Gangs, corrupt officials make illegal migrants' trip through Mexico dangerous

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IXTEPEC, MEXICO -- As the Mexican government condemns a new immigration law in Arizona as cruel and xenophobic, illegal migrants passing through Mexico are routinely robbed, raped and kidnapped by criminal gangs that often work alongside corrupt police, according to human rights advocates.

Immigration experts and Catholic priests who shelter the travelers say that Mexico's strict laws to protect the rights of illegal migrants are often ignored and that undocumented migrants from Central America face a brutal passage through the country. They are stoned by angry villagers, who fear that the Central Americans will bring crime or disease, and are fleeced by hustlers. Mexican police and authorities often demand bribes.

Mexico detained and deported more than 64,000 illegal migrants last year, according to the National Migration Institute. A few years ago, Mexico detained 200,000 undocumented migrants. The lower numbers are the result of tougher enforcement on the U.S. border, the global economic slowdown and, say some experts, the robbery and assaults migrants face in Mexico.

The National Commission on Human Rights, a government agency, estimates that 20,000 migrants are kidnapped each year in Mexico.

While held for ransom, increasingly at the hands of Mexico's powerful drug cartels, many migrants are tortured -- threatened with execution, beaten with bats and submerged in buckets of water or excrement.

"They put a plastic bag over your head and you can't breathe. They tell you if you don't give them the phone numbers" of family members the kidnappers can call to demand payment for a migrant's release, "they say the next time we'll just let you die," said Jose Alirio Luna Moreno, a broad-shouldered young man from El Salvador, interviewed at a shelter in the southern state of Oaxaca.

Luna said he was held for three days this month in Veracruz by the Zeta drug trafficking organization, which demanded $1,000 to set him free. He said he was abducted by men in police uniforms and taken to a safe house with 26 others.

'Epidemic' in kidnappings

Of the 64,000 migrants detained and expelled by Mexico last year, the Mexican government granted only 20 humanitarian visas, which would have allowed them to stay in Mexico while they testified and pressed charges against their assailants.

"We have a government in Mexico that emphatically criticizes the new immigration law -- which is perfectly valid, to criticize a law with widespread consequences -- but at the same time doesn't have the desire to address the same problem within its own borders," said Alberto Herrera, executive director of Amnesty International in Mexico.

"The violations in human rights that migrants from Central America face in Mexico are far worse than Mexicans receive in the United States," said Jorge Bustamante of the University of Notre Dame and the College of the Border in Tijuana, who has reported on immigration in Mexico for the United Nations.

U.N. officials describe the kidnapping of illegal migrants in Mexico as "epidemic" in scope.

"We have definitely begun to see a greater degree of violence in the shipping of migrants north to the United States," said Juan Carlos Calleros Alarcón, a director of policy at the National Migration Institute, which is responsible for detaining and deporting illegal visitors.

He said local authorities appear to be involved in the kidnappings.

The migrants are preyed on by roving gangs that operate along the Guatemalan border. Once in Mexico, many migrants ride on dangerous freight trains to bypass immigration checkpoints. Local police, taxi drivers and city officials often demand bribes or deliver them to kidnappers, according to the migrants and research by government and human rights workers.

Amnesty International says that as many as six in 10 women experience sexual violence during the journey.

Mexican government officials stress that only a handful of complaints are filed against federal immigration agents. The government has sped up the process of returning illegal migrants to their countries. Detention centers are newly built buildings; the migrants ride home in air-conditioned buses.

At a meeting Wednesday, Interior Minister Fernando Gomez Mont, the U.S. ambassador and the governors of the southern Mexican states pledged to work harder to protect migrants.

Like 'merchandise'

The small city of Ixtepec in the humid hills of Oaxaca is a crossroads for illegal migrants moving north on trains. At the edge of town, along the tracks at a shelter for migrants run by the Catholic church, 100 migrants slept on cardboard in the shade, waiting for an afternoon meal, before they move on.

Sergio Alejandro Barillas Perez, a Guatemalan at the shelter, said he was kidnapped in the gulf state of Veracruz this month and held for three days by men who said they worked for the Zetas.

He said his kidnappers demanded $10,000 for him and his girlfriend. "They told me if you don't give us the phone numbers, we'll kill your girlfriend," said Barillas, whose face was still bruised. "We were all in a house, a normal house. When they beat us, they would put a rag in our mouths and they turned on the music, loud, like they're having a party."

He said the kidnappers knocked out his girlfriend's teeth and dragged her away. He and others escaped. He said he does not know what happened to his girlfriend.

"These migrants aren't people -- they are merchandise to the mafias, who traffic drugs, weapons, sex and migrants," said Alejandro Solalinde, the Catholic priest who runs the Brothers of the Road shelter in Ixtepec. "They suck everything out of them."

The priest said that federal authorities do not protect the migrants and that local officials also look the other way, or take their cut from the robbers and traffickers.

Solalinde has battled local authorities who want to shut down his shelter, which feeds as many as 66,000 passing migrants in a year. More than 100 were at the shelter last week.

The priest said many Mexicans are distrustful of the outsiders. In 2008, townspeople became enraged when a Nicaraguan man who was living in Ixtepec was accused of raping a young girl. As police and the mayor were outside the gates at the shelter, Solalinde said, 100 angry protesters got inside.

"They had stones and sticks and gasoline," the priest said. "They wanted to burn us down."

Researcher Michael E. Miller in Mexico City contributed to this report.

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Zelaya Speaks - Nation

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By Tom Hayden

September 4, 2009

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AP Images
Zelaya points to a State Department document as he speaks to the media following his meeting with Clinton on September 3, 2009.

In a significant development in hemispheric relations, the Obama admininstration yesterday condemned the June 28 Honduras coup d'état more strongly than ever, announced the cutoff of additional millions in economic aid and declared it would not accept the legitimacy of elections under the auspices of the coup government.

In an interview shortly after his meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Honduran president Manuel Zelaya pronounced the US decisions "a great step forward" for the Honduran popular resistance to the coup and a "positive message in favor of democracy."

Following the State Department meeting, a US spokesperson announced the termination of "a broad range of assistance" to Honduras as a spur to encourage the return of President Zelaya and democratic processes to the country, which has been under repression for two months.

Zelaya told The Nation that the US would terminate multi-year Millennium Challenge grants in the range of $200 million, involving funds for roads, ports and infrastructure. Clinton chairs the Millennium Challenge corporation, which meets next week.

Asked if Clinton intended a message to the coup regime in Honduras, Zelaya responded forcefully that it was a "direct blow in the face of [Roberto] Micheletti" because "the golpistas' [coup organizers] plan was to negotiate with the candidates for an exit strategy so that they don't have to pay for their crimes, and get away with their crimes after an election. When you don't recognize the legitimacy of the elections, you are breaking up the plan of the golpistas."

With these decisions, the Obama administration has made clear that it embraces the Latin American consensus that the coup was an illegitimate transfer of power. "Mexico, Central and Latin America already had taken a position on the elections. We were only missing the United States. Now in light of these statements, the entire continent is condemning these elections under the de facto regime," Zelaya said.

When probed on the conditions when the sanctions might be lifted, Zelaya said only "when democracy is restored and President Zelaya returns." He said he is "prepared to return independently of any US plans" in order to "protect the population."

There will be "a permanent convulsion" and a "permanently ungovernable country" if he cannot return, and "that's what everybody wants to avoid." The social movements in Honduras "are not willing to go back to the way things were before," he noted.

What the June 28 coup was able to prevent, for now, was an advisory referendum planned for three days later on whether there should be a constituent assembly to rewrite the Honduras constitution, promoting greater participatory democracy. But the same coup also provoked the rise of a new social movement with its own dedicated members, martyrs and new memories.

"The grassroots movement," Zelaya said, has only one purpose, the transformation of Honduras, including deep structural changes. "This movement is now very strong. It can never be destroyed," he said. Zelaya believes that the reforms of his administration, including an increased minimum wage, subsidies to small farmers, cuts in bank interest rates and reductions in poverty levels "are the causes which irritated the ruling elite of Honduras."

Zelaya said he hopes that Clinton understands that "the same opponents of Obama in the US are mine in Honduras. The transnational trade, oil and banking systems. Those who do not want health insurance here are the same as those who do not want to pay a living wage in Honduras."

For example, he pointed out, "during Bush there was no coup. The coup in Honduras during the first six months of the Obama presidency was a litmus test. The right-wing groups in America who are supporting the coup are betting that Obama will not solve the problem. I trust that that he will."

Warming to the point, Zelaya went on to argue that the coup plotters in Honduras "have copied some reactionary sectors in Washington," who publicly say that Obama "has no power, that he is weak, weaker than Jimmy Carter, that we should not pay any attention to the Obama administration, and they refer to him as the black boy who doesn't know where Tegucigalpa is."

But the right-wing groups from Latin America to the Beltway have employed a Democrat and ardent Clinton supporter, Lanny Davis, to lobby for their interests in the capital, or what Zelaya calls "the empire of capital." Democratic consultants also are sprinkled in the coup delegations to the Costa Rican talks.

