Roberto Micheletti

Reporting from Mexico City and Tegucigalpa, Honduras -- Representatives of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and the de facto leaders who deposed him in a coup last June came together Wednesday in an effort to end the political crisis that has divided and isolated this impoverished nation. With foreign ministers and diplomats on hand to nudge the deeply polarized parties, a tense round of negotiations got underway aimed at rescuing Honduras from what one participant called "darkness, infinite chaos, fear and uncertainty."

Soccer saved Honduras. That's not an opinion, it's a fact, insists Danilo Turcios, a veteran midfielder on a Honduran team that returns to the World Cup for the first time in 28 years. "Soccer," he says, "was the only thing that united the country after all the political problems had divided it." Last summer, with Honduras once again struggling to stay alive in its World Cup qualifying tournament, the country was rocked by a coup. Army forces stormed the national palace and seized President Manuel Zelaya, forcing him into exile and installing congressional leader Roberto Micheletti.

The man who replaced President Manuel Zelaya in a coup said Thursday that he would be willing to hold elections ahead of schedule if that would ease the standoff, which has left Honduras badly isolated. The offer from Roberto Micheletti came on the eve of a high-level visit by a delegation of the Organization of American States aimed at sealing Zelaya's return to office -- or deciding on sanctions to punish the impoverished nation.

As a new Honduran president took office Wednesday, former leader Manuel Zelaya flew into exile in the Dominican Republic under a deal that ends months of turmoil since his ouster by the military last summer. Zelaya, accompanied by his wife, two children and President Leonel Fernandez of the Dominican Republic, left Honduras just hours after Porfirio Lobo was sworn in as president. Under an arrangement brokered last week by Fernandez, Zelaya agreed to abandon the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, where he had holed up in September, and to leave the country once his term officially ended.

The de facto ruler of Honduras said Saturday that Washington had pulled his U.S. visas as punishment for failing to reinstate President Manuel Zelaya, ousted more than two months ago. Roberto Micheletti, acting as president since the June 28 coup, said on a radio program that the visas of his foreign minister, Carlos Lopez, and 14 Supreme Court justices were also revoked. Micheletti said he accepted the U.S. decision but would remain firm in refusing to allow Zelaya to return to power.

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, ousted in a military-backed coup four months ago, said today that a U.S.-brokered deal to end his nation's political crisis has collapsed. Zelaya pronounced the week-old agreement a "dead letter" after de facto rulers formed a new "reconciliation government" without Zelaya's participation, as the deal had required. "The accord is a dead letter," Zelaya said on a Honduran radio station. "There is no sense in continuing to fool the Honduran people."

Talks to resolve the crisis in Honduras after a coup began with both sides holding closed-door meetings with Costa Rican President Oscar Arias in San Jose. Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya left Arias' home shortly before the arrival of the man who replaced him, Roberto Micheletti. Zelaya called for "the reestablishment of the state of law, democracy and the return of the president elected by the Honduran people." Micheletti insists that Zelaya was legitimately removed from office for allegedly violating the constitution.

The Honduran consul general in Los Angeles has been fired because she declined to express support for ousted President Manuel Zelaya, Honduran embassy officials said Friday. Vivian Panting was one of four officials who were removed from their positions because they did not respond to a letter from the Zelaya government asking them to write a statement with their political position, the embassy officials said. The other consular officials were in San Francisco, Washington and New York.

Re "Waffling on Honduras," Editorial, Nov. 5 The Times is entitled to its opinion that Hondurans should restore ousted President Manuel Zelaya to office. But Zelaya and the head of the de facto government that replaced him, Roberto Micheletti, reached an agreement -- called the Tegucigalpa-San Jose accord-- that resulted in a different outcome than that recommended by The Times. The accord left the decision entirely up to Congress -- meaning it might approve Zelaya's return or it might not. It also left the timing of that decision up to Congress.

Leaders of a bloc of leftist Latin American and Caribbean governments urged the international community Saturday to reject the presidential election planned by Honduras' interim government next month. The leaders of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas group also denounced Colombia's plan to give the U.S. military expanded use of bases in that South American nation, calling it a threat to the region's security. In a joint statement issued at the end of the two-day ALBA meeting, the leaders criticized the coup-installed government in Honduras and urged the world's nations to continue pressing for the reinstatement of ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

When President Obama attended the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago last April, he promised a new beginning in the United States' historically fraught relations with Latin America. Since then, however, Latin Americans have seen more continuity than change, whether it's the failure to lift the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, the new agreement to expand the use of military bases in Colombia or the handling of the recent coup in Honduras. In fact, the bungling of the Honduran crisis has further damaged U.S. credibility and caused a rift with strategic partners in South America.

Reporting from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and Mexico City -- The de facto rulers of Honduras will observe more than elections Sunday: They staged the first military-backed coup in Central America in 16 years -- and got away with it. Months of international efforts failed to reinstate President Manuel Zelaya, ousted June 28 and deported to Costa Rica. Instead, the most powerful outside mediator, the United States, agreed to recognize the outcome of Sunday's vote for a new president. Several other countries will not, saying that a "free and fair" vote cannot be held under the watch of a de facto government.

Re "Waffling on Honduras," Editorial, Nov. 5 The Times is entitled to its opinion that Hondurans should restore ousted President Manuel Zelaya to office. But Zelaya and the head of the de facto government that replaced him, Roberto Micheletti, reached an agreement -- called the Tegucigalpa-San Jose accord-- that resulted in a different outcome than that recommended by The Times. The accord left the decision entirely up to Congress -- meaning it might approve Zelaya's return or it might not. It also left the timing of that decision up to Congress.

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, ousted in a military-backed coup four months ago, said today that a U.S.-brokered deal to end his nation's political crisis has collapsed. Zelaya pronounced the week-old agreement a "dead letter" after de facto rulers formed a new "reconciliation government" without Zelaya's participation, as the deal had required. "The accord is a dead letter," Zelaya said on a Honduran radio station. "There is no sense in continuing to fool the Honduran people."

Leaders of a bloc of leftist Latin American and Caribbean governments urged the international community Saturday to reject the presidential election planned by Honduras' interim government next month. The leaders of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas group also denounced Colombia's plan to give the U.S. military expanded use of bases in that South American nation, calling it a threat to the region's security. In a joint statement issued at the end of the two-day ALBA meeting, the leaders criticized the coup-installed government in Honduras and urged the world's nations to continue pressing for the reinstatement of ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

Ya basta a basta . Enough is enough. The de facto leaders of Honduras have already made the point they'd hoped to make when they deposed President Manuel Zelaya in a civilian-military coup last June: that he had broken the law by seeking to alter the constitution to extend his rule. What's more, with the passage of time, the interim government led by Roberto Micheletti has ensured that even if Zelaya were to return to serve the remaining months of his term, he would not be able to make such a change.

Reporting from Mexico City and Tegucigalpa, Honduras -- Representatives of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and the de facto leaders who deposed him in a coup last June came together Wednesday in an effort to end the political crisis that has divided and isolated this impoverished nation. With foreign ministers and diplomats on hand to nudge the deeply polarized parties, a tense round of negotiations got underway aimed at rescuing Honduras from what one participant called "darkness, infinite chaos, fear and uncertainty."

De facto Honduran leader Roberto Micheletti lifted an emergency decree that had suspended some civil liberties and shut two media outlets loyal to ousted President Manuel Zelaya. The move followed strong international criticism and could help talks this week with foreign ministers from the Organization of American States to try to resolve the 3-month-old political crisis. Both Micheletti and Zelaya, who was ousted in a coup June 28, say they are ready for talks, but their key demands remain unchanged.