors in process, rather than a repudiation of the charges themselves.

This is certainly the case. As he writes,

The sentence itself centers on sustaining that due process rights of the ex-President, contained in article 90 of the Constitution of the Republic and others such as the right of defense recorded in article 82 and including the presumption of innocence of article 89, were violated, by having been expatriated, expressly prohibited by article 102 of the Constitution.

Hernández Alvarado notes that one justice, Marcos Vinicio Zuniga Medrano, presented a separate legal analysis, arriving at the same conclusion, and using the same bases for nullification. What distinguished this opinion was a "deeper" discussion of the remaining crimes Zelaya was accused of, falsification of public documents and fraud in public administration.

Hernández Alvarado suggests that Honduran citizens need to ask a series of questions about this decision. We think these are pretty good questions for others interested in Honduras to consider as well.

1.- Who petitioned for the nullification of the charges?

Hernández Alvarado's answer: public defenders José Anaim Orellana and Edgard Crosby Lanza. As we have noted before, this appointed violates the right of a defendant to chose their own representation.

2.- On whom does the public defender who solicited the nullification depend?

Hernández Alvarado, noting that the answer is that the public defender is part of the judicial branch, characterizes this as a "grave moral and ethical contradiction", since the judicial branch "is what sustained the illegal charges against the Ex President and now, as if by magic arts, names defenders on the petition of the Procuraduría General de la Republica, converting the Judge into a party to the case".

3.- How [on what grounds] did the public defenders solicit the nullification of the charges?

Quoting Hernández Alvarado:

We have here the first trap of all the spectacle that we have lived through, the public defenders that are at the same time Judge and party for the institution on which they depend, solicited the nullification solely of the process, and not of the substance of the matter placed before them. In other words, they did not attack nullification of the illicit evidence that supported [the charges] and was obtained in an illegal manner.

4.- Why did they not do this before, if they were aware of what had occurred?

5.- Why did the public defenders named and the decree of nullification of the case not enter into an in-depth analysis of the evidence, so that the charges would be completely annulled?

6.- Why did the defense and the nullification of the charges decreed by the Court not ask if the evidence they succeeded in getting was obtained by infringing on due process?

Hernández Alvarado finds the last question explicable only "because they move to the political pulse of whoever controls the institutional apparatus of state".

He notes that "if they had analyzed the illegality of the evidence that would have carried the nullification to the level of the charges themselves, not leaving the door open to reformulate the charges".

This is the most interesting point in his statement: Hernández Alvarado believes that the decision was made in such a way as to deliberately retain the potential to place the same charges again. This is what he characterizes alternately as "the trap" or "the blackmail ploy".

He points to articles 94 and 200 of the Código Procesal Penal as calling for assessment of the legal or illegal nature of evidence provided:

Articulo 94: Illegality of evidence. When the Fiscales have in their power evidence and they know that it was obtained by illicit methods, especially torture, deals, or cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishments or other abuses of human rights, they should abstain from using them; they should proceed against whoever had employed these methods to obtain them if they consider that they have incurred penal responsibility, and adopt all the measures necessary to assure that those responsible appear before justice.

Artículo 200: Prohibited or illicit evidence. They shall lack evidentiary efficacy those actions or deeds that violate the procedural guarantees established in the Constitution of the Republic and in the international treaties related to human rights of which Honduras forms part; as well as however many might have been a necessary consequence of such acts or events and that would not have been possible to obtain without the information derived from them, without prejudice to the responsibility that whoever obtained the illicit information would have incurred.

Hernández Alvarado goes into more depth on the way that the legal opinion fails to confront the violation of aspects of the legal code governing admitting illegally obtained evidence, and the need to pursue those who committed the illegality.

He also notes that article 93 of the same legal code calls for the prosecutor to exercise objectivity. This is defined in ways clearly not descriptive of the actions of the authorities who have been determined to press charges in this case, such as Luis Alberto Rubí:

“Objectivity. In the exercise of his functions the Ministerio Público should act with absolute objectivity and protect the correct application of the criminal laws. He should investigate not only the circumstances that will permit proving the accusation, but also those that would be the cause of exemption or of attenuation of responsibility of the accused; at the same time, he should formulate his summonses in conformity with this criterion, even in favor of the accused."