Perhaps no lobbyist is closer to the Clintons than Lanny Davis. When his name was raised critically by Zelaya during the meeting, the secretary of state did not acknowledge that Davis was her longtime family ally but instead took notes on Zelaya's claim of Davis's false charges and promised to investigate them. "She didn't tell me what she would investigate," he added, with a good-natured chuckle.

For Clinton's State Department, the tone of the meeting marked a shift from frosty previous statements on the coup. After Obama's initial observation that an undemocratic coup had taken place, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said that a coup had not taken place, in legal terms, and ridiculed Zelaya for being allied with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. "If that is the lesson that President Zelaya has learned from this episode," he remarked amidst laughter in a July State Department briefing, "that would be a good lesson." On August 4, a State Department letter to Senator Richard Lugar said Zelaya's "insistence on taking provocative actions...led to a confrontation that unleashed the events that led to his removal." The term coup d'état was not used in the letter.

Asked yesterday by The Nation whether the State Department certified what happened as a coup d'état or was calling it a coup, Zelaya responded, "I do not know the details of US law, but in the communiqué issued today the United States on behalf of the State Department said that in relation to the coup in Honduras various parts of the Honduran government are involved: the legislative, judicial and military. The State Department directly implicates the Congress, the army and the Court of Honduras in the coup."

Whatever Lanny Davis's spin may be, yesterday's developments represent a sharp rejection by the Obama administration of going it alone in Latin America.

The State Department's Crowley was not present at the meeting yesterday, which included longtime Latin American diplomat Tom Shannon, National Security Council representative Dan Restrepo, US ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens, and a different public relations spokesman, Ian Kelly.

The present tension may be winding down, but it is not over. Micheletti, abandoned by the Americans in his quest to legitimize the coup, is under enormous pressure to accept the recommendation of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias that he step down, which would be a huge victory for Latin America. On the other hand, any return to Honduras by Zelaya could be volatile, with the right-wing wanting his arrest or even his death. He cannot run for re-election under the present constitution. There is no visible candidate to replace him, and the constituent assembly proposal is off the agenda for now (or "por ahora", as a young Hugo Chávez once said upon release from prison).

The future may lie with the social movements that have risen against the military coup, with Zelaya serving as a transitional hero to the mobilized and awakened people on the streets of Honduras who are trying to take an unpredictable future into their own hands.

About Tom Hayden

Tom Hayden is a former California state senator and author of Street Wars (Verso, 2005).

IMF: stop funding Honduras - guardian.co.uk

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by Mark Weisbrot

The IMF is undergoing an unprecedented expansion of its access to resources, possibly reaching a trillion dollars. This week the EU committed $175bn, $67bn more than even the $108bn that Washington agreed to fork over after a tense stand-off between the US Congress and the Obama administration earlier this summer.

The Fund and its advocates argue that the IMF has changed. The IMF is "back in a new guise", says the Economist. This time, we are told, it's really going to act as a multilateral organisation that looks out for the countries and people of the world, and not just for Washington, Wall Street or European banks.

But it's looking more and more like the same old IMF on steroids. Last week the IMF disbursed $150m to the de facto government of Honduras, and it plans to disburse another $13.8m on 9 September. The de facto government has no legitimacy in the world. It took power on 28 June in a military coup, in which the elected President Manuel Zelaya was taken from his home at gunpoint and flown out of the country.

The Organisation of American States suspended Honduras until democracy is restored, and the UN also called for the "immediate and unconditional return" of the elected president.

No country in the world recognises the coup government of Honduras. From the western hemisphere and the EU, only the US retains an ambassador there. The World Bank paused lending to Honduras two days after the coup, and the Inter-American Development Bank did the same the next day. More recently the Central American Bank of Economic Integration suspended credit to Honduras. The EU has suspended over $90m in aid as well, and is considering further sanctions.

But the IMF has gone ahead and dumped a large amount of money on Honduras – the equivalent would be more than $160bn in the US – as though everything is OK there.

This is in keeping with US policy, which is not surprising since the US has been – since the IMF's creation in 1944 – the Fund's principal overseer. Washington made a symbolic gesture earlier this year by cutting off about $18.5m to Honduras, and the state department announced on Thursday that it is terminating other assistance.

But more than two months after the Honduran military overthrew the elected president of Honduras, the US government has yet to determine that a military coup has actually occurred. This is because such a determination would require, under the US Foreign Appropriations Act, a complete cutoff of aid.

One of the largest sources of US aid is the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a government entity whose board is chaired by Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state.

Interestingly, there were two military coups in the last year in countries that were receiving MCC money: Madagascar and Mauritania. In both of those cases MCC aid was suspended within three days of the coup.

The IMF's decision to give money to the Honduran government is reminiscent of its reaction to the 2002 coup that temporarily overthrew President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. Just a few hours after that coup, the IMF's spokesperson announced: "We stand ready to assist the new administration in whatever manner they find suitable."

This immediate pledge of support by the IMF to a military-installed government was at the time unprecedented. Given the resources and power of the IMF, it was an important source of international legitimacy for the coup government. Members of the US Congress later wrote to the IMF to inquire how this happened. How did the IMF decide so quickly to support this illegitimate government?

The Fund responded that no decision was made, that this was just an off-the-cuff remark by its spokesperson. But this seems very unlikely, and in the video on the IMF's website, the spokesperson appears to be reading from a prepared statement when talking about money for the coup government.

In the Honduran case, the IMF would likely say that the current funds are part of a $250bn package in which all member countries are receiving a share proportional to their IMF quota, regardless of governance. This is true, but it doesn't resolve the question as to whom the funds should be disbursed to, in the case of a non-recognised, illegitimate government that has seized power by force. The Fund could very easily postpone disbursing this money until some kind of determination could be made, rather than simply acting as though there were no question about the legitimacy of the coup government.

Interestingly, the IMF had no problem cutting off funds under its standby arrangement with the democratically elected government of President Zelaya in November of last year, when the Fund did not agree with his economic policies.

We're still a long way from a reformed IMF.

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In Guatemala, Chasing Away the Ghost of Alvarado

by Tim Padgett

It's been five centuries since Pedro de Alvarado, a homicidal Spanish conquistador, seized from the Maya the volcanic realm that became Guatemala. But his bloodlust still haunts the country, which today has one of the highest homicide rates in the western hemisphere. Guatemala's 36-year-long civil war, which ended in 1996, killed 200,000 people. Its cloak-and-dagger murders have made locals so paranoid that "even the drunks are discreet," as one 19th century visitor wrote.

That neurosis still shrouds Guatemala City, a gloomy capital that no amount of marimba music can brighten. Rich and poor communities alike are surrounded by walls topped with enough razor wire and rifle-toting guards to look like penitentiaries. This year tandem motorcycle-riding was banned because it was such a popular M.O. for drive-by shootings, and daylight saving time was canceled because the dark mornings created too many opportunities for foul play. Even so, bus drivers face being killed by armed extortionists during rush hour, and lawyers who complain about government corruption can turn up under the bougainvilleas with a few bullets to the head.

That's apparently what happened to Rodrigo Rosenberg, a corporate lawyer murdered on May 10 while biking near his home. In a twist that's macabre even for Guatemala, Rosenberg had taped a video three days earlier in which he anticipated his assassination and put the blame on President Alvaro Colom and his imperious wife Sandra Torres. They deny it, saying their right-wing foes coerced Rosenberg into making the video and then had him killed.

But since the shocking video was uploaded to YouTube on May 11, the nation has begun to confront the benighted lawlessness that plagues not only Guatemala but most of the rest of Central America too. Younger Guatemalans, organizing protests via social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, have turned out by the thousands to protest their putrid judicial system and festoon Rosenberg's murder scene with banners. "Older people say they haven't seen an awakening like this in 60 years," says Alejandro Quinteros, 26, a cherubic fast-food manager and political novice who helps lead the National Civic Movement. "We're not afraid anymore."

Fear is understandable in a country that feels like a "baroque game of chess played with bodies," says Francisco Goldman, whose book The Art of Political Murder details the 1998 assassination of Catholic bishop Juan Gerardi, who was bludgeoned to death after issuing a report on army massacres during the civil war. In a nation where just 2% of last year's 6,200 murders were solved, "impunity opens doors to murderous imaginations," says Goldman.

But the outcry over the Rosenberg case has opened doors to reform. Guatemala's congress was compelled to pass a law, long resisted by powerful political and business interests, that allows public scrutiny of judicial appointments. This month lawmakers say they're set to convene at least one special session to act on measures such as concealed-weapons laws and the creation of organized-crime and anticorruption courts. Activists like Alfonso Abril, 24, of the civic group ProReforma, want to revise Guatemala's sclerotic constitution to modernize lawmaking and codify individual rights. "I'm from the upper class," says Abril, "but I know we can't keep living in a country like this."

