Honduras battles tide of support for ousted Zelaya

Honduras battles tide of support for ousted Zelaya
Written by Patrick Markey
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 3:07:08 PM

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Honduras' interim government battled on Tuesday against a tide of international support for ousted President Manuel Zelaya who vowed to return home after troops toppled and exiled him in a coup. Honduras faces growing pressure to reinstate Zelaya, an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who was forced out on Sunday and spirited away by the army to Costa Rica in the first military putsch in Central America since the Cold War.

The Honduran capital Tegucigalpa was mostly quiet by Monday night after hundreds of Zelaya supporters clashed during the day with riot police and troops to demand his return to power in one of the world's major coffee producers.

There were no immediate signs coffee output or exports -- expected to total 3.22 million 60-kg bags in the 2008-2009 harvest -- had been affected as ports and roads remained open.

In a signal of the international support behind him, Zelaya planned to speak at the United Nations on Tuesday and said he would travel back to Honduras on Thursday with Organization of American States (OAS) chief Jose Miguel Insulza.

"I am going to Tegucigalpa on Thursday. The president elected by the people is coming," Zelaya said at a meeting of leftist Latin American leaders in Nicaragua. He said he had accepted an offer by Insulza to accompany him but gave no details of how he expected to carry out his return.

Zelaya, a cowboy hat-wearing logging magnate, upset conservative elites with his growing alliance with Chavez, a fierce U.S. adversary. He riled the armed forces, courts and Congress with his quest to change the constitution to let presidents seek re-election beyond a single four-year term.

Congress named Roberto Micheletti, a conservative-leaning veteran of Zelaya's Liberal Party as interim president. His officials said they would oppose any attempt by Zelaya to return home as president.

Micheletti, who set himself up in the presidential palace despite the protests outside, told Reuters most Hondurans supported the coup, which he said had saved the country from swinging to a radical Chavez-style socialism.

"He is going to have to ask for permission," new foreign minister Enrique Ortez said about Zelaya's promise to return. "That depends whether it is legal or illegal. It could be legal if he doesn't think of himself as president."

Left-wing Latin American presidents led by Venezuela's Chavez said in Managua, capital of neighboring Nicaragua, that they would withdraw their ambassadors from Honduras in protest at the coup. Central American nations plan to do the same and announced a two-day halt in trade.

U.S. President Barack Obama called the ouster illegal. But the coup is a test for the White House in a region where Chavez and his allies have forged an anti-U.S. alliance, especially during the administration of former President George W. Bush.

Tegucigalpa spent its second night under curfew on Monday. Earlier, dozens were injured in clashes between police and stone-tossing Zelaya supporters outside the gates of the presidential palace. But most of the city was calm.

"The only way out of this is calling elections now," said Geovanni Santamaria, 25, owner of an Internet cafe.

"Honduras is more of a democracy today than it was three days ago," Micheletti told a Reuters team that had to weave through protesters, pass a military checkpoint and enter the building through a back door to interview him.

The crisis fanned old tensions between poorer Hondurans and the conservative wealthy class that ran much of Central America, after independence from Spain in the 19th century.

As street protests sparked off in Tegucigalpa on Sunday, Micheletti imposed overnight curfews for Sunday and Monday.

On Monday, security forces threw tear gas canisters from a helicopter on pro-Zelaya protesters, some of whom smashed restaurant windows, including those of U.S.-owned fast food franchises. About two dozens protesters were arrested and the Red Cross said around 30 were hospitalized with injuries.

"The police surrounded us. They fired gas and they started hitting everyone," said demonstrator Joel Flores, 19, who was red-eyed and said a police officer beat him on the back with a baton. A soldier retreated to a restaurant where diners gave him water as he bandaged a leg wounded by a rock.

In Washington, President Barack Obama said it would be a "terrible precedent" to move back to an era of military coups, and said the ouster was "not legal." The coup has presented Obama with a test as he seeks to mend his country's battered image in Latin America.

"We are very clear about the fact that President Zelaya is the democratically elected president, Obama said, adding that Washington would work with the OAS and other international bodies to seek a peaceful solution.

Zelaya, 56, is a former logger and rancher who was close to Honduras' ruling elite on taking power in 2006 but then threw his lot in with Chavez's regional bloc and steered the country leftward.

His alliance with the Venezuelan leader, and his efforts to hold a public vote on changing the constitution to let presidents seek re-election beyond a single four-year term upset the army and the rich.

His ouster was Central America's first successful army coup since its Cold War era of dictatorships and war. Condemning it put Washington in the same camp as leftist Latin American leaders who are often at ideological loggerheads with it.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States viewed Zelaya's ouster as a coup but was not legally declaring this for now. Such a formal step would require Washington to cut off most aid to Tegucigalpa.

A senior U.S. official speaking anonymously said that by holding off on a legal determination on a coup, Washington was trying to make space for a negotiated settlement.

Polls showed public support for Zelaya in Honduras has dropped to around 30 percent in recent months. The protest over his ouster was small but determined.

"We are going to be here until President Zelaya returns. Micheletti is the president of the rich and powerful who own this country," a 22-year-old electrician who gave his name as Kevin, said outside the presidential palace.

Immediate disruption to the coffee industry was unlikely as the Honduran harvest is drawing to a close with only a few hundred thousand bags left to export.

Honduras was a U.S. ally in the 1980s when Washington helped Central American governments fight Marxist rebels and the United States still keeps some 600 troops at a Honduran base used for humanitarian and disaster relief operations.