7.- What is the result, when since the beginning of the process of investigation, the Tribunal A QUO and A QUEO, did not guarantee due process, nor did it execute an Effective Judicial Guardianship for the accused Manuel Zelaya Rosales?

Again, quoting Hernández Alvarado:

Not only did it entail a procedural nullification instead of one on the basis of the way that the evidence was obtained and the violation of international treaties subscribed to by our country and the basic principles contained in articles 16 and 18 of the Constitution, that should have primacy in their application.

Let's point out the norms that were infringed:

• 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10,11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of December of 1948;

• 7.3, 8.1, 9, 24, 25 of the Convention of the Americas on Human Rights, signed the 22 of November of 1969, approved the 26 of August of 1977 (Gaceta No: 22,287-289);

• articles 9, 14, 26 of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, signed the 16 of December of 1966 (Gaceta No. 28,293).

Now the question to evaluate would be:

Was the evidence in the cases of Ex President Manuel Zelaya Rosales illegally obtained?

Article 209 of the Código Procesal Penal gives us the answer in its second paragraph:

"The register of churches, public buildings, military installations or in general properties of the state can be carried out only by making known to the person in whose charge they are found, the said person should attend the proceeding or name another to represent him, if not, to permit the register would constitute the crime of disobedience."

Hernández Alvarado points out that the "diaspora" of Zelaya government officials after the coup means they were not there when searches were carried out, making any supposed evidence "automatically illegal". He goes on to say

The summons in consequence is not objective, the evidence is nullified, contaminated, and as a final result the case is nullified, not just on the process but also on the basis.

The specific vote of Abogado Magistrado Marco Vinicio Zuniga on the decision to nullify the charges against Mel Zelaya, the one that comes closest to this assessment, logically was not included in the decision because it would procure as a consequence admitting the illegality of the authorities that supplanted those that were constitutionally named and would leave the same Fiscales automatically subject to [charges of] irresponsibility such as those established by article 200 of the Código Procesal Penal.

As he notes, the judges and prosecutors in the present case were themselves involved in the break in constitutional order, and letting them make this decision gave them the opportunity to seek a way to shift the blame away from themselves: to seek a procedural ground that is innocuous instead of confronting the violations at the core of these charges, which would require them to be charged with violations of the law and of international treaties.

His concern is that taking this procedural route to satisfy the form of the demand (in time for the OAS to re-admit Honduras) leaves the way open for charges to be brought again by the Fiscal, whose violations of constitutional rights have not been reprimanded, should Zelaya decide to return to Honduras:

But in this country in regard to justice "cork floats, lead sinks"; we can see a motion without feet or head, end up returning the same original state of the charges against the Ex President...

Was this legal opinion a blackmail ploy?

Hernández Alvarado's answer:

The answer is known to those who control the state, and who in the immediate past carried out a Coup d'Etat.

If that answer is yes, then we have to ask: who is being blackmailed?

It's Over (With A Caveat)

The Public Prosecutor, Luis Rubí publicly announced today that he will not file an appeal to the full Supreme Court of the appeals panel's nullification of the charges filed against Manuel Zelaya Rosales.

"From today we have given the instructions to the lawyers that have the case to not file an appeal....The Public Prosecutor will not make use of an appeal; we will accept the verdict of the court of appeals and continue with what they are ordering us to do to make good on what the court of appeals decided (it is not based in law) and we will continue with the procedures established by law."

Rubí made it clear that he is not enjoined from refiling the same charges against Zelaya in the future. And that's the caveat; Luis Rubí will almost certainly refile charges in the future. And this is what Zelaya Rosales was referring to yesterday when he complained about the "continuing coercion and threats to his liberty." As he said, until there is a final resolution to the political persecution there is no way for him to return to Honduras.

This skirmish is over, but Luis Rubí is planning a full campaign of political persecution of Manual Zelaya Rosales. Nonetheless the OAS will accept this as a compromise solution and pretend that the state of Honduras has ended its political persecution of Manuel Zelaya Rosales.

Like a game of whack-a-mole, these politically motivated charges have been extinguished, but look for them to pop up again in the near future.