He also knows Guatemalan politics is still treacherous. More than 50 candidates were assassinated during the general election in 2007, the same year three visiting Salvadoran congressmen were murdered by rogue policemen (who were then mysteriously killed themselves). In his video, Rosenberg says his coffee-baron client Khalil Musa was gunned down along with his daughter in April because Musa knew too much about drug-money-laundering. "Rodrigo wanted to talk about the deadly manipulation of laws and lives here," says his half brother Eduardo Rodas. Guatemala has asked the U.N. and the FBI to investigate his murder. After 500 years, Rosenberg's ghost may be the first to challenge Alvarado's.

For U.S. and OAS, New Challenges to Latin American Democracy

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 6, 2009

The Obama administration has signaled its support for democracy in Latin America by condemning the coup in Honduras, reducing military cooperation and joining with other countries in the hemisphere yesterday in a rare suspension of a nation from the Organization of American States.

But bayonet-wielding soldiers are not the biggest threat to democracy in the region, where more than a dozen presidents have been removed prematurely since 1990. In recent years, a crop of elected, authoritarian-minded leaders has packed courts with supporters, held dubious elections and curtailed press freedoms. Legislatures have also pushed the boundaries of democratic order, giving legal cover to "civilian coups" in which protest groups have forced the ouster of presidents.

"The threats against democracy in Latin America, and I don't in any way minimize what's happened in Honduras . . . are not those coming from military coups, but rather from governments which are ignoring checks and balances, overriding other elements of government," said Jeffrey Davidow, a retired U.S. ambassador who served as President Obama's special adviser for the recent Summit of the Americas.

But it has been difficult for the U.S. government and regional bodies to respond to constitutional crises that fall short of a coup. Although the OAS has launched a determined effort to reinstate Manuel Zelaya as Honduran president, it has reacted more mildly to other irregular changes of power and to abuses by presidents and congresses.

Zelaya set out in a plane for Honduras yesterday, ignoring warnings from U.S. diplomats and representatives of many Latin American countries that his arrival could provoke a clash. The Honduran government declared it would not let him land, and his plane instead went on Nicaragua. Zelaya is likely to return to Washington soon to discuss further efforts to end the standoff, U.S. officials said.

The Honduran crisis began as a clash among institutions. Zelaya defied his country's Supreme Court by proceeding with a non-binding poll on writing a new constitution that many believed would scrap term limits, allowing him to seek a second term next year.

The coup that removed him brought back ugly memories of the 1960s and 1970s, when Latin American generals seized power and ruthlessly repressed opponents. But events in Honduras reflected how that old model has changed: The military quickly recognized a new civilian president sworn in by the country's Congress. Honduran lawmakers overwhelmingly voted June 28 to remove Zelaya after he was bundled onto a plane to Costa Rica.

Jennifer McCoy, head of the Americas Program at the Carter Center, said the international community has rarely insisted on the reinstatement of a toppled president in Latin America in recent years, with the United States and other countries generally calling for new elections or other constitutional mechanisms.

This time, though, the sight of soldiers hauling off a pajama-clad president was too much. The Obama administration joined the chorus of condemnation, despite its frustrations with Zelaya, who belongs to a group of vociferously anti-American leaders allied with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

The strong reaction to the coup might "put to rest the temptation to resort to the military, once and for all," McCoy said. "But we're now in a different context of democratic frameworks in Latin America. It doesn't mean a crisis won't arise. It's just the nature of the crises are different. And we haven't figured out how to deal with them."

The Obama administration's reaction reflects lessons learned in a 2002 coup against Chávez. The Bush administration was widely seen as tacitly welcoming that maneuver. But the coup collapsed within two days, and U.S. proclamations of support for democracy in the hemisphere suddenly rang hollow.

"We were on the wrong side. We paid for it in a host of ways, both bilaterally, in the region, but also in the OAS," said Peter Romero, a former assistant secretary of state in charge of Latin America.

Obama's declaration last week that the Honduran coup was "illegal" and a "terrible precedent" won him plaudits in a region where the U.S. government has been losing influence. Obama has been courting Latin America and the Caribbean, pledging an "equal partnership" with them at the hemispheric summit in April, instead of the United States playing its traditionally dominant role.

The U.S. government response to the Honduras crisis has been nuanced, however. It has not withdrawn its ambassador, and the administration did not grant Zelaya a White House meeting during his visits to Washington last week.

In a boost for U.S. policy, the OAS handled the crisis by turning to the Inter-American Democratic Charter it adopted in 2001. The charter commits countries to elections, press freedoms and human rights, but it has often been ignored. U.S. diplomats fought an uphill battle last month in an OAS assembly to have the document shape the decision on whether to readmit Cuba after a 47-year ban.

With the Honduran crisis, the OAS for the first time invoked a part of the charter that can suspend a country for an interruption of democratic order.

"This is a dramatic move by the OAS. It underscores its commitment to democracy," said a senior U.S. official who took part in the marathon OAS sessions last week.

Some critics question why the OAS did not do more in recent months when Zelaya plunged ahead with an illegal referendum, even firing the military chief for refusing to order soldiers to hand out ballots.

"There doesn't seem to be any political will to confront the caudillismo that is re-emerging in the hemisphere," said Roger Noriega, a senior policymaker on Latin America under the Bush administration, using the Spanish term for strongman tendencies. The Bush administration sought to give the OAS a bigger role in monitoring democratic practices, but member countries rejected it, concerned about interference in their internal affairs.

The region's strong reaction to the Honduran coup contrasts with its limited response to the situation in Venezuela. Over the past decade, Chávez has taken control of the courts, the armed forces and all oversight agencies; curtailed anti-government media; and launched criminal investigations of opposition politicians.

Ecuador has gone through a string of constitutional standoffs, with three presidents ousted between 1996 and 2006 by a combination of public protests and dissident soldiers and lawmakers. Nicaragua was stuck in political gridlock for months after local elections in 2008 that were considered fraudulent by the opposition and were criticized by international monitors.

"This is what we're facing in Latin America today -- as their democracies mature, we're seeing these conflicts between institutions of government," McCoy said. "We need to deal with that before they turn into these full-blown crises. We still have not learned to do that successfully."

Zelaya's Plane Not Allowed to Land in Honduras

By William Booth and Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 6, 2009

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, July 5 -- In a high-stakes standoff that played out in the skies over Honduras, the airplane carrying ousted president Manuel Zelaya was forced to circle the nation's main airport twice before flying away Sunday evening after coup leaders who deposed Zelaya blocked his landing with troops on the runway.

The turn-back of Zelaya's white jet left thousands of his supporters shouting in disappointment and anger. Minutes earlier, security forces fired tear gas and bullets at the crowd to keep demonstrators away from the airport, which was surrounded by soldiers and military vehicles.

The Red Cross said people 30 people were wounded in the melee, but there were conflicting reports about fatalities. An Associated Press photographer reported that one man was shot in the head.

Immediately after Zelaya's plane flew away, Honduran air force helicopters and aircraft appeared over Tegucigalpa, the capital. Zelaya, who had repeatedly vowed to return to his country, later landed in Managua, Nicaragua.

The aerial standoff, which took place at sunset, punctuated a crisis that has gripped this country of 7 million for the past week. The entire hemisphere, including the United States, has been drawn into a bitter political brawl in Honduras between the leftist Zelaya and his conservative opponents that shows no sign of ending soon.

Zelaya was deposed June 28 in a military-backed coup that has been condemned throughout the Americas but has frustrated diplomats in the Obama administration, who have not been able to persuade the Honduran coup leaders to back down. The leaders of the new Honduran government say Zelaya is guilty of treason for advocating a change to the constitution that would allow a president to serve more than one term. The coup backers also fear Zelaya's close ties with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

The government of Roberto Micheletti, the de facto president, had warned Sunday that it would refuse to allow Zelaya to land at any airport in Honduras and ordered the military to turn the plane back. A Honduran aviation official said the restrictions applied only to Zelaya and his entourage. But the order effectively shut down air traffic across the country for the day. Flights from all major carriers in and out of the nation were canceled.

Zelaya took off for Honduras from Washington's Dulles International Airport about 3 p.m., followed by a plane carrying the presidents of Argentina, Ecuador and Paraguay, as well as the secretary general of the Organization of American States, according to senior Obama administration officials.

Zelaya and the other presidents flew in different planes for safety reasons -- and because the other leaders were expecting Zelaya to mount his face-off over Tegucigalpa.

Zelaya was accompanied only by top advisers, a Nicaraguan priest and U.N. General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann. Also aboard his plane was Venezuelan state television network Telesur, which broadcast live interviews with Zelaya from 35,000 feet.

"Today I feel like I have sufficient spiritual strength, blessed with the blood of Christ, to be able to arrive there and raise the crucifix," he said in one live transmission.

He insisted that he remained commander in chief of the Honduran military and pleaded with troops to allow him to land.

As his plane circled the airport, Zelaya narrated his approach live on Telesur. "I am here with the two pilots. They are doing what is humanly possible to approach the landing strip. They do not want to land with obstacles in the way," he said. "What is happening here is a barbarity."

