U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday said that the United States is focused on seeing the political crisis in Honduras resolved and the country returned to the path of democracy. “We're working very hard to reach a conclusion in Honduras that will permit the elections to go forward,” Clinton said in an interview with CNN. She reiterated that Washington backed a Costa Rican-brokered plan that called for reinstating ousted President Manuel Zelaya, which will then be followed by elections. Such an approach would hopefully “get Honduras back on the path to a more sustainable democracy,” Clinton said. “The people in Honduras deserve that. They really have struggled hard to get to where they were before there was the disruption and the exiling of President Zelaya,” she said. Clinton said that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is seeking to engage with governments in Latin America as the region is seeing a worrying drift away from human rights and a rising hostility to the United States. “There has been a pulling away from democracy, from human rights, from the kind of partnership that we would want with our neighbors,” she said. The Secretary also spoke of the United States' support of Honduras during the coup, saying: “So in Honduras, we're standing for the principle of democratic and constitutional order. And we have done that, I think, much to the amazement of many of the very leaders you're talking about who have become increasingly anti-American in their actions and their messages.” Soldiers ousted Zelaya amid a dispute with the country's elite over his plans to change the constitution, which many saw as a bid to seek a second term. Zelaya's return to Honduras September 21 has set off a tense confrontation in Tegucigalpa between his supporters and the de facto military regime that threw him out of the country three months ago. The country's de facto leader, Roberto Micheletti, insists he heads a transitional administration which seeks to hold presidential elections on November 29 as scheduled to determine Zelaya's successor.