Motion To Reconsider Rejected

The appeals panel of the Honduran Supreme Court today rejected the Public Prosecutor's motion to reconsider its verdict in the charges against Manuel Zelaya Rosales.
"This was not the resolution we were looking for. We will exhaust all our legal possibilities because we've well documented the crimes of fraud and falsification of documents by Zelaya.....by means of an appeal we will indicate our rejection of the resolution of the appeals panel of the Supreme Court,"
said Albina Zepeda, the appeals prosecutor.

Starting tomorrow, the Public Prosecutor has 60 days to file an appeal, which will then be heard by the entire Supreme Court.

Reset your countdown clocks again because its not over. 61 days from today and counting.

Its Not Over Till Its Over

Yesterday the appeals panel of the Honduran Supreme Court voted 2-1 to nullify the remaining charges against José Manuel Zelaya Rosales for procedural irregularities. The panel of three magistrates, Rosa de Lourdes Paz Haslam, Marco Vinicio Zúniga Medrano, Gustavo Enrique Bustillo Palma made their verdict public shortly after noon yesterday in Tegucigalpa.

La Tribuna reported that the vote was 2 for nullification of the charges with one abstention. El Heraldo reported that Rosa Lourdes Paz Haslam and Gustavo Enrique Bustillo Palma voted to nullify the charges and that Justice Marco Vinicio Zúniga Medrano voted against the appeal.

The court based its decision on articles 16, 61, 82, 90, 102, 303 and 304 of the Constitution, article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 8 of the American Convention on Human Rights, and articles 4, 101, 165 y 166 (numbers 3, 5, 6 y 7, 139), 167 (number 1), of the Penal Code and articles 1 and 137 of the Law of the Organization and Attributes of the Court.

The decision

"reformed the order dated 25 March 2011 [of judge Chinchilla] in relation to nullification, and because of the particular and unique status of the involuntary absence of Mr. Zelaya Rosales, declares the partial nullification of the proceedings exclusive to José Manuel Zelaya Rosales accused, from and including the present admission requirements and tax issues 0801-2009-31126 0801-2009-31042 dated July 30, 2009 and February 24, 2010, respectively, promoted against Mr. José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, on charges of falsification of public documents to the detriment of the public trust, and fraud against the government and all acts that have been made to posterity, with the exception of the measures mitigating the appointment of a public defense of the accused, the decision to bring this case to the special procedure for processing a high government official, the motion to bring nullify these actions, the processing of the appeal and the proceedings brought against the co-defendants in related charges."

All of that to affirm the hearing procedures and overturn the decision of appeals judge Chinchilla and grant the defense motion to nullify the two remaining charges against Zelaya Rosales. The court made it clear that the nullification only applied to the charges against Zelaya Rosales, not his co-defendant, Enrique Flores Lanza.

The Public Prosecutor, Luis Rubí, has 60 days to appeal the decision of the three judge panel. He can appeal because the decision was not unanimous. If he appeals, the case is taken to the entire 15 justices of the Supreme Court, who will then analyze and vote on the case.

So all of this will probably be sufficient to get Honduras re-admitted to the OAS, but as yet is insufficient for Manuel Zelaya Rosales to return to Honduras. Its a legal ruse to give Lobo Sosa daylight to negotiate Honduras's return to the OAS while still keeping the charges open. Already Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the OAS, says this is sufficient to negotiate Honduras's return.

Until the appeals period expires the case is not over.

We fully expect the Public Prosecutor's office will appeal this court's decision. Henry Salgado, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor as much as said so this morning. The question is, will Luis Rubí stick it to Lobo Sosa and file the appeal before the OAS meetings in June, or will he wait until after the meeting to file his appeal?

Reset your countdown clocks for 60 days.

UPDATE: 11:11 AM PDT - La Tribuna is reporting that the Public Prosecutor's office will file an appeal in the next few hours. Luis Rubí, despite his lack of prosecutorial success in these politically motivated corruption cases, is sticking it to Lobo Sosa with respect to readmission to the OAS.

UPDATE 11:00 PM PDT - The appeal is filed.