Thousands of his supporters surrounded the international airport in the Honduran capital. Hundreds of police officers and soldiers in riot gear kept the crowds away from the terminal.

As word spread that Zelaya's plane was coming, the crowds pressed against the police barricades. Soldiers or police fired tear gas, and shots were heard.

Asked why his government did not allow Zelaya to land and then arrest him, as officials have repeatedly threatened, Micheletti said that kind of publicity could incite violence.

"When Zelaya is prepared to turn himself in quietly, he can do so," he said.

Micheletti said in a news conference that Nicaraguan troops were massing at the border with Honduras.

"I want to ask the country of Nicaragua, our brothers, not to cross our borders, because we are ready to defend our country. If there are acts of war against our country, there will be bloodshed," he said.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega dismissed the charges of troop movement as "totally false." Critics of the de facto Micheletti government said the rumors of a war with Nicaragua were propaganda intended to consolidate power for the new regime by introducing an illusory external threat.

Pressed on the Nicaraguan confrontation, Micheletti conceded that "it is a small number of troops, without the support of their commanders, and they haven't crossed the border, and they are not in a position to strike against Honduras."

U.S. officials said they were not aware of any Nicaraguan troop movements toward its border.

Senior Obama administration officials, briefing reporters earlier Sunday, said that if Zelaya's plane were not allowed to land in Honduras, he probably would return to Washington for consultations with the OAS, possibly as early as Monday.

Zelaya, however, said he would try to return home Monday or Tuesday.

U.S. officials confirmed that Honduras's de facto government had sent a message to the OAS seeking to open negotiations, a move that one official described as positive.

"We think this could create the basis for continuing movement by the OAS on diplomatic initiatives," one official said. However, he said the hemispheric body would still insist that Zelaya be allowed to return and serve out the rest of his term, which ends in January.

Zelaya left Washington after the OAS voted in a late meeting Saturday to suspend Honduras, putting in jeopardy about $200 million in loans the Central American country receives from the Inter-American Development Bank. In addition, U.S. military and development aid has been "put on pause," the official said, and military cooperation has been limited.

Representatives of many countries at the OAS meeting -- including the United States -- urged Zelaya not to fly back to Honduras, saying the move was dangerous for him and his supporters.

"Given the situation in Honduras, we did not see how this was going to assist in creating a political space for dialogue. But at the same time, we respect the right of President Zelaya as a Honduran citizen, and the legal and constitutional leader of Honduras, to make his own decisions," the U.S. official said.

Sheridan reported from Washington.

U.S. Misread Scale of Honduran Rift

By William Booth and Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 5, 2009


TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, July 4 -- Although the U.S. government knew for months that Honduras was on the brink of political chaos, officials say they underestimated how fearful the Honduran elite and the military were of ousted President Manuel Zelaya and his ally President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.

Rumors were buzzing in the capital that the fight between Zelaya and his conservative opponents had reached the boiling point, but diplomatic officials said the Obama administration and its embassy were surprised when Honduran soldiers burst into the presidential palace last Sunday and removed Zelaya from power.

U.S. diplomats had been trying to broker a compromise and were speaking to both sides hours before the coup. For decades, Washington has trained the Honduran military, and senior U.S. officials say they did not think that the Honduran military would carry out a coup.

The overthrow, and the new Honduran government's vow to remain in power despite international condemnation, is President Obama's first test in a region that had grown distant from the United States.

The crisis also pits Obama's nuanced approach to diplomacy against that of an often bellicose rival, Chávez, who has taken center stage in the showdown by threatening to overthrow the government that took over from Zelaya.

The new Honduran leaders said Saturday that they will not yield to demands made by the Organization of American States to allow Zelaya to return to power. The caretaker president, Roberto Micheletti, threatened that Zelaya will be arrested if he returns Sunday as promised alongside Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and other Latin American leaders.

The Catholic Church appealed for calm. Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez went on the airwaves to beg Zelaya to "give us room for a peaceful resolution" and warned that, if Zelaya comes back Sunday, there could be "a bloodbath."

A Shift to the Left

When Zelaya, 56, a wealthy rancher whose family made its fortune from timber, was elected president in 2005, he was a middle-of-the-road populist from one of Honduras's two major parties. But as his presidency progressed, Zelaya veered to the left and was in constant conflict with business groups, lawmakers from his own party, the news media and the army.

"Over the last year, Zelaya's positions moved to the left. He pushed social programs and more attention for the poor who have no work," said Giuseppe Magno, the outgoing Italian ambassador. "This switch was not in line with the program he was voted in on. He was too close to Ortega and Chávez, a position the middle and upper classes did not appreciate."

But Zelaya saw it differently, often telling crowds that Honduras needed a fundamental shift to deal with poverty so grinding that 40 percent of the population lives on $2 a day or less. Honduras is, in fact, the third-poorest country in the hemisphere, and many residents continue to resent the often painful past involvement of the United States.

In announcing his country's affiliation with a Chávez-led alliance, Zelaya told crowds that it was designed to "make Hondurans a free people." He said that in joining the pact, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, Honduras did "not have to ask permission of any imperialists."

Zelaya increasingly spoke of the two nations of Honduras, one hopelessly poor, the other wealthy and uncaring. He began to argue for "people power," a kind of direct popular democracy.

When he toured the countryside, he staged rallies to ask the people what they wanted, and promised new bridges and clinics on the spot, giving away 100 Venezuelan tractors to farmers and speaking against an unnamed oligarchy he called the enemy of the people.

Zelaya angered the business community when he raised the minimum monthly wage for Hondurans by 60 percent. Many companies responded by firing workers. Other businesses ignored the decree.

When U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens arrived last year, Zelaya postponed the ceremony allowing the newly arrived diplomat to present his credentials. He fought with his Congress, insisting that lawmakers accept his nominees to the Supreme Court. He refused to sign the budget and he stalled on dozens of bills approved by the Congress. All along, Zelaya grew closer to Latin America's leftist leaders, especially Chávez. He traveled frequently to Venezuela, where he stood beside Chávez as he gave fiery speeches railing against capitalists.

But Adolfo Facussé, a business leader who had been friends with Zelaya, said the president at first explained his alliance with Venezuela in pragmatic, economic terms.

"He said a year ago that he was interested in ALBA," said Facussé, speaking of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, which included Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua. "I said it's mostly an anti-American enterprise, and he said that's not what interests me. There is assistance being offered."

Facussé said that he invited Venezuelan Embassy officials to meet with Honduran industrialists, adding that it became clear to him and other businessmen that Honduras could benefit from Venezuela's largess, including the sale of fuel on preferential terms, a line of credit from Caracas and outright gifts, such as tractors.

"I reviewed the deal, and I thought it was good," Facussé said of Zelaya's plan to bring Honduras closer to Chávez and his cheap fuel.

'So Brazen, So Upfront'

European diplomats who know Zelaya and how he operates described him as a populist nationalist, not an leftist ideologue.

Those familiar with the growing crisis said concern about Chávez by political opponents was driven by an outsize fear that Venezuela had diabolical designs on Honduras -- and would have implanted Chávez's economic system and style of governance had Zelaya been allowed to carry out his referendum.

"It was the same scheme Chávez had in Venezuela," said Benjamin Bogran, the new minister of industry and commerce. "Chávez considers Honduras to be inside his orbit."

Elizabeth Zuñiga, a member of Congress and leader of the Nationalist Party, said: "Little by little, step by step, he was looking at the South Americans for help and guidance. They were his new best friends." Zuñiga, who supports the ouster, said, "What I believe we were seeing was the evolution of a democratic dictatorship."

Armando Sarmiento, a member of the ousted Zelaya cabinet, who is in hiding, said the fear of Chávez and his influence on Zelaya lead to the coup. "The right wing believes the myth that President Zelaya was going to seek an extra term. But this was not true."

Sarmiento pointed out that Zelaya wanted to help the country's poor, not nationalize industries or create a socialist economy. "President Zelaya had very strong arguments with these people, what the president called the oligarchy, the media, the special interests. There were campaigns of hatred against the president."

Doris Gutiérrez, a member of Congress who opposes the coup, said: "The sector here that supports the move against Zelaya has never been so open, so brazen, so upfront before. The situation is going to become more dangerous."

'The Political Nucleus'

Analysts familiar with Zelaya's cabinet said he was influenced by a small group of close aides. They included Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas, viewed as an ally of Ortega's Sandinista government in Nicaragua and daughter of a popular progressive politician who fled the country after a military coup in 1963. Others included Milton Jiménez, a former foreign minister who analysts said had the most influence on Zelaya; Enrique Flores Lanza, Zelaya's minister of the presidency and considered the most radical of his aides; and Aristides Mejía, Zelaya's vice president.

"They were the political nucleus, the ideologues of Manuel Zelaya," said Jorge Yllescas, an economist who is a member of Civic Union, a coalition of 60 groups opposed to Zelaya. "They were the ones who really had the ideological line. When Mel got to the presidency, he was liberal, but within a year he had a different tendency from his own ideology."

