MEDIA REACTION ON THE OAS, JUNE 07, 2005

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 TEGUCIGALPA 001213

SIPDIS

FOR IIP/G/WHA AND IIP/T/ES,
FOR WHA/PDA, WHA/USOAS, AND WHA/CEN

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: OIIP PREL KPAO PGOV KDEM HO
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON THE OAS, JUNE 07, 2005



1. On 06/07, the Tegucigalpa-based liberal daily "La
Tribuna" published an editorial entitled, "Abysses."
"Nicaragua is facing a deep political crisis. Congress'
refusal to ratify the State of Economic Emergency Decree
that suspend several constitutional guarantees and the
general discontent that obligated Enrique Bolanos to
withdraw it, evidence a weak governance that lacked
authority to impose his decisions."

"The legal confrontation between both powers, Presidential
and public services authorities, is not remote and will
provoke an intervention by the Supreme Court of Justice
which will not favor the presidential decisions and will put
the army and the police in a odd position."

"According to the `crazy lady of the people,' Enrique
Bolanos is putting more gas on the fire by wanting to call
the attention of the OAS at the moment when the U.S. had
presented a project that would give the hemispheric
institution the function to `watch over the democracies.'
Eleven countries presented an alternative resolution to the
U.S. proposal in the OAS in which it states that the
assistance would be solicited by the individual countries."

"Analysts believe that Bolanos' government is playing with
the crisis to make OAS agreement easier. Nicaragua's
Catholic Church has served as a mediator in other crises and
rejects the OAS intervention."

"All these conflicts have a lot to do with hatred generated
between antagonist political parties that make countries
ungovernable. Hatred that fires up ridiculous political
confrontations, as we are witnessing in Honduran politics w.
Instead of making proposals that would generate hope, we are
going towards the same abyss that many others are in due to
lack of vision."


2. The San Pedro Sula-based liberal daily "Tiempo" carried
an editorial entitled "Governable." "In the OAS' General
Assembly inauguration, the Secretary General Miguel Insulza
stated the necessity for the continental institution to
contribute to Latin America's democracy so the region can
deal with the risk of democratic backsliding."

"John Maisto, U.S. OAS ambassador, proposed a `constructive
and preventive action, which immediately provoked a strong
rejection in the South American countries because they
consider it as an interventionist initiative."

"No doubt that Latin America, after being through a complex
period of revolutionary dynamism, `cold war' and the end of
west-east confrontation, opened a path towards a higher
democratic demand and citizenship participation through new
pressure and interest groups with international support."

"To understand this phenomenon with a schematic vision is
not enough, it is necessary to deepen the analysis. It seems
clear that it's easy to visualize in the institutional field
and the political practice everything related with the
presidential system and the ease to go forwards to a
parliamentary system of major democratic and citizenship
participation."

"In the same order of ideas, the OAS initiative to give
effective application to the Inter American Democratic
Letter is very good but the importance is to find the source
of our countries' political practice and the necessity for
democracy and legitimacy in the electoral process and power
distribution of internal parties and citizenship
participation."



3. The San Pedro Sula-based liberal daily "La Prensa"
published an editorial entitled "Hybrid democracy." "The
OAS annual assembly has been in session since Sunday in Fort
Lauderdale has reached a critical moment, shaken by the
resignation of the former Secretary General and the
hemispheres' stretch and shrink movement between countries
with bilateral conflicts that block the continental vision."

"The central theme, democracy, its strengthening and crisis
prevention under the new concept of the `non-indifference
principle' opens the path to one of the OAS' actions, the
growth of the `non-intervention principle'."

"The awful period of coup d'etats has disappeared from the
continent; but some hybrid economies are winning terrain in
the region. Each time democratically elected presidents are
tempted by absolutism and assume power as a monarchy."

"Insulza preferred to talk about deepening democracy towards
the risk of backward movement. Celso Amorim, Brazil's
foreign exchange minister, said: `we want to strengthen the
region's democracy but we want to avoid interventionist
mechanisms.'"

"Venezuela sees this measure as unviable, giving strength to
the non-intervention principle and leaving for other
occasions the initiative that avoids hybrid democracies, an
image which reflects the overnight absolutism that adversely
affects power division."

Palmer