TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS — The chief mediator in the Honduran coup crisis offered a 12-point proposal Wednesday that calls for the reinstatement of ousted President Manuel Zelaya as early as Friday.
But Zelaya's delegation immediately rejected the plan because of the conditions it attached to his return to office.
Representatives of the de facto government that deposed Zelaya said they would submit the proposal to the Honduran Supreme Court and attorney general's office for consideration. Both institutions, however, already have rejected Zelaya's return to power.
"The San Jose Accord," named for the Costa Rican capital where it was drafted, "has failed," said Rixi Moncada, head of Zelaya's delegation.
Zelaya has vowed to return to Honduras this weekend, saying, "Only God can stop me." He has called on supporters to flood Honduras' borders to greet him.
Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, designated mediator by the U.S. and other regional powers, read his new proposal in a news conference Wednesday in San Jose. An initial round of talks over the weekend collapsed when the delegation representing de facto President Roberto Micheletti rejected Arias' first proposal. Arias asked for 72 more hours, a period that saw intensified U.S. diplomatic pressure before it expired Wednesday.
The new plan incorporated most of the seven points Arias proposed over the weekend but added concessions sought by the Micheletti delegation, including a promise that economic and political sanctions imposed on Honduras in the wake of the coup would be lifted, sources said.
Arias said the reinstallation of Zelaya as president remained the "key point," but that the new proposal was "more balanced, with more bridges."
In addition to Zelaya's return, the accord called for moving up by one month presidential elections slated for late November, amnesty for political crimes related to the coup, the formation of a "national reconciliation" government and establishment of a verification commission to monitor compliance by all parties. Zelaya would have to refrain from his efforts to revise the constitution, the issue that his opponents cited in removing him.
Mauricio Villeda, the son of a Honduran president overthrown in a bloody coup several decades ago, spoke on behalf of the Micheletti delegation and said Arias' plan would be taken under advisement.