But the same diplomats are puzzled about exactly what Zelaya was after in his attempt to rewrite the constitution. The boiling point came when Zelaya began to push for a national survey, a kind of nonbinding referendum for a constitutional assembly that could led to a new law that allowed a president to serve more than one term. But Honduras's lengthy, sometimes contradictory document contains language that makes a person a traitor for even suggesting such a change.

As Zelaya pressed ahead with his plan to hold the vote last Sunday, the day of the coup, the leader of the Honduran military, Gen. Romeo Vásquez, balked, because the Supreme Court told him that the referendum was illegal. Zelaya tried to fire Vásquez, which further riled the military.

"Look, we're democratic and here we respect the ideologies of other countries," said Gabriela Nuñez, the new finance minister. "But we do not want to change our system of government."

Honduran Crisis Offers Venezuala's Chavez Some Domestic, International Openings

By Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, July 2, 2009

CARACAS, Venezuela, July 1 -- An ally was in trouble, toppled in a military coup. And the television cameras were rolling.

The ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya could not have been better scripted for another Latin American leader who has taken center stage: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. The populist firebrand has been Zelaya's most forceful advocate and could win international accolades if the Honduran eventually succeeds in regaining power.

Ever since Zelaya was hustled into exile Sunday by the military, Chávez has been a whirlwind of activity. Using Venezuela's oil-fueled influence to organize summits at which he has been the central speaker, he is spreading his vision of Latin America and calling for Hondurans to rise up against those who deposed Zelaya.

"I just cannot stay here with my arms crossed," Chávez declared in one of many speeches calling for the new Honduran government to step aside.

Luis Vicente León, a pollster and political analyst in Caracas, said the crisis is "perfect" for Chávez "because he's not defending a tyrant; he's defending an elected president who was overthrown. It's showtime for the showman."

The extent of Chávez's influence on the Honduran crisis is unclear, many analysts said. But with Venezuelan state media publicizing his every pronouncement, some analysts say he is using the crisis to shift his countrymen's attention from domestic problems he has struggled with at a time when his popularity has been slipping.

Indeed, Zelaya, 56, is on the surface an unlikely benefactor of Venezuela's support. He is a rancher and logger from Honduras's upper classes who came late to Chávez's alliance of left-leaning nations, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, which includes Nicaragua, Bolivia, Cuba and others.

But Chávez has characterized Zelaya as a leftist fighting for the poor and said those who overthrew him hail from an oligarchy intent on maintaining the status quo. Chávez has even taken to mockingly calling Roberto Micheletti, the lawmaker who replaced Zelaya as president, a "gorilla."

"I swear as president: We are going to make your life impossible," Chávez said in one speech, directing his ire at Micheletti.

Chávez has also said that the CIA could have had a hand in Zelaya's ouster. On Monday, Chávez gave a long speech to fellow Latin American leaders, recounting U.S. interference in the region and his survival of a brief coup in 2002. The speech was televised by government stations here and CNN's Spanish-language service.

Milos Alcalay, who was Venezuela's ambassador to the United Nations until breaking with Chávez in 2004, said the Venezuelan president has quickly taken advantage of the crisis to cast himself as the leader of progressive countries battling the dark forces of Latin America's establishment. Alcalay said that, for Chávez, there is no middle ground or nuance in his approach to the Honduran crisis -- nor recognition that Zelaya had erred by pushing a nonbinding constitutional referendum opposed by the courts and his own party.

"He is, in essence, defending his ideological project, and the rest of the countries follow along," Alcalay said, referring mainly to Venezuela's closest allies. "He is following the vision of leadership set by Simón Bolívar, a mantle that he believes he now carries. It's megalomania on the international stage."

With the United States, Europe and big regional players such as Brazil and Mexico condemning the coup, Chávez's role in propelling Zelaya's possible comeback may be peripheral, some political analysts said. Indeed, Carlos Sosa, Zelaya's ambassador at the Organization of American States, said the demands made on Micheletti by other Latin American leaders have been vital.

"Hugo Chávez's role is like that of other leaders," such as Mexico's Felipe Calderón, Chile's Michelle Bachelet, Argentina's Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Obama, Sosa said in a telephone interview.

Mark Schneider of the International Crisis Group, a Washington-based policy organization that studies countries in crisis, said: "Chávez is clearly taking advantage of the opportunity, but he is not calling the shots."

Going by the Venezuelan state media, though, it would be hard to conclude that Chávez is not spearheading the effort. Nor is there any mention of the contradiction of Chávez demanding that the Hondurans adhere to democratic principles when his closest ally is communist Cuba. Although he labels Micheletti's government a military dictatorship, and decries the violence against protesters, state television makes no mention of a botched coup led by Chávez in 1992 in which dozens died.

León, the pollster, said the coverage is part of a larger strategy that helps the government deflect attention from grinding domestic problems it has been unable to address, including rampant crime and a troubled economy.

León said Chávez has been searching for a lift. The polling company León helps run, Datanalisis, said that more than 60 percent of Venezuelans supported Chávez in February, when he won a referendum on a constitutional amendment that permits him to run for reelection indefinitely.

But the popularity rating has slipped to slightly more than 50 percent in recent weeks, León said, as Venezuelans have become increasingly worried by what he called Chávez's "radicalization." Polls show that 75 percent oppose the government's expropriations targeting landholders and big companies. An additional 65 percent oppose the president's efforts to wrest power from local governments led by political opponents, León said.

"He is talking for the benefit of the local population because it allows him to put people's minds, for at least a while, on other issues and not their own problems," León said.

Still, Leon and other analysts said Chávez is often most formidable -- and effective -- on the international stage.

Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a policy group in Washington, said Chávez's attempts at leading his allies in an effort to reinstate a deposed friend dovetail effectively with his frequent invocation of images of coups against leftist leaders.

"He puts his money where his mouth is, and there's a grudging respect for that," Birns said.

Honduras Targets Protesters With Emergency Decree

By William Booth and Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, July 2, 2009

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, July 1 -- The new Honduran government clamped down on street protests and news organizations Wednesday as lawmakers passed an emergency decree that limits public gatherings following the military-led coup that removed President Manuel Zelaya from office.

The decree also allows for suspects to be detained for 24 hours and continues a nighttime curfew. Media outlets complained that the government was ordering them not to report any news or opinion that could "incite" the public.

A dozen former ministers from the Zelaya government remain in hiding, some hunkered down in foreign embassies, fearing arrest. News organizations here remain polarized. Journalists working for small independent media -- or for those loyal to Zelaya -- have reported being harassed by officials.

Before emergency measures were tightened, thousands of protesters rallied Wednesday to urge Zelaya's return. They were answered by counterdemonstrations in support of the new government. Local radio reported that several bombs were found but safely defused.

Zelaya vowed that he would come back to Honduras over the weekend, while the newly appointed interim president, Roberto Micheletti, repeated in a news conference Wednesday "that when he comes into the country, he will be arrested."

Asked whether Honduras could withstand international isolation and risk losing the foreign aid that keeps the impoverished nation running, Micheletti said, "You know that the Europeans are not going to cut the aid to our country, nor will the Americans."

But on Wednesday, the Inter-American Development Bank did suspend aid, after a similar move by the World Bank. As the impasse continued in Honduras, diplomats at the Organization of American States struggled to organize a mission that would restore Zelaya to power and avoid a clash between him and the military that ousted him.

After nearly 12 hours of debate, the OAS approved a resolution shortly before dawn Wednesday that called on its secretary general, José Miguel Insulza, to undertake every effort to reinstate Zelaya. If Insulza did not succeed within 72 hours, Honduras would be suspended from the OAS, the main forum for political cooperation in the hemisphere.

The passage of the resolution prompted Zelaya to postpone a trip home he had scheduled for Thursday, which diplomats had feared could sharply escalate tensions in the Central American country.

"I am going to return to Honduras. I am the president," Zelaya told reporters Wednesday. But he added that he did not want to complicate the diplomatic efforts of the OAS over the next few days.

Insulza faces an unusually complex task in trying to reverse the coup. Normally, he would negotiate with the de facto government for the return of the deposed president. But OAS members, furious about the military ouster, do not want him to talk to Micheletti, for fear that would legitimize the new regime.

Even hard-core coup backers here say they were surprised how quickly and forcefully the Latin American countries condemned their actions.

"This coup is a mess," said the outgoing Italian ambassador, Giuseppe Magno. "Mistakes have been made on all sides, and the only solution is for a compromise. We hear that different parties are talking among themselves. That is good. The solution has to come from the Hondurans themselves. It cannot be imposed on them."

Honduras is finding itself increasingly isolated. France, Spain, Italy, Chile and Colombia began recalling their ambassadors Wednesday. The Pentagon suspended joint military operations with Honduras.

"What provoked an enormous indignation among Latin Americans, above all, was the military coup," said one diplomat involved in the planning at the OAS, referring to the way soldiers seized Zelaya at dawn and bundled him onto a plane bound for Costa Rica.

