TEGUCIGALPA – Honduras’s political rivals are on a collision course after negotiations collapsed and deposed president Manuel Zelaya vowed to return home despite warnings from a defiant de facto government.
Mr Zelaya said resistance was being organised in Honduras to pave the way for his return and that nobody could stop him. The interim government installed after the June 28th military coup has threatened to arrest Mr Zelaya if he returns and also to crack down on any protests.
“Insurrection and confrontation are not a good path to take, but I don’t think we will avoid it unless the de facto government shows some flexibility,” the chief of the Organisation of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza, said in an interview with a Chilean radio station yesterday.
Mr Zelaya tried to return to Honduras earlier this month but soldiers blocked the runway and at least one protester was killed in clashes with the army.
Talks to end the crisis broke down on Sunday when the interim government’s delegation told the mediator, Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, that his proposal to reinstate the left-leaning Mr Zelaya was “unacceptable” and that he was meddling in Honduran affairs.
About 300 pro-Zelaya protesters marched peacefully towards Congress in the capital, Tegucigalpa, yesterday, and have called for a two-day national strike on Thursday and Friday.
A police spokesman appealed to children and the elderly to stay away from protests planned for this week, warning that the security forces would “not be tolerant with anyone who acts like a terrorist in our country”.
Although shunned by foreign governments, interim president Roberto Micheletti, who was appointed by Honduras’s Congress after the coup, has refused to give in to demands that Mr Zelaya be allowed to return and finish his term, before elections due in January.
The president was expelled from the country after he had upset his political rivals by seeking to lift presidential term limits, and the army moved against him after the Supreme Court ordered his arrest.
The crisis is widely seen as a test for US president Barack Obama as he seeks a fresh start with Latin America despite ideological differences with vocal US enemies like Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, a close ally of the deposed Honduran leader.
Many Hondurans think Mr Zelaya’s removal was justified despite widespread disagreement with how it was done.
“They had no choice but to get rid of him. He became crazed with Chavez’s ideas and his petro-dollars,” said 54-year-old Angela Ramirez, tending her pastry stall in Tegucigalpa.
But Mr Zelaya also has his supporters and he is vowing to return this weekend. “Absolutely no one can stop me. I’m a Honduran, it is my right,” he said in a telephone interview from Nicaragua after the talks in Costa Rica reached a stalemate. – (Reuters)