Mediator's plan for Honduras is rejected

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - Talks on resolving the Honduran political crisis headed toward failure yesterday when the interim government indicated it would reject a mediator's final proposal for returning ousted President Manuel Zelaya to power.

Zelaya, who is in neighboring Nicaragua, declared the mediation effort a failure and vowed to return to Honduras tomorrow without an agreement. He said he would travel to northern Nicaragua with his wife and children today and try to cross the border by land the next day.

"The coup leaders are totally refusing my reinstatement," Zelaya said during a brief news conference in the Nicaraguan capital, Managua. "By refusing to sign, [the talks] have failed."

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias presented an 11-point plan that called for Zelaya's return to the presidency in two days and offered amnesty for the coup leaders that ousted him.

Arias said the plan was his last attempt at mediating a peaceful solution to the conflict. He said Zelaya and the interim government should turn to the Organization of American States for a new mediator if they refuse to sign the agreement.

Arias warned both sides that time was running out for a peaceful solution and urged them to set an example by becoming the first country in modern history to reverse a coup through a negotiated agreement.

"The clock is ticking fast, and it's ticking against the Honduran people," Arias said in Costa Rica's capital, San Jose. "I warn you that this plan is not perfect. Nothing in democracy is perfect."

Although it included some new ideas, the main points of the plan did not differ from an earlier proposal that interim President Roberto Micheletti rejected, prompting the United States and other countries to step up the pressure with warnings of tough sanctions.

The Arias plan included a timetable that would return Zelaya to Honduras by tomorrow to carry out the rest of his four-year term, which ends in January 2010. It called for establishing a power-sharing government by July 27 and holding presidential elections Oct. 28, a month earlier than scheduled.

The plan also would force Zelaya to drop efforts to change the Honduran constitution, an initiative that provoked his ouster.

The reconciliation plan would provide Zelaya immunity from prosecution for trying to hold the referendum, along with amnesty for coup leaders.

Arias said he included several new points, including a truth commission to investigate the events leading up to the coup.