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MEXICO CITY – The political crisis in Honduras deepened Friday after ousted President Manuel Zelaya declared “totally dead” a U.S.-brokered agreement that he believed would restore him to power.
Zelaya, ousted in a military-backed coup four months ago after ignoring a court order to stop efforts to revise the Honduran Constitution, said the accord had collapsed after Honduras’ de facto rulers formed a new “reconciliation government” without him.
The week-old deal had sought to bring representatives of Zelaya and his enemies into a transitional government as a way to ease the crisis and legitimize elections scheduled for Nov. 29.
“The accord is a dead letter,” Zelaya said on a Honduran radio station. “There is no sense in continuing to fool the Honduran people.”
He called on supporters to take to the streets and to boycott the November vote, which he branded a “fraud” designed to “whitewash” the coup.
In Washington, U.S. officials who sponsored what had been hailed as a breakthrough and “victory for democracy” said they were disappointed with the setback.
Just before midnight Thursday, Micheletti went on national television to announce a new government that did not include Zelaya or any of his supporters.
The controversy is an embarrassing development for the Obama administration, which dispatched senior diplomats to settle the crisis but has also sent mixed signals in opposing the coup.
