If the resistance forces are emboldened by Zelaya’s return, and the prospect of early elections and possibly even the prospect of a subsequent Constituent Assembly, they are in a stronger position to fight the pillage of Canadian corporations – and, for that matter, to confront and eventually overcome conservative forces within the opposition camp. That is no aid to Canadian capitalist interests and their government in Ottawa.

Surely, successful revolutionary strategy in Honduras cannot be reduced to enforcing the isolation of the Lobo government. A primary consideration must be the need to find ways to reinforce the popular opposition to that government within Honduras. Clearly, from Todd’s own accounts, that is how the Honduran resistance, in its vast majority, sees the issue, and the effects of Cartagena.

Even if, as Todd reports, the Frente is currently focused on its election prospects, it still appears to be on a much stronger footing than it was during and immediately after the coup – when the masses were brutally deprived of even the right to vote on Zelaya’s proposal for a future Constituent Assembly. And,above all, it is now a coherent organized force, with its own dynamic and potential for independent growth – something it had not yet developed under Zelaya’s presidency. I can’t help but see that as a step forward, not back.

2. How has Zelaya’s return affected Canadian interests? Investment has increased as Cdn companies are now key backers of the first model city in Trujillo. And their actions, and those of companies, are done under the auspices of a normalized democratic Honduras — thanks to Cartagena, Zelaya and Chavez. Honduras’s formal international isolation was a lever, if not overly powerful but of some substance, against the Lobo gov’t. Cartagena removed that even though coup forces still wield power. How’s that bad for Canada? Repression continues, including of anti-mining activists: what has Cartagena done about that? Nothing.

3. The direction of the Frente and Frente Amplio will be determined over the next several months, but it’s clear that Zelaya (from a wealthy landowning family) and some of his allies from the Liberal party will have influence over that (in what will in effect be a popular front-style organization), and indeed at the National Assembly they talked about organizing not mvts for a constituent assembly or for other reforms, but for the election, and even left open the possibility that Lobo could participate in shaping a constituent assembly process. That’s a direction that should give one pause for thought.