Belize recalls ambassador to Honduras

In news from the region, there were more demonstrations today in neighbouring Honduras following the coup de etat that removed President Jose Manuel Zelaya from office. Zelaya is vowing to return to Honduras on Thursday, amid threats of an impending arrest on arrival by the appointed president, Roberto Mitchelletti. On his return, Zelaya will not be alone, in fact he will be accompanied by a high level delegation including the presidents Rafael Correa of Ecuador and Christina Fernandez of Argentina, OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza and the president of the UN General Assembly Miguel d’ Soto. Earlier today, Zelaya received unanimous support from the international community at the United Nations which adopted a resolution that calls for his re-instatement and at the same time rejects any other person as president of Honduras. From New York he moved to an extraordinary session of the OAS in Washington, where that hemispheric body also gave the ousted president support for his immediate return to office. Back in our region, the Central American integration System, SICA, on Monday took tangible measures to send a clear signal to Mitchelleti. News Five spoke earlier today to Ambassador Fred Martinez, who has been recalled from Honduras until normalcy is restored. Ambassador Martinez represented Belize’s Prime Minister at a Summit among SICA countries on Monday in Nicaragua.

Fred Martinez, Belize’s Ambassador to SICA
“SICA itself took some decisions and one of them was that immediately all ambassadors of SICA countries would be called into their capitals for consultations. Whenever that is done in the diplomatic circles it means it is a protest to the other government that you have a problem with them and your ambassador is being called in. Another decision taken was that the directors of the SICA countries at the Central American Bank of Economic Bank of Integration are given instructions that any disbursement of loans or other financial transactions with the government of Honduras must be suspended until the constitutional order is respected. What Belize is particularly concerned about is the level of confrontational speech that has come from some countries in the region where they stated that he must be reinstated now and by force and put him back in etcetera. That is not going to solve the issue. You cannot talk about going in there and shaking down people and jailing people for having done something they felt was correct because this is not an ordinary military coup; it is not a group of Colonels that decided that we will do this and overthrow the government. Here in Honduras the situation was that you had the military, the Congress the Supreme Court, you had the political parties—the president’s own political party going against him—so it’s a huge sector of the society and we have a deeply divided country, very worrisome for our neighbour. There is no simple solution.”