[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Page 22735]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       THE SITUATION IN HONDURAS

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, on Monday, September 21, President Manuel 
Zelaya returned to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, for the first time since he 
was deposed and exiled in a June 28th coup d'etat, taking refuge in the 
Brazilian Embassy. His return has led to the installation of a curfew, 
violence between Zelaya's supporters and Honduran security forces, and 
troubling reports of the detention and physical abuse of his 
supporters.
  I am encouraged by reports that representatives of Roberto 
Micheletti, who currently occupies the Presidency, have met with 
President Zelaya. As divided as these two factions are, these talks 
need to continue in order to resolve this situation peacefully before 
the country descends into further bloody confrontations between 
civilians and police, or it leads to violent fractures within the 
military.
  I continue to believe that the proposal for the restoration of 
President Zelaya and early elections, put forward by Costa Rican 
President Oscar Arias, has the best chance of resolving this conflict. 
Brute force, like that reported from Honduras this week, will achieve 
nothing but further polarization.
  If President Zelaya is guilty of violating the law, as some have 
maintained, there are constitutional procedures for dealing with that. 
But by abusing the law themselves and simply throwing him out of the 
country, those who claim to have acted in the interests of the Honduran 
people only compounded the country's problems. Honduras, an 
impoverished country that needs the support of the United States and 
its neighbors, can ill afford this crisis to continue.

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