Per the AP, Honduras' interim foreign minister hasn't exactly improved his government's prospects of winning recognition from the Obama administration:
The US envoy to Honduras reacted angrily Tuesday to what he described as a "disrespectful and racially insensitive" verbal assault on President Barack Obama by Tegucigalpa's interim foreign minister, who offered an apology.
"As the official and personal representative of the president of the United States of America, I convey my deep outrage about the unfortunate, disrespectful and racially insensitive comments by Mr Enrique Ortez Colindres about President Barack Obama," US Ambassador Hugo Llorens said in a statement.
Ortez Colindres, foreign minister to caretaker leader Roberto Micheletti who took over after Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a June 28 coup, used the term "negrito," or "little black man," to describe Obama on several occasions last week and again Tuesday in a radio interview.
At one point he described Obama as "this little black man who has no idea where Tegucigalpa is.
It would seem that Colindres came to realize his mistake:
"Please accept my profound apologies and my sincere expressions of friendship directed at this great nation that is the United States of America, which allows me to contribute in the best way to a happy understanding between that great country and the democracy that is the republic of Honduras," Ortez Colindres said.
--Michael Crowley