Ousted president shut out of Honduras
Deposed Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya landed in El Salvador late Sunday after a failed attempt to return to his homeland.
Zelaya told the Venezuela-based news network Telesur that his jet was denied permission to land Sunday evening in the Honduran capital, where military vehicles were arrayed on the runway.
At least one person was killed and eight wounded after security forces opened fire and used tear gas on several thousand protesters who ringed the airport, said Hugo Orellana, a Red Cross director in Honduras. Protest leaders put the death toll at three.
"I call on the Honduran armed forces to lower their weapons against the people," Zelaya said at a news conference in San Salvador. "I want to express my sincere solidarity to the families that made sacrifices during a peaceful march, that the people organized voluntarily to welcome their president, who was elected out of the sovereign will of the Honduran people."
Senior U.S. administration officials, who insisted on anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities, had said that if Zelaya was denied entry to Honduras they expected he would return to Washington on Monday to continue conversations at the Organization of American States.
After being refused permission to land, Zelaya’s plane refueled in Nicaragua’s capital, Managua. During the stop, he met with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega — a leftist ally of Zelaya and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez — and told Telesur that his supporters were trying to remove obstacles from the runway in Tegucigalpa when troops opened fire.
"The people pulled back when fired upon," he said.
In a statement read on national television in Honduras, the interim government said police opened fire when protesters tried to force their way onto airport grounds.
The provisional government that took power after the military deposed Zelaya on June 28 said he would be arrested if he returned. But several thousand protesters who ringed the airport said they would protect him with a human cordon.
Zelaya called on the United Nations, the Organization of American States and the United States to act after his return was thwarted.
"What are at risk are social reforms started in Latin America," he told Telesur. "What we see is a return of the right in Latin America — a more reactionary right, more prone to killing, more fascist than in the past. They’re regrouping. It’s almost a conspiracy, a plot."
At a news conference earlier Sunday, provisional President Roberto Micheletti said that Zelaya’s return could create unrest in a country that has seen demonstrators for both sides in the streets since Zelaya was forced out.
"I don’t want a single drop of blood to be spilled in Honduras," Micheletti said.
Zelaya was ousted on the day that he planned to follow through with a referendum that the courts and the Honduran Congress had ruled illegal and that the military said it would not support. Lawmakers voted to strip Zelaya of his powers and named Micheletti as president.
The provisional government said the military action against Zelaya was backed by a court order and that arrest warrants had been issued against him for violating the constitution.
The Organization of American States, a 35-nation hemispheric organization, on Saturday suspended Honduras’ membership for refusing to reinstate Zelaya. The U.N. General Assembly has demanded that he be restored; the United States and the World Bank have suspended some aid; and the European Union and other nations have recalled their ambassadors from Honduras.
In remarks Sunday, Micheletti extended a diplomatic branch to Venezuela’s Chavez and Nicaragua’s Ortega, two of Zelaya’s closest allies. The interim leader said his government was open to good-faith talks with the Organization of American States, but reiterated that his government was legitimate.
"We are going to remain here until the country becomes calm," he said.
After 18 years of nearly uninterrupted military rule, Honduras returned to civilian control in 1981. Since then, the military has not seemed interested in holding power in the nation of more than 7 million people, about 70 percent of whom live in poverty.
Military interventions were once common in Latin America, but civilian governments have held sway since the 1980s. Before Sunday, the only other military revolt this decade was an unsuccessful 2002 coup attempt against Chavez, when troops displaced him but backed down days later and allowed his reinstatement.
Ousted president shut out of Honduras
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Today, Mr. Zelaya tried to land in Toncontin against Honduras forces.
All the protesters that are with Mel Zelaya are workers from unions, and shamefully public sector teachers. Chavez told Telesur today that he has been in touch with those organizations. The protesters started in a pacific way, and the police were only taking care of the situation…once the protesters were close to the airport they started to grab stones (which they had on backpacks) and started to throw them to the police. The police immediately took action because the protesters wanted to get into the airport runway. Mr. Zelaya confirmed so when he said from the plane that if the protesters could have reached the runway he could be able to land…. defying the law….once again!
He was very clear from the beginning that the government will not allow him to land to avoid a tragedy.
This is proof once again how Mel Zelaya thought that he was always above the law!
May God forgive Mr. Zelaya and the OEA for what they have done!
He had to go to El Salvador….while he plans his new attack to HIS OWN COUNTRY!!!!!
WHAT A SHAME!!!!
MAY THE WORLD BEGIN TO SEE THE TRUTH !!!!!!!!!!!
What we Hondurans don’t really understand is why if they have in order to arrest him, why they don’t do it, instead of making this big show saying that what happened was not coup, it was, we are leaving like we were in war, having to be home early at night, watching on TV what the new authorities want us to watch, taking out all the international channels from the air, it is really terrible, all we want is the peace to comeback to our country.
Hi. It just occured to me that ousted President Zelaya of Honduras should have parachuted himself from the airplane that unsuccessfully try to land at Tegucigalpa’s International Airport.
If “Drama” was the thing he was looking for, there you have a drammatic entrance into the play.
Politicians………….what a stange bread.
Good afternoon:
I just would like to point that there was no violence until Mr, Zelaya tried to land on a plane from another country that had not been authoirized to fly over hondurian skies nor to land in Honduras.
The leaders of his supporters were encouraging people to break into the landstrip of the airport and they attacked first the soldiers that were protecting the integrity of the airport. If Mr Zelaya really cared for this people he would not encourage them to gather around the airport to wait for him; knowing there was no authorization for his plane to land. He invited them to be there jnowing they would try to break into the airport and the consecuences this would have.
Besides this I would like to add that there is an ongoing investigation since soldiers allege they were only carrying plastic bullets used to disolve mobs. At the moment the weapon used to shoot the people who were harmed remains unknow.
Why don’t you try to send another reporter to Honduras? It is said here that this lady (Kruskeia?) is related to left movements on Nicaragua and that her news are biased. I don’t know this for a fact. but your willingnes to be impartiall would be very wellcome. Things are not allways what a man like Mr. Zelaya says. As any man says, there are allways many aspects to consider.
Totally Biased Pro-Lefty coverage on CNN.
I did not see the army provoking the supporters but I did see the so called Pacific demonstrators hurling stones, and molotov coctails at the army at the airport, this is the kind of radical, reactionary and revoloutionary supporters good old Mel Zel has.
The country is better off without him.
People have to check the real Democratic leanings of the presidents of all the countries calling for his re-instatment like Bolivia, Cuba, and Venezuela and Eucador, CNN only reports on the so called Coup of 2002 in Venezuela and not the Chavez lead Blood Bath that killed over 200 people in venezuela in 1992 when he attempted a coup against Carlos Andres Perez who was also democratically elected with the total intent of killing the then President of venezuela..
Chavez and his cronies are now afraid that the same thing can happen to them as they continue to sink thier economies, and lose the popular support.
Viva Micheletti! and Viva Chavez, Pero en CUBA
What a joke….US media is like Mcdonalds….fast and unhealthy for it’s customers, but hey who cares because they keep coming back for more.
Try reading the BBC or Ecomomist websites for free and more impartial information on world events.
It’s a good thing Hondurans have stood fast against the world political pressure.
Funny how we judge a “3rd world” country…10 years ago they pushed back on US policy to lower housing lending standards which our government was lobbying. Who turned on correct on that fact??
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