"The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, made Wednesday a strong call to dialogue in order to achieve the restoration of unity within the Honduran people and its democratic institutionality.
During the inauguration of the Dialogue Table with representatives of President José Manuel Zelaya and the de facto Government in Honduras, which took place in the Madrid Hall of the Clarion Hotel in Tegucigalpa, the Secretary General said that “we all need dialogue to heal divisions and so that Hondurans don't have to keep paying the consequences of what happened.”
The aforementioned dialogue, he said, will allow the return of the “previous democratic institutionality, guarantee that the elections on November 29 will truly be the free expression of the people’s will, the path through which the democratic political process will be channeled and the end of sanctions that we never wanted to impose.”
The head of the hemispheric organization said that the process of dialogue started on Wednesday should consider all issues included more than two months ago in the document known as the San José Accord.
The aforementioned agreement is clear on five points: the restoration of President Zelaya to power; the formation of a Government of national unity; the guarantee that there will be no new initiatives focused on amending the Constitution; amnesty for political crimes that might have been committed; and the international supervision of the agreement.
Afterwards, he considered that it is “indispensable to fulfill certain political and procedural requirements,” among which he highlighted: the restoration and upkeep of constitutional guarantees; the restitution of suspended media outlets; guarantees for the life of President Zelaya; the empowerment of the parties to reach binding agreements; a commitment to avoid disruptive demonstrations; the elaboration of an agenda including all issues at stake; and the establishment of clear and short deadlines to reach an agreement.
“None of those requirements should take too much time if, above all, there is a real political will to reach an agreement. We can and are willing to help, but we cannot and we will not substitute the effort of the citizens of this country,” the Secretary General said.
Finally, he encouraged “those assuming responsability for this dialogue to face it without hidden intentions, with good will, sacrificing legitimate interests, leaving all prejudices and fears aside, and being generous in the name of the greatness of the nation.”
The OAS delegation attending the ceremony included, other than the Secretary General, the Foreign Ministers of Costa Rica, Bruno Stagno; Ecuador, Fander Falconí; El Salvador, Hugo Martínez; Guatemala, Haroldo Rodas; and Mexico, Patricia Espinosa; the Ministers of State of Foreign Affairs of Canada, Peter Kent; and Jamaica (CARICOM), Ronald Robinson; the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affaire of the United States, Thomas Shannon; the Vice Ministers of Foreign Relations of Panama, Melitón Arrocha; and the Dominican Republic, José Manuel Trullols; the Spanish Secretary of State for Ibero-America, Juan Pablo de Laiglesia; and the permanent representatives to the OAS of Argentina, Rodolfo Gil; and Brazil, Ruy Casaes.
Likewise, the mission is accompanied by the Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs of the United Nations (UN), Óscar Fernández Taranco"
Link:http://www.oas.org/OASpage/press_releases/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-328/09