Insulza, of the OAS, is trying to establish contact with people who are not closely allied with either Zelaya or Micheletti to build a compromise, the diplomat said. It was not clear when he would fly to Honduras.

The coup is the first big test for the Obama administration's policy of seeking a more diplomatic and collegial role in a region traditionally dominated by the United States. The military action has been roundly condemned internationally, including by President Obama. But U.S. diplomats have sought to prevent a response that is so tough it leads to bloodshed.

U.S. officials said Wednesday that they would hold off formally designating the Honduran military action a "coup" until Insulza reports back to the OAS on Monday. Such a move is significant, because it would lead to the cutoff of millions of dollars in military and development aid.

However, the Pentagon said Wednesday that it had decided to reduce military contact with the Honduran armed forces. "We're still reviewing and making decisions" about what cooperation would be affected, said a spokesman for U.S. Southern Command, José Ruiz.

The U.S. military also has cut off contact since Sunday with those who orchestrated the coup, officials said. The United States has a contingent of about 700 military personnel at Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras, focused on disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping and counternarcotics activities in Honduras and the region.

Honduras also is facing a freeze on petroleum exports from Venezuela and a halt in trade from other Central American countries.

"In the 21st century, these kinds of coups don't last long. It is very hard for a country like Honduras to maintain this kind of position in the face of overwhelming rejection by the world, and especially the region and its major trading partners," a senior U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities.

Zelaya is a close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who led a bloc of leftist governments in pressing the OAS to suspend Honduras immediately and support Zelaya's quick return to the country -- even at the risk of his being arrested. The governments believe that unless there is a tough response to the coup, their own leftist governments could be threatened, diplomats said.

Venezuela's ambassador to the OAS, Roy Chaderton, described the approach as "diplomatic asphyxiation." The Venezuelan government provided a plane for Zelaya's trips Tuesday to the United Nations and the OAS.

Sheridan reported from Washington.

U.N. General Assembly, OAS Back Honduran Zelaya

By Mary Beth Sheridan and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Scrambling to hold on to his presidency, deposed Honduran leader Manuel Zelaya pleaded his case in the United States yesterday, winning a rare unanimous vote of support from the U.N. General Assembly but failing to get an audience with top Obama administration officials.

Zelaya also gained crucial support at the Organization of American States, whose members debated into the night on launching a diplomatic initiative to resolve the crisis. They were also considering calling on the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank to cut off all loans to the Honduran government.

In New York, Zelaya told the General Assembly that Honduras was "reverting to the age of dictatorship. Repression has now been established in the country."

After the meeting, he vowed to return to Honduras on Thursday with a delegation of dignitaries, including the presidents of Argentina and Ecuador, the secretary general of the OAS and the president of the General Assembly.

Diplomats last night tried to persuade Zelaya not to make the trip. Some analysts worried that the crisis could be escalating.

"If he [Zelaya] goes back with no one laying the groundwork . . . it's going to be a huge clash," said Jennifer McCoy, director of the Carter Center's Americas program, who attended an urgent OAS general assembly last night on the matter.

Zelaya was detained by soldiers Sunday morning and expelled from the country. A close ally of populist President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Zelaya had clashed with the Honduran Congress, the military and the Supreme Court over his plans for a referendum that many alleged was an effort to change the constitution in order to gain another term as president.

The U.S. government continues to recognize Zelaya as president, rather than a replacement sworn in by the Honduran Congress, Roberto Micheletti. But the Obama administration did not grant Zelaya a high-level meeting at the White House or State Department.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton could not meet with Zelaya because she was away from work recuperating from a fractured elbow. "This is just something that came up today," he said of the Honduran's decision to fly to Washington.

But the low-key treatment of Zelaya appeared to reflect an effort by the Obama administration to preserve some room for diplomatic maneuver. The U.S. government is working with regional leaders to resolve the crisis, but it has outsize influence with the Honduran elite because of its close military ties and its economic clout.

Zelaya was expected to meet with the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, Thomas A. Shannon Jr., and the top Latin America official on the National Security Council, Dan Restrepo, during his stay in Washington.

If Zelaya felt slighted, he didn't show it. Asked about allegations from some leftist politicians that the United States favored the coup, he said: "I have listened to President Obama. It is not only that he condemns the event, but he has demanded the restoration of the president. I have also heard the ambassador of the U.S. in Tegucigalpa. He has taken the same position against the coup powers."

The U.N. General Assembly unanimously condemned the coup yesterday afternoon and demanded the "immediate and unconditional restoration of the legitimate and constitutional government" of Zelaya.

The action, while not legally binding, provided a show of unity at the United Nations in responding to an international crisis, bringing the United States together with stridently anti-American governments in Latin America such as Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Zelaya took to the General Assembly podium to condemn the coup as an act of "barbarity" by a "small group of usurpers."

In a lengthy address, he portrayed himself as a champion of the poor who had been brought down by a clique of conservative military and economic elites who resented his attempts to improve the living standards for impoverished Hondurans.

He denied allegations that he had prepared the referendum to pave the way for another run for president, saying he planned to step down after his mandate ends in January.

He added that the new government's allegation that he had engaged in wrongdoing was unfounded. "I have been accused of being a populist. I've been accused of being a communist," he said, but added that he had not had an opportunity to defend himself.

"Nobody has told me what my crime is, what my error is," he said.

Zelaya presented a detailed account of the army raid on his home, saying he had been rousted from his sleep by gunfire and confronted by soldiers as he sought to alert a local reporter and others on his cellphone.

Lynch reported from the United Nations.

Showdown Looms in Honduras: Rival Vows to Arrest Ousted President on His Return

By William Booth
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, July 1, 2009

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, June 30 -- The two presidents of Honduras were headed on a collision course Tuesday, as the president ousted by a coup vowed to return and his replacement threatened to arrest him the minute he lands.

Neither side seemed willing to bend in a looming confrontation that is the first test of the Obama administration's diplomacy and clout in the hemisphere.

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, removed from office Sunday in a military-led coup, addressed the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Tuesday and said he would fly back to Honduras on Thursday, accompanied by the head of the Organization of American States.

But the newly appointed interim president of Honduras, Roberto Micheletti, warned that if Zelaya returns, he will be arrested, tried and sent to prison for years. Micheletti's claim on the presidency is seen as illegitimate by the international community.

"If he comes back to our country, he would have to face our tribunals and our trials and our laws," Micheletti said in an interview with The Washington Post at his residence in the hills overlooking the capital. "He would be sent to jail. For sure, he would go to prison."

Micheletti said he did not see any way to negotiate with the Obama administration and international diplomats seeking a return of Zelaya to power because, Micheletti insisted, Zelaya was guilty of crimes against the country.

"No, no compromise, because if he tries to come back or anyone tries to bring him back, he will be arrested," Micheletti said.

At the United Nations, Zelaya told the assembly, "I'm going back to calm people down. I'm going to try to open a dialogue and put things in order."

Zelaya, whose politics moved to the left during his three years in office, has become close to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who has been the most vocal and belligerent critic of the coup, threatening to "overthrow" the new government.

"When I'm back, people are going to say, 'Commander, we're at your service,' and the army will have to correct itself," Zelaya told the assembly. "There's no other possibility."

Yet other possibilities do exist. Thousands of Hondurans rallied Tuesday in the central plaza of the capital, Tegucigalpa, to support the forced removal of Zelaya and to shout their support for the armed forces.

"It would be a disgrace to have him back in the country," said Emilio Larach, owner of a large building materials company here, who attended the rally to denounce Zelaya. "He created hate among the Honduran people. Everyone in the government was against him."

As the rally was underway, a small, anxious but growing group of Honduran lawmakers sought to build a coalition to endorse a compromise measure to allow for Zelaya's return. According to one participant in the talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of derailing the negotiations, the compromise would include a general amnesty for everyone involved, including the coup leaders and members of the military, while Zelaya would have to abandon his plan to hold a referendum that could lead to a change in the Honduran constitution.

Critics have charged that Zelaya in his nonbinding referendum was seeking a change in the constitution that would allow him to serve for more than one term as president.

The lawmakers seeking a compromise, however, have not yet begun to work with U.S. diplomats here, according to U.S. Embassy press officer Chantal Dalton. "They haven't been in contact with us," Dalton said. "This is smoke and signals. Nobody here has heard anything."

At the United Nations, Zelaya said he would agree not to push his referendum. "I'm not going to hold a constitutional assembly," he said. "And if I'm offered the chance to stay in power, I won't. I'm going to serve my four years."

Zelaya, a wealthy rancher and timber baron, said he would go back to his farm after his term ends in January. "I come from the countryside, and I'm going to go back to the countryside," he said.

The streets of Tegucigalpa were calm Tuesday, though the city is awash in rumors that Venezuela is marshaling forces for a possible invasion.

Micheletti cautioned the world that his army was on alert and prepared to defend the country. Honduran reservists have been called to their barracks to donate blood.

