As the world forgets about Honduras again, the former President’s hopes of returning to power look to be ebbing. Soon the country will be looking to new elections. Hurrah.

Here is an interesting piece about how the Organisation of American States might have managed its diplomacy differently. By suspending Honduras so speedily after the so-called ‘coup’ took place (the argument goes), the OAS ruled options out and reduced its own freedom of manoeuvre:

The OAS Secretary-General was given 72 hours to find a solution to the Honduran situation. He might just as well have been asked to push a huge boulder up a steep mountain. There was no way it could have been achieved given the high emotion that existed on all sides.

In giving him such a mandate, the OAS General Assembly was clearly pressed into their decision by a group of countries led by Venezuela, Argentina, Nicaragua and Bolivia (the key members of ALBA) who wanted their man, Manuel Zelaya, immediately back in the Presidency whether or not he had been removed in accordance with the Honduran Constitution and law.

As an important aside, let me say in this connection that however legally correct the impeachment of Zelaya may have been, the interim regime wrong-footed itself by having the military remove him from the country.

OAS Deputy Secretary-General Albert Ramdin rightly reminded that Secretary General Insulza acted under the orders of the General Assembly which had defined his role including that he “did not have an order to talk with representatives" of the interim government. What sort of mediation could the OAS expect of its Secretary-General in that context, except to fail?

Diplomacy at its best is subtle and painstaking and maybe invisible, hence unpopular with the public at large who like to see things ‘happening’. 

In a situation like this a heavy diplomatic lunge by the OAS aimed at achieving a certain result might work. But it also might not, and in fact both reduce the credibility of outside OAS-sponsored mediators and make the key people involved more stubborn.

Which is what happened.

Then, as more facts appear some capitals move back from getting too ‘involved’ in something which looks like a diplomatic mess they unwittingly have helped create.

Technique and all that.