Zelaya wants no part of US-brokered deal for Honduras
Posted: 15 November 2009 2256 hrs

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TEGUCIGALPA : Deposed Honduran leader Manuel Zelaya has written to US President Barack Obama saying he wants no part of US efforts to broker a deal to restore his presidency and end his country's political crisis.

In the five-page letter, Zelaya, who has been holed up in the Brazilian embassy here for the past several weeks, said supporting a US-backed deal would give a patina of legitimacy to the interim government which ousted him in June.

"I will accept no accord to return to the presidency as a cover for the coup," he wrote in the letter sent late Saturday to Obama, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.

The deposed president asked Obama for a quick reply and said that an October 30 accord to end the standoff "is null and void" after the de facto government failed to keep its promises.

In the letter, Zelaya blames the failure to reach a lasting agreement on US envoys, including the top US official for the region, Thomas Shannon, assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs.

He charged that US officials "changed their positions and interpreted the accord unilaterally" while seeking to create "a new electoral process without regard to the conditions in which it takes place."

The letter comes some two weeks before elections scheduled for the end of the month to choose Honduras's next president.

Interim Honduran leader Roberto Micheletti, installed after Zelaya was ousted in June, has said he expects the November 29 vote -- in which neither Zelaya nor Micheletti are running -- to end the worst political upheaval in Central America in decades.

Zelaya also rebuffed US efforts after the Honduran Congress failed to vote to reinstate him as president -- a crucial part of last month's US-backed deal to end the impasse.

Shortly after the coup the United States had demanded that Zelaya be reinstated before it would back an election, but Washington later shifted its position, saying it would support the outcome of elections even if Zelaya does not reclaim his post.

"We support the elections process there," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Thursday.

"These elections will be important to restoring democratic and constitutional order in Honduras, he said.

Zelaya last week urged his supporters to boycott the elections and take to the streets in protest, but the interim government has vowed to use all security measures at its disposal to ensure safe and peaceful balloting.

- AFP /ls