Honduras awaits Zelaya despite calls against his return (News Feature)

By Sandra Parra Jul 5, 2009, 16:24 GMT

Tegucigalpa - Honduras awaited ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya Sunday, despite calls from various sectors asking him to remain abroad.

Crowds of supporters were rallying to welcome back the man who was ousted from the presidency and expelled from the country exactly a week earlier.

However, Zelaya was also facing an arrest warrant upon his return, under the charges of treason, abuse of authority, corruption and usurpation of tasks.

This threat, along with the calls of personalities like Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga - the influential head of the Roman Catholic Church in Honduras - to remain abroad and thus prevent 'a blood bath,' did not appear to have discouraged Zelaya from his planned return.

'I am returning to the country because I am the president,' he said in Washington in the early hours of Sunday.

Zelaya said he would be accompanied by Jose Miguel Insulza, the secretary-general of the Organization of American States (OAS). Insulza had said earlier that he was willing to travel with Zelaya, although he stressed that the trip was risky and that the decision was Zelaya's to make, not a move from the OAS.

'Several presidents have also been invited,' Zelaya said.

Presidents Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina and Fernando Lugo of Paraguay had expressed their willingness to travel with the ousted president, although it remained unclear Sunday whether they would in fact travel.

'It is important for Insulza to go with Zelaya to avoid the manipulation of information, to avoid tags. This is not a problem of ideology but of the restoration of democracy,' Fernandez de Kirchner was quoted as saying in the Argentine daily Clarin.

Tegucigalpa was militarized ahead of the likely arrival. There were military and police officers patrolling its streets and its skies, while graffiti for and against the government set up after the coup and headed by former Congress speaker Roberto Micheletti saturated the walls of homes and public buildings alike.

Conservative sectors of Honduran society who were supporting the coup were optimistic about the Central American country's ability to resist the blockade and the isolation that seemed inevitable until at least late November, when an election takes place to elect a new president.

The government set up after the coup was not recognized by most countries, and many - including all members of the European Union - had withdrawn their ambassadors. In the early hours of Sunday, the OAS suspended Honduras from membership, a move that was unprecedented since Cuba was suspended in 1962.

Workers and salesmen were worried about the effects that the political crisis was having on their incomes. Shops, restaurants and public institutions had closed their doors as they awaited an end to the crisis.

'Days last week were very bad for us, everyday seemed like a Sunday. People are not going out,' one taxi driver noted.

Although demonstrations for and against Zelaya's return had mostly been peaceful, there was concern that the mood might worsen if 'Mel' - as the ousted president is known in Honduras - should return.

Supporters of Zelaya had been gathering since Saturday outside Tegucigalpa airport, to express their support and solidarity when their leader returned.

'We are here to welcome our true president,' some demonstrators said Sunday.

However, Zelaya's decision to travel would be defying not just the warnings of the people who ousted him from power but also those of Insulza and of representatives of other countries across the Americas, who noted that there were no guarantees for the trip and that it might in fact lead to more violence.

Just in case, Micheletti closed Tegucigalpa airport for three days, and he ordered that no airplane carrying Zelaya be allowed to land anywhere in the country.