MEDIA REACTION: HONDURAS/OUSTED PRESIDENT ZELAYA

UNCLAS SAO PAULO 000587 SIPDIS STATE INR/R/MR; IIP/R/MR; WHA/PD DEPT PASS USTR USDOC 4322/MAC/OLAC/JAFEE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KMDR OPRC OIIP XM XR XF BR SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: HONDURAS/OUSTED PRESIDENT ZELAYA "A Step Back" Editorial in liberal Folha de S. Paulo (9-29) states: "Brazil's involvement in the Honduran crisis has gone beyond what could be reasonably expected and Brazil's Foreign Ministry has probably already lost any chance of mediating the impasse.....It needs to take a step back and regain its distance from both sides......President Lula negotiates with Cuba's dictatorship and has intervened in its favor at the U.N. In New York, he has praised Iran's President....and right after that, in Venezuela, he met with.....[people] like Robert Mungabe and Muammar Gaddafi....Roberto Micheletti's regime is in a much more subtle category of illegitimate democracy......Brazil needs to recover its diplomatic lucidity and its capability to mediate. Helping to solve the impasse is the best contribution Brazil's foreign ministry has to offer in the Honduras' case." "The errors, or not that much" Op-ed in liberal Folha de S. Paulo (9-29) by Janio de Freitas notes: "In political terms, President Lula is under more pressure than the Organization of American States (OAS). It is his international prestige, the greatest jewel of his current vanities, that is at stake.....[The interpretation for] Zelaya's situation at the Brazilian embassy depends on who is evaluating it....Lula's opponents, those with a more conventional and conservative view, are insistent on the opinion that it is absurd for Zelaya to be conducting politics inside the embassy......But if Zelaya is Honduras' legitimate President and is in the embassy only as a guest, as the Lula's government considers, then the absurdity would be blocking his words and his right to use them to defend a democratic cause...." "Ask to leave, Zelaya" Op-ed in liberal Folha de S. Paulo (9-29) by columnist Clovis Rossi states: "It is OK to condemn the coup against Manuel Zelaya in Honduras. It is also OK that the Brazilian embassy gave him shelter...But it is too much to allow the guest to take over the house...It is a cowardly and indecent action to call for protests while sheltered inside the embassy knowing that those who answer the call would be risking their lives...Zelaya is still the legitimate president of Honduras...but it is ever clearer that there is not a single character in the Honduran drama that any decent person would like to invite to their children's birthday party." "The bridge collapsed" Op-ed in liberal Folha de S. Paulo (9-29) by columnist Eliane Cantanhde notes: "Brazil has completely lost the ability to deliver on one of its strong suits in the resolution in Honduras: leadership and mediation. As it entangled itself passionately defending one of the sides, the one of ousted President Manuel Zelaya, the Lula administration started a duel with the coup-backed president, Roberto Micheletti. ...And so we have the worst of scenarios: Micheletti went radical on one side, and Zelaya went radical on the other....U.S. policy has been and remains uncertain (to us). Chavez likes to set fires, not to put them out...But Brazil made a huge mistake in confronting Micheletti. Before, it hosted a president who had been ousted during a military coup. Now, it hosts a bomb ready to explode." The embassy and the sidewalk Op-ed in liberal Folha de S. Paulo (9-29) by Carlos Heitor Cony says: "To what extent did Brazil, on behalf of democracy, meddle in the domestic problem of a sovereign country like Honduras? When the U.S. invades sovereign countries such as Iraq, there are complaints left and right, and justifiably so. Does the end justify the means?...Brazil is not intending to invade any country; it limited itself to granting asylum in its embassy to a domestic politician ousted from the presidency in a coup. And that is fine. But besides asylum, Brazil intends to restore Zelaya to power and that may be perceived by Hondurans as an intrusion in the sovereignty of that country." WHITE