LEADALL: Ousted Honduran president gathers clout abroad

By the German Press Agency Jun 30, 2009, 23:40 GMT

Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya gathered diplomatic momentum Tuesday with stops in New York and Washington as he prepared to return home and demand back the office taken from him over the weekend.

The government installed on Sunday by the Honduran military threatened to arrest him when he returns home to the capital Tegucigalpa on Thursday to reclaim office until his term ends in January 2010.

But there could be tense moments ahead at the airport, with some high power international figures insisting that Honduras recognize the rule of law: 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).

For the first time in decades, the countries of the Western Hemisphere stand in full agreement over a Latin American overthrow of a democratically elected government. From Washington to Havana, from Caracas to Ottawa, the message is the same: In Honduras, such ousters will no longer be tolerated.

In a high moment of drama in New York, the General Assembly voted by acclaim that Zelaya is the constitutional leader of Honduras and denied international recognition to a man who took power after a military-led weekend coup sent Zelaya to Costa Rica under armed escort in his pajamas.

After addressing the Assembly for 52 minutes, Zelaya was to have travelled to Washington to an emergency session of the assembly of the Organization of American States.

Zelaya, 57, was also to meet privately with US Assistant Secretary of State Tom Shannon, the US State Department said. US President Barack Obama reiterated Monday that he regards Zelaya as the rightful president of Honduras.

'I am not on trial here,' Zelaya told the United Nations. '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 was elected in 2006 as a conservative, but later reversed his policies and allied himself with left-wing governments across Latin America. When he was ousted, he had only scant support from leftist groups and trade unions.

The current conflict centred on Zelaya's insistence on holding a nonbinding 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. Congress and justice officials declared the referendum illegal.

In Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula 250 kilometres to the north, tens of thousands of people demonstrated against the elected leader of the Central American country. They wore white to show their support for the installed government.

Smaller numbers, in the hundreds, gathered in support of Zelaya.

Roberto Micheletti - the former Congress speaker who was designated to lead the government set up after the coup - told Colombian media Tuesday that Zelaya faces arrest if he returns.

'The courts of justice in my country have an arrest warrant against him because he has violated the law,' Micheletti told the radio station Caracol.

At one of the gatherings, Micheletti appeared alongside the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, whose sacking by Zelaya helped trigger the coup last week.

It was the first time Vasquez Velasquez appeared in public since the military arrested and expelled Zelaya Sunday.

Micheletti says he will not be a candidate in the November 29 elections.

Zelaya told the UN that he was run out because of his efforts to improve living conditions in the impoverished nation, for which he said he was accused of being a 'populist and a communist who was trying to ruin the country.'

He insisted the non-binding referendum he wanted to hold on Sunday was a 'Gallup poll-like survey' and could not 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 said.