"Our army also consists of 7.5 million people prepared to defend freedom and liberty," said Micheletti, who stressed that Hondurans are a peaceful people.

Media outlets friendly to Zelaya have been shut down, and some reporters are hiding -- as are a dozen members of Zelaya's former cabinet. Most Hondurans must rely on newspapers and television stations that support the coup. Cable news outlets such as CNN en Español have occasionally been blacked out, though it is still possible to get outside news via satellite.

Micheletti and his supporters insist that the world does not understand what happened here. They say that Zelaya was found guilty by a Supreme Court tribunal, that his arrest by the military was legal and that Zelaya was attempting to circumvent Honduras's Congress and courts by staging the referendum.

The interim president said he thought his country could hold out long enough for world opinion to turn its way. Venezuela has said it would suspend oil shipments, and Honduras's neighbors -- El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua -- announced that they would stop overland trade.

"That is why I want to make a call to our allies in the United States, that they should stick with us at this very important moment in the life of the country," Micheletti said. "The economy of our country is completely destroyed -- because of the acts of the former government. If aid [from the United States and Europe] keeps coming, we will show that every little penny that we borrowed will be spent for the people of this country."

Micheletti promised that Honduras would hold presidential elections in November and that a new president would take office in January. Micheletti, who is a leader of the Liberal Party, the same party that Zelaya belongs to, vowed that he would not run for president.

Micheletti also said that Zelaya is a master at bending world opinion his way. Another source in the government here said that Zelaya actually was wearing a crisply ironed dress shirt when he was sent into exile in Costa Rica, but that he changed to a white T-shirt to show how he was hustled out of his official residence at dawn while still in his pajamas.

Senior Obama officials said that an overthrow of the Zelaya government had been brewing for days and that they worked behind the scenes to stop the military and its conservative, wealthy backers from pushing Zelaya out. That the United States failed to stop the coup gives anti-U.S. leaders such as Chávez room to use events in Honduras to push their vision for the region.

Zelaya is an unlikely hero for the left, coming from Honduras's wealthy classes and joining a leftist bloc of Latin American countries several years after he had been elected president. But his ouster has changed the dynamics.

"Zelaya didn't have a strong constituency," said Larry Birns, director of the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a policy group. "And this has become a recruiting mechanism for Zelaya. It's the best thing that could have happened to Zelaya because it's allowed him to generate support."

Carlos Sosa, Honduras's ambassador to the OAS, said in a telephone interview that on Thursday he would likely join Zelaya on a flight that would leave from a U.S. airport -- he wouldn't say which one -- and land in Tegucigalpa. "Everyone wants to go," he said, noting that the secretary general of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza, and other leaders would be on that flight.

Correspondent Juan Forero in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.

U.S. Condemns Coup in Honduras but Makes No Firm Demands

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 30, 2009

President Obama said yesterday that the military ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was illegal and could set a "terrible precedent," but Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States government was holding off on formally branding it a coup, which would trigger a cutoff of millions of dollars in aid to the impoverished Central American country.

Clinton's statement appeared to reflect the U.S. government's caution amid fast-moving events in Honduras, where Zelaya was detained and expelled by the military on Sunday. The United States has joined other countries throughout the hemisphere in condemning the coup. But leaders face a difficult task in trying to restore Zelaya to office in a nation where the National Congress, military and Supreme Court have accused him of attempting a power grab through a special referendum.

Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, said the situation presented a dilemma for the United States and other countries. Zelaya is "fighting with all the institutions in the country," Hakim said. "He's in no condition really to govern. At the same time, to stand by and allow him to be pushed out by the military reverses a course of 20 years."

U.S. officials had tried ahead of time to avert the coup, warning the Honduran military and politicians against suspending democratic order. The U.S. ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, sheltered one of Zelaya's children to prevent him from being harmed, according to Carlos Sosa, Honduras's ambassador to the Organization of American States.

But the Obama administration has had cool relations with Zelaya, a close ally of Venezuela's anti-American president, Hugo Chávez. While U.S. officials say they continue to recognize Zelaya as president, they have not indicated they are willing to use the enormous U.S. clout in the country to force his return.

Asked whether it was a U.S. priority to see Zelaya reinstalled, Clinton said: "We haven't laid out any demands that we're insisting on, because we're working with others on behalf of our ultimate objectives."

John D. Negroponte, a former senior State Department official and ambassador to Honduras, said Clinton's remarks appeared to reflect U.S. reluctance to see Zelaya returned unconditionally to power.

"I think she wants to preserve some leverage to try and get Zelaya to back down from his insistence on a referendum," he said.

Zelaya clashed with the Honduran Congress, Supreme Court and military in recent weeks, particularly over his promotion of a referendum that might have permitted him to run for another four-year term. The Congress and Supreme Court said the referendum was illegal.

The Congress overwhelmingly voted to depose Zelaya after he had been forcibly removed. Lawmakers then named a new president, Roberto Micheletti, from the same party.

Obama repeated yesterday that the United States viewed Zelaya as Honduras's president and that "the coup was not legal."

"It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition, rather than democratic elections," he told reporters after a meeting with Colombian President Álvaro Uribe.

Clinton told reporters that the situation in Honduras had "evolved into a coup" but that the United States was "withholding any formal legal determination" characterizing it that way.

"We're assessing what the final outcome of these actions will be," she said. "Much of our assistance is conditioned on the integrity of the democratic system. But if we were able to get to a status quo that returned to the rule of law and constitutional order within a relatively short period of time, I think that would be a good outcome."

The Obama administration has pledged to work more closely with Latin America and not dictate policy in its traditional back yard. But the United States has several points of leverage: It is Honduras's biggest trading partner, and President Obama has requested $68 million in development and military aid for 2010. Portions of that aid, which are provided directly to the government, would be cut off in the event of a coup. Congressional officials said last night they were not sure exactly how much that amounted to. Honduras also is a recipient of a five-year, $215 million Millennium Challenge grant that is conditioned on the country remaining a democracy.

The United States also has a close military relationship with Honduras. Hundreds of Honduran officers participate in U.S. military training programs each year, more than most other Western Hemisphere countries.

Among those who have attended such training is the senior military officer of Honduras, Gen. Romeo Vasquez, who was dismissed by Zelaya prior to the coup. After that dismissal, other senior Honduran military leaders resigned, including the Air Force commander, Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo.

Vasquez attended the Pentagon-run School of the Americas in 1976 and 1984, and Suazo attended in 1996, according to Army records of graduates obtained by a watchdog group. A spokesman for the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, which replaced the School of the Americas in 2001, said the records of graduates obtained by the group, School of Americas Watch, are accurate.

"We have a strong military relationship with them and in . . . military exchange training that takes place, we emphasize civilian control of the military" as well as human rights and the rule of law, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

A contingent of about 600 U.S. military personnel is based at Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras as part of Joint Task Force Bravo, which mainly supports disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping and counternarcotics activities in Honduras and the region.

The Organization of American States has summoned the hemisphere's foreign ministers to Washington to discuss the crisis. Clinton said the United States is pushing for a delegation to be sent to Honduras after the session.

The United States has been a strong backer of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, a document signed by OAS members in 2001 that commits them to observe the "right to democracy." Violators can be suspended from the organization.

OAS members issued a statement calling for "the immediate, safe and unconditional return" of Zelaya to the presidency.

Staff writer Ann Scott Tyson contributed to this report.

New Honduran Leadership Flouts Worldwide Censure

By William Booth and Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 30, 2009

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, June 29 -- Honduras's new government vowed Monday to remain in power despite growing worldwide condemnation of the military-led coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

As leaders from across Latin America met in Nicaragua to demand that Zelaya be returned to office, hundreds of protesters in the Honduran capital were met with tear gas fired by soldiers surrounding the presidential palace. The new government ordered the streets cleared, and shopkeepers barricaded their doors. Residents rushed home as a 9 p.m. curfew was enforced.

Although the United States and its allies condemned the coup, the most vocal opposition -- along with threats of military intervention -- came from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who led a summit of leftist allies in Nicaragua that demanded Zelaya be reinstated. The Venezuelan populist, who led a failed coup in his own country in 1992 and survived one in 2002, said the Honduran people should rebel against the new government.

"We are saying to the coup organizers, we are ready to support a rebellion of the people of Honduras," Chávez said. "This coup will be defeated."

Chávez spent Monday in the meeting in Managua, attended by the leaders of Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua and other countries allied with Honduras. "We have to be very firm, very firm. This cannot end until José Manuel Zelaya is returned to power, without condition," he said.

Three of Honduras's neighbors -- Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua -- said Monday that they would suspend overland trade with Honduras for 48 hours. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, reading a statement, said the suspension was a "first step" against the new government.

Chávez also said his country is cutting off oil shipments to Honduras, which has received Venezuelan petroleum under beneficial terms.

Earlier, Chávez had pledged to "overthrow" Roberto Micheletti, a Honduran congressional leader and member of Zelaya's party who was sworn in as president Sunday afternoon.

