Fla. GOP lawmakers to visit new Honduras president

MIAMI — Three U.S. representatives from South Florida who supported the ouster of Honduras’ president traveled there Monday to meet with the interim government and to pressure President Barack Obama to sanction the upcoming Honduran elections.

It’s the second trip there by a GOP delegation in a week and is part of a broader effort to challenge the Obama administration’s Latin American policy.

Obama and many world leaders refuse to recognize interim President Roberto Micheletti, who took power following a June coup that ousted Manuel Zelaya. They say the Nov. 29 election will be illegitimate unless Zelaya is restored to power or comes to some compromise with the current government. The Organization of American States has refused to observe the elections.

U.S. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and brothers Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, who say they’re on a fact-finding mission, are among Republicans who view Zelaya’s ouster as a legitimate response to his calls for a referendum on changing the constitution. Such a change they say could have enabled him to run again and remain president indefinitely, just as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has done.

Whether one supports Zelaya or Micheletti, “the way out of this problem is to respect the free and fair elections that the people of Honduras are going to have,” said Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Dan Erikson, a senior associate at the nonpartisan Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington, said the trip is about more than elections in the small Central American country.

“This is about trying to stymie the Obama administration’s efforts in Latin America and the Republicans’ obsession with Hugo Chavez and their concern about his expanding influence in the region,” Erikson said. “If you take Chavez out of the equation, Honduras is a marginal issue for U.S. foreign policy.”

This summer, U.S. Rep. Connie Mack brought a group of lawmakers to meet with Micheletti. Another Republican, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, led a delegation there Friday.

DeMint has also been blocking key Senate votes on Arturo Valenzuela, Obama’s pick for assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, and Thomas A. Shannon Jr., whom Obama nominated for ambassador to Brazil.

Erikson said the administration’s threat not to recognize the elections is one of the few tools it has to pressure Micheletti into reaching a compromise with Zelaya. The Republicans visiting the country could strengthen Micheletti’s resolve not to compromise, Erikson added.

Zelaya secretly returned to Honduras last month and remains holed up in the Brazilian Embassy along with dozens of supporters. In recent days, an agreement between the two sides has looked slightly more promising.

Roger Noriega, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs under President George W. Bush, agreed concerns about Chavez’s influence in the region were behind the focus on Honduras, but he called the trips normal congressional oversight.

“The fact is that Chavez is bullying all of the actors in Honduras,” he said.

He called it ironic that the Obama administration is looking to renew dialogue with Cuba but refuses to recognize the interim government in Honduras.

Noriega said he believes the U.S. legislators would accept any Honduran-based solution to the crisis, even if it meant temporary power sharing. And if the OAS refuses to observe the elections, perhaps other institutions will step in such as former President Jimmy Carter’s human rights organization or the European Union, he added.

The South Florida lawmakers also said they hoped an independent organization agrees to monitor the elections.

“Even if one were to accept the premise that there’s been a coup, the solution is clear,” Lincoln Diaz-Balart said. “The elections have to be fair, transparent and recognized. And since we have an opportunity in November for a solution, it’s important that we focus on the solution.”