UN recognizes ousted Manuel Zelaya as Honduras leader (Roundup)

Jun 30, 2009, 18:38 GMT

New York - In a moment of high drama, the UN General Assembly declared on Tuesday that ousted President Manuel Zelaya is the constitutional leader of Honduras and denied recognition to a man who took power in a weekend coup.

After the 192-nation body adopted a resolution by acclaim - there was no formal vote - Zelaya spoke for 52 minutes to the Assembly, insisting that he only had the interests of his country at heart when he proposed a change in the Honduran constitution.

'I am not in trial here,' he said. 'Nobody said which crimes I have committed. The elite (in Honduras) has accused me of bringing down the constitution and of violating human rights.'

Zelaya faces arrest when he returns to his country on Thursday, accompanied by some high power international figures: UN General Assembly president Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Jose Miguel Insulza, the secretary-general of the Organization of American States (OAS).

In the Assembly proceedings, there were no requests from delegations in the assembly to speak before assembly president d'Escoto Brockmann proposed that the body adopt the text. The adoption was applauded by those present.

The resolution condemned the military coup on Sunday, saying that it 'interrupted the democratic and constitutional order and the legitimate exercise of power in Honduras, and resulted in the removal of the democratically elected president of that country, Mr Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales.'

It called for the immediate and unconditional restoration of Zelaya and for all states to recognize him as Honduras' president. The resolution also denied recognition of the newly installed government of President Roberto Micheletti.

Zelaya sat in the seats reserved for Honduras' mission to the United Nations in the assembly.

Assembly president d'Escoto, a former Sandinista foreign minister in Nicaragua in the 1980s, noted that the United States had joined the list of countries that gave initial support to the draft resolution. The document was initiated by Antigua and Barbuda, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Canada, Colombia, Guyana and Bosnia-Herzegovina also joined the list of original supporters.

The weekend coup followed Zelaya's insistence on holding a constitutional referendum on Sunday that would have paved the way to lifting term limits and allowing him to run for re-election in November. His opponents called the move a power grab.

The coup took place with the backing of the Honduran Supreme Court, which said the ouster was necessary to prevent the referendum. The Honduran Congress and justice officials declared the referendum was illegal.

But Zelaya, in addressing the assembly, said he was ousted without being told of his crimes and insisted that Sunday's vote was intended as a public opinion poll, not a referendum.

He said his efforts in the past years had been to improve living conditions in the impoverished nation. He said, for that, he was accused of being a 'populist and a communist who was trying to ruin the country.'

He rejected charges that what he called a 'Gallup poll-like survey' could be called a crime.

'I will be leaving at the end of my term, but I want to leave the people with newly established rights,' Zelaya. 'How do we make up for the inequalities?'

'Democracy is the people,' he said. He said the people of Honduras should be left with improved living conditions once he steps down from the presidency.

Zelaya said he would not return to Honduras 'just because I was elected.' He said he wanted his efforts recognized for trying to improve the country.