On Monday, Micheletti responded to Chávez's threat on Honduran radio, saying, "Nobody scares us."

Chávez's growing belligerence marks a clear challenge to the Obama administration to reverse the coup or suffer a loss of clout in the region.

Senior Obama officials said an overthrow of the Zelaya government had been brewing for days -- and they worked behind the scenes to stop the military and its conservative, wealthy backers from pushing Zelaya out. That the United States failed to stop the coup gives antagonists such as Chávez room to use events to push their vision for the region.

At dawn on Sunday, heavily armed troops burst into the presidential palace here, broke through the door of Zelaya's bedroom and roused him from bed. He told reporters guns were pointed at him and he was escorted from his official residence in pajamas. Later he was put on a Honduran military plane and flown into exile in Costa Rica.

Honduran leaders who supported his removal say Zelaya had overstepped his presidential powers by calling for a nonbinding referendum on how long a president can serve here. His critics say Zelaya was intent on using his populist rhetoric to maintain power after his term officially was to end in January.

Honduran military helicopters circled the capital all afternoon, as Micheletti met with his supporters and began to make appointments for a new cabinet, a signal that organizers of the military-led ouster of Zelaya were planning to hold firm.

"I am sure that 80 to 90 percent of the Honduran population is happy with what happened," Micheletti said, adding he had not spoken to any other Latin American head of state.

The coup appears to have been well organized. Sunday morning, as Zelaya was being ousted, local TV and radio stations went off the air. Cellphone and land-line communications remain jammed, and many numbers offered only a busy signal.

Zelaya, speaking to reporters in Managua, demanded that he be restored to power but said that violence was not an option.

He also said that many Hondurans had no idea about the worldwide condemnation of the coup because private television stations in his country blacked out coverage, playing cartoons and soap operas.

By early Monday night, another meeting of Latin American nations had begun in Managua, with such heavyweights as Mexico and the secretary general of the Organization of American States, José Miguel Insulza, criticizing Zelaya's opponents.

Across the Americas and Europe, leaders called for Zelaya's reinstatement. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, said his government would not recognize a Honduran administration not headed by Zelaya. "We in Latin America can no longer accept someone trying to resolve his problem through the means of a coup," Lula said.

The United Nations condemned the coup and said Micheletti should make way for Zelaya's return. Zelaya was invited to address the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. Zelaya also said he planned to return to Honduras and reclaim the presidency.

The ouster in the poor, agricultural country of 7 million people revived memories of coup-driven turmoil in Latin America. Zelaya, who has spoken frequently with reporters, has been quick to mention the political chaos that military overthrows have traditionally caused.

"Are we going to go back to the military being outside of the control of the civil state?" Zelaya said. "Everything that is supposed to be an achievement of the 21st century is at risk in Honduras."

Forero reported from Caracas, Venezuela.

Honduran Military Sends President Into Exile; Supportive Congress Names Successor

By William Booth and Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 29, 2009

MEXICO CITY, June 28 -- Soldiers stormed the presidential palace in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa at dawn Sunday and forced President Manuel Zelaya into exile in Costa Rica. The military-led ouster sparked a regional crisis that thrusts the impoverished banana-growing country onto the international stage and revives painful memories of coup-fueled turmoil in Latin America.

The coup was condemned throughout the Americas. President Obama joined other regional leaders in calling for a peaceful return of Zelaya to office.

But the Honduran National Congress defiantly announced that Zelaya was out, and its members named congressional leader Roberto Micheletti the new president on Sunday afternoon.

The Honduran Supreme Court also supported the removal of Zelaya, saying that the military was acting in defense of democracy.

Zelaya, a leftist ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, told reporters that he was woken by shouts and gunshots early Sunday. While still in his pajamas, the Honduran president said, soldiers took him to a waiting air force plane that flew him to Costa Rica. The coup was mostly peaceful, though tanks and soldiers occupied streets in Tegucigalpa.

Senior administration officials in Washington said Sunday that U.S. diplomats had been negotiating behind the scenes to stop the coup. "We have worked hard to avoid this," a senior Obama official said in a background briefing with reporters. "This has been brewing a long time."

U.S. officials said the Honduran military, which has traditionally maintained close ties with the United States, had broken off contact with U.S. diplomats after the coup. Obama is due to meet Álvaro Uribe, president of regional power Colombia, at the White House on Monday, and Honduras is now likely to be high on the agenda.

Military coups in Latin America have become rare, but Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner said Sunday's events in Honduras reminded her of "the worst years in Latin America's history," when coups were common and often led to cycles of violence. The coup draws the Obama administration into its first real diplomatic test in the hemisphere, in a country where people have complex feelings toward the United States. The Reagan administration's contra war against the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua was fought from Honduras, one of the poorest countries in Latin America, whose fragile economy is supported by remittances from Hondurans living in the United States.

Zelaya was removed from office as Hondurans prepared to vote Sunday in a nonbinding referendum asking them whether they would support a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution. Zelaya's critics said he wanted to use the referendum to open the door to reelection after his term ends in January 2010, an assertion that he denied.

The referendum -- which U.S. officials described as more of a "survey" than a true vote -- was condemned by broad swaths of Honduran society as an obvious power grab. The Honduran Supreme Court called the referendum unconstitutional, and leaders of Zelaya's own party denounced the measure.

The scene in Tegucigalpa on Sunday was chaotic, and it was unclear what would happen next. As Zelaya condemned his forced ouster at a news conference in Costa Rica, the Honduran Congress voted to accept what it claimed was Zelaya's resignation letter.

Zelaya denied that he had signed such a letter. A senior U.S. official said, "It is hard to take that letter seriously given how President Zelaya was removed from office."

Zelaya said he was still the legal leader. He said he would attend a meeting of regional leaders Monday in Nicaragua to seek a return to office. But in taking the oath of office as president, Micheletti characterized Zelaya's removal as a patriotic measure designed to restore democracy.

"I did not get here through the ignominy of a coup d'etat," Micheletti told lawmakers after taking the oath of office. "I give thanks to God for this beautiful opportunity."

In Venezuela, Chávez, speaking on national television, called the overthrow the work of "the bourgeoisie and the extreme right." He said Venezuela would "guarantee" that its close ally Zelaya would be returned to power.

"This is a coup against all of us," Chávez said. "We have to do everything to stop it."

Late Sunday, Chávez put his troops on alert and said he would respond militarily if his envoy to Honduras was harmed. Chávez said Honduran soldiers took away the Cuban ambassador and left the Venezuelan ambassador on the side of a road after beating him during the army's coup. A senior U.S. official sought to play down the potential for military action by outsiders, saying, "We don't believe Venezuela is planning on sending any troops."

The United States maintains troops at the Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras to assist the Honduran military and police with anti-drug interdiction and other missions.

"This gives Chávez the high moral ground to go on with his narrative about right-wing oligarchs who don't tolerate leftist governments," said Michael Shifter, an analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. "There's nobody better at seizing these moments than Chávez."

In Washington, Obama said he was "deeply concerned by reports coming out of Honduras regarding the detention and expulsion of President Mel Zelaya."

A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the United States would work alongside the Organization of American States to restore Zelaya, and the official predicted that the organizers of the coup would find themselves isolated and facing stiff pressure to allow Zelaya's return.

But a senior Honduran official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he did not foresee the new government backing down. He said the country's Congress had appointed a commission Thursday evening to investigate whether the president's referendum was in line with the constitution. The commission reported back Sunday afternoon that the president had violated the constitution, and the Congress voted to remove him. That procedure is "within the constitution," said the senior official -- although the coup that occurred hours earlier was not, he acknowledged.

"The decision was adopted by unanimity in the Congress. That means all of the political parties. It has been endorsed by sectors that represent a wide array of Hondurans -- the Episcopal Church, the Catholic Church. And well, of course, the armed forces," he said.

"The difficult part will be for the international community to see things as the Honduran people see them," the official said.

Across Latin America, governments used strong language to condemn the overthrow and demand that Zelaya be returned to office. Those governments included Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador -- all close allies of Honduras in a leftist alliance of nations led by Chávez. Countries such as Costa Rica, which has close ties to the United States, also condemned the coup. Costa Rica's president, Oscar Arias, spoke alongside Zelaya at a news conference in San Jose, the capital.

"This is a lamentable step back, not just for Honduran democracy but for Central American democracy and throughout the hemisphere," Arias said.

In an interview with Spain's El País newspaper before his ouster, Zelaya said a planned attempt to remove him from power had been blocked by the United States.

"Everything was in place for the coup, and if the U.S. Embassy had approved it, it would have happened. But they did not. I'm only still here in office thanks to the United States," he said in the interview, which was published Sunday.

A senior administration official would not confirm that account, but said, "We were very clear . . . that any resolution of the political conflict in Honduras had to be democratic and constitutional."

Forero reported from Caracas, Venezuela. Staff writer Mary Beth Sheridan in Washington contributed to this report.