Zelaya says Honduras crisis deal has failed

TEGUCIGALPA (AFP) – Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said Friday a deal aimed at ending the country's months-long crisis had failed after the interim leader announced a government without his participation.

"Practically speaking, we have decided not to continue with this theater of Mr Micheletti," Zelaya said, speaking on Radio Globo.

"The international community will have to see what measures" to take after the agreement faltered, he added. A Zelaya aide had earlier said the deal had "failed."

The agreement crafted last week with the assistance of US diplomats had given Zelaya and interim leader Roberto Micheletti's camps until midnight on Thursday to establish a national unity government with members from both sides.

Although it did not require that Zelaya be reinstated to power, the pact said the decision should be left to Congress. A vote has yet to take place.

Shortly before midnight, Micheletti announced a unity government without including Zelaya ministers in the new cabinet. He did not name the ministers but left the door open for Zelaya ministers to later join the newly-formed cabinet.

Zeyala had refused to present nominees for ministerial posts, as requested by Micheletti, unless he was first reinstated to "reverse the coup" that ousted him on June 28.

Zelaya had also accused the de facto leadership of seeking to run out the clock until a vote for a new president was held in late November.

The accord reached on October 30 had sought to resolve the four-month crisis gripping the impoverished Central American nation.

Micheletti expressed his "deepest gratitude to the US government and members of the OAS for the support and monitoring they provided in accordance with which we took... important steps to strengthen our democracy."

Zelaya, who has been holed up in the Brazilian embassy since his surprise return on September 21, decided Thursday that he would not present any candidates to be cabinet ministers in the unity government, said his advisor Rasel Tome.

"If there's no president, who will swear them in?" Tome asked.

The crisis deal, struck with the help of US diplomats, had called for a return to the situation prior to the coup, when soldiers sent Zelaya into exile in his pajamas. The arrangement was to pave the way for elections.

"The agreement failed because of Micheletti... and because the National Congress did not convene" to return Zelaya to power, Zelaya aide Jose Arturo Reina said Friday.

Former Chilean president Ricardo Lagos, part of a four-member commission formed to oversee implementation of the deal, said that Micheletti had offered to give up the leadership once the unity government was established.

Zelaya also warned that "those who are adopting violence are committing a grave error," referring to a bombing on Wednesday at a radio station seen as sympathetic to Micheletti and another that killed one person.

The United States on Wednesday backed slow-moving efforts to resolve the crisis.

"We'll continue to assist and support the implementation process, but it's up to the Hondurans to actually carry through," said State Department spokesman Ian Kelly.

Kelly would not comment on what the United States would do if the Honduran Congress voted against Zelaya's reinstatement, or if it takes no action before November 29 elections that will choose his successor.