Honduras and the OAS: The Plot Thickens

The issue of what to do about Honduras will come up again at the next OAS General Assembly in early June. As readers will recall, Honduras has failed to fulfill the requirements set by members of the OAS opposed to readmission. Most discussed has been the failure to find a way to dismiss politically motivated charges against former president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, which would allow him to return to the country. This has come even to overshadow the concerns expressed about continued human rights abuses in post-coup Honduras.

Porfirio Lobo Sosa asked again on April 15, for the Supreme Court of Honduras to do what is necessary to make it possible for Manuel Zelaya Rosales to return to Honduras.

Jorge Rivera Aviles, the Supreme Court Chief Justice, says that if it does, it will just be "a happy coincidence", not because of Lobo Sosa's pressure on the court.

This battle has been going on since Lobo Sosa took office in January 2010. Porfirio Lobo Sosa has done all he can to make it possible for Zelaya to return, but ultimately it is beyond his power. He cannot command the Supreme Court, and so far, they've declined to cooperate with him.

It took the negotiations of Arturo Corrales, once negotiator for Roberto Michelleti, and currently head of Lobo Sosa's Strategic Planning Commission, and the brainstorming of a legal team, to find a legal way the court can dismiss the remaining charges: nullification.

Here's what will happen next with the Zelaya legal case:

--on or about April 20, a three judge appeals panel of the Supreme Court will rule on an appeal by the Public Prosecutor's office to reinstate the arrest warrants for Zelaya that have previously been vacated.

--after that, there's another motion pending before Judge Chinchilla to dismiss the two remaining charges because of procedural errors by the Public Prosecutor, Luis Rubi.

(The procedural errors? Under Honduran law, Rubi had to formally notify Zelaya he was the subject of an investigation, and that notification had to occur before any charges were filed. Rubi filed charges in July 2009, just after the coup, without ever notifying Zelaya. This seems to be the core of the argument for nullification of the charges.)

--if the charges are dismissed, Rubi's office can be expected to appeal, prolonging the case for up to two more weeks.

In any event, if the Supreme Court does not drag its feet again by mid-May it should have heard all the possible appeals and ruled definitively and finally on the charges against Zelaya, either dismissing them or allowing them to go to trial.

There is a lot more now riding on what Rivera Aviles claims would only be a "happy coincidence" being the outcome.

After meeting in Colombia with Lobo Sosa, and with Zelaya and representatives of the Frente de Resistencia yesterday, Hugo Chavez has said that if Lobo Sosa can deliver on the long-demanded dismissal of charges against Zelaya, then he will support reintegration of Honduras in the OAS.

He has promised both Lobo Sosa and Zelaya he would work to bring about a resolution favorable to both sides. Juan Barahona, on behalf of the Frente de Resistencia, has said they put their trust in Chavez as a mediator as well.

There are still, of course, things that making it possible for Zelaya to return will not heal.

At the same OAS General Assembly, the government-sponsored Truth Commission (which isn't really a truth commission because its charter fails to conform to the UN standards for truth commissions), will brief OAS members on the contents of its final report.

Eduardo Stein said the report will be submitted without the help of Zelaya, who refused to give testimony to the commission, because they have a large body of press releases and statements by members of his cabinet to the press to confirm what happened, and that those statements are consistent with other reports made to the commission.

Contradicting himself, he noted that there were some topics where only Zelaya could provide information about his intentions and actions, and he regretted that Zelaya had refused to cooperate.

So, the Truth Commission, which has been touted as providing a means to reconcile Hondurans divided by the coup, is not likely to add much forward momentum. And the human rights situation in Honduras has not been improving. Both the US State Department and the Inter-American Human Rights Commission have recently condemned deteriorating human rights conditions in Honduras.

But it is probably a reasonable bet that Honduras will return to the OAS soon-- that is, if the Supreme Court delivers its "happy coincidence".

Zelaya Case Continues

Radio Globo just reported that Supreme Court Judge Oscar Chinchilla has ordered that Manuel Zelaya Rosales stand trial for the charges of "fraud" and "abuse of authority", but has dismissed the arrest warrants. Zelaya is free to return to Honduras without fear of being arrested, but the case brought by the Public Prosecutor, Luis Rubi, continues.

Dress Code

Luis Rubi, the Public Prosecutor, is disturbed by how his employees dress.

