U.S. treads softly as region weighs in on Honduras

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Latin America was for decades seen as the United States' "back yard" -- a theater where it imposed its will often at the barrel of a gun.

But since Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was snatched from his home in his pajamas and spirited out of the country by the military on June 28, Washington has played an uncharacteristically low-key role.

President Barack Obama, who is seeking to mend U.S.-Latin American ties that were often strained under predecessor George W. Bush, immediately condemned the coup as illegal and joined international calls for Zelaya's reinstatement.

Obama has candidly noted -- upending an old Washington dictum for Latin American policy that "he may be a sonofabitch, but he is our sonofabitch" -- that leftist Zelaya might be strongly opposed to U.S. policy, but that shouldn't undercut democratic principles.

But as Central America's worst crisis since the Cold War drags on for a third week, resolving it has largely been left to the Organization of American States -- a hemispheric pro-democracy body with limited powers -- and to mediation by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias.

"This is the first time that I can remember when the immediate response of Washington was to defer to others to get things done right here in the hemisphere," said Julia Sweig, a Latin America analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

"They've stated their principles: democratic institutions, restoration of the president ... Getting that restoration to happen is quite a different issue," Sweig added.

In a bid to pressure Roberto Micheletti, the interim president installed by Honduras' Congress after the coup, the OAS gave an ultimatum for the reinstatement of Zelaya, and on July 4 suspended Honduras from membership.

Meanwhile Arias, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and a regional eminence, is due to host talks Saturday between envoys for Zelaya and Micheletti -- while the United States stays firmly in the background.

"This is part of Obama's new style of doing things in Latin America: Not imposing solutions, letting Arias carry forward with negotiations," said Mark Ruhl, a Honduras specialist at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania.

IF THE TALKS FAIL?

An initial round of talks in Costa Rica last week ended in deadlock. Zelaya is demanding immediate reinstatement, while Micheletti says the army lawfully removed him because he violated the constitution by seeking to lift limits on presidential terms.

Should talks fail, the question remains what options lie open to the Obama administration, already tasked with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and tested by crises in North Korea and Iran.

The last Democrat in the White House, former President Bill Clinton, sent troops to put ousted Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide back in power in 1994. Intervention is not seen as an option in Honduras, and a U.S. congressional leader favors applying pressure by other means.

In an opinion column this week, Senator John Kerry, a Democrat and chairman of the Foreign Services Committee, said the administration should step up sanctions, so far limited to cutting $16.5 million in military aid and the threat to slash $180 million more in civilian aid.

"If those who overthrew Zelaya remain intransigent, we must look at additional cuts, without harming the poor more than Honduran politicians already have," Kerry wrote in the Miami Herald newspaper.

"In addition, we should consider pursuing punitive measures -- including suspending travel visas -- for anyone involved in suppressing the Honduran people," he added.

Sanctions are unlikely to be popular with a group of Republican lawmakers who view Zelaya as having veered too close to fiery socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. They sent a letter last week urging the Obama administration to reverse its stance and support Zelaya's removal.

One of the Republicans, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, said Zelaya's ouster was "legal and constitutionally sound." But while she would like to see the administration change course, she is not sure how quickly it could do so.

"I think they've dug themselves into a hole. I don't know if they can dig themselves out, or whether they care to," she told Reuters.

Meanwhile, Zelaya's supporters have been lobbying hard in Washington this week for Obama to ratchet up pressure.

"We're calling for economic sanctions, as it's the only way we can get the coup leaders out of power," said Marvin Ponce, a Honduran Congress member in town with a delegation supporting Zelaya.

(Additional reporting by Daniel Trotta in Tegucigalpa and Susan Cornwell in Washington, Editing by Eric Beech)