'You are instructed to exercise strict control and oversight of the dress of people working for you, as it has been observed that some of them do not dress properly, so that they are reminded that its forbidden for female staff to wear blouses with plunging necklines, or short dresses and skirts, capri (fisherman's) pants, jeans, and blouses with straps (spaghetti straps?); in the same way male staff should not wear jeans, t-shirts, and tennis shoes."

These are the words of José Francisco Morales, head of human resources in the Public Prosecutors office in circular 2-2011- DRH entitled "Dress".

I guess Luis Rubi doesn't want chuzadas (the practice of placing a microphone in the bodice of a woman for clandestine eavesdroping in meetings, popularized by Uribe in Columbia to eavesdrop on his opposition) in his workplace.

Golpistas Are Nervous

The golpistas in Honduras are nervous after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued the announcement that it would proceed to investigate if it had jurisdiction over human rights crimes allegedly committed by those who carried out the coup and formed the de facto regime in 2009.

The ICC is an independent organization, not part of the UN, located in The Hague, Netherlands. It is governed by the Rome Statute, a UN treaty that establishes the court and the rules under which it operates. The court, funded by individual country governments, was established to "help end impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community."

The complain was lodged by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH for its name in French). FIDH sent an evaluation mission to Honduras in late July, 2009, and at that time confirmed serious human rights violations had and were taking place. They outlined their findings and concerns in a press release on July 30, 2009. At that time they called on the ICC to remind Honduras it was a member and if the situation continued it could come under the jurisdiction of the ICC. The de facto regime, through its human rights commissioner, Ramon Custodio Lopez, denied at the time that human rights abuses had taken place.

The ICC has assigned Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo to the case. Moreno Ocampo is an Argentinian who successfully prosecuted the Generals in Argentina in 1984 for human rights abuses. He announced that he would shortly conduct preliminary investigations in Honduras.

Sandra Ponce, the Honduran Human Rights Prosecutor, told El Tiempo that the ICC had not communicated with the current Honduran Government. She noted that

"The process of opening an investigation implies the prosecutor (of the ICC) wants to verify the information, and if it has merit, he will have to ask the permission of the Pre-Trial division of the ICC to open a case."

Among those accused of committing human rights violations are Roberto Micheletti Bain, Luis Rubí Avila, Jorge Rivera Avilez, José Alfredo Saavedra, and the military high command, command of the National Police, 18 people in all.

El Tiempo reported that one of the first things that happened after the announcement of the ICC was published in the press, was that the Public Prosecutor, Luis Rubí Avila asked the Human Rights Commissioner, Ramon Custodio Lopez, to come to his office and discuss the announcement. Both Rubí Avila and Custodio Lopez are named in the complaint.

While neither Rubí nor Custodio spoke with the press, a judicial advisor to Rubi, Rigoberto Espinal Irías dismissed the human rights charges alleged by FIDH, claiming that many were "questionable" or "never happened", as documented in a report by his office to the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights.

"You cannot have an assassination where there wasn't one; its easy to put something on paper and build on top of it."

The attitude of that part of the Public Prosecutor's office is in sharp contrast with that of its Human Rights Prosecutor. Sandra Ponce told La Tribuna the visit of Moreno Ocampo was historic since it was the first visit ever by an ICC prosecutor to perform an investigation of Honduras. She pointed out that the government was obligated to cooperate with Moreno Ocampo and the ICC. She also explained that if any of the charges of political persecution were found to have merit, the ICC would have jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, El Heraldo spread the disinformation, sourced to the Colombian Ambassador to Honduras, Sonia Portillo, that the ICC doesn't prosecute individuals, just governments and institutions and used this to make fun of Ángel Edmundo Orellana. However the ICC website states specifically,

"The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an independent, permanent court that tries persons accused of the most serious crimes of international concern, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes..."

Hmm, nothing there about trying governments or institutions, just persons. So much for the Colombian Ambassador's knowledge and the journalistic integrity of El Heraldo, which didn't bother to do even simple fact checking.

The repression that happened after the coup, the extrajudicial killings by the police and military (indivisible since the coup) that continue to the present, the illegal revocation of constitutional rights, all of these charges deserve an impartial thorough investigation. It will have to be started by the ICC, since there is no reason to believe it will ever happen Honduras.