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| Caribbean-Latin America | |||
| Chavez rhetoric stokes Honduras crisis before talks | |||
| 2009-07-19 | |||
TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stoked Honduras' political crisis on Friday by saying ousted President Manuel Zelaya would return home imminently, complicating efforts to broker a mediated solution.
Zelaya is currently in Nicaragua, which borders Honduras, and there was no immediate word from him on Friday on his plans. "He's here in Managua, in the Las Mercedes hotel, it's no secret," Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, like Chavez a leftist ally of Zelaya, told reporters late on Thursday. A unilateral attempt by the deposed president to return home would fly in the face of threats to arrest him by the interim government that replaced Zelaya in the impoverished Central American country.
Roberto Micheletti, who was installed as president by Honduras' Congress after the coup, has defied international calls for Zelaya to be reinstated and ruled out his return to office. He says Zelaya was removed because he violated the constitution by seeking to lift presidential term limits. On Friday, supporters of the ousted president, clamoring for his reinstatement, blocked major highways in Honduras, including the northern access into the capital Tegucigalpa. At the southern entrance to the city, pro-Zelaya protesters lifted their roadblock after police brandishing tear gas canisters gave them an ultimatum.
"Zelaya said that in the coming hours he'll enter Honduras. We're behind him, we have to support him," Chavez told reporters outside the presidential palace in Bolivia. Chavez, who had attended a meeting in Bolivia of leftist Latin American allies of Zelaya, gave no more details about how Zelaya intended to return home. U.S. President Barack Obama's administration, which has urged the rivals in the Honduran crisis to give the Costa Rica talks a chance, called for restraint. A senior State Department official, who declined to be named because his comments were sensitive, said Chavez's current role was "not helpful." Chavez said Honduras' army would not be able to control popular pressure for Zelaya's reinstatement. "What do they want? A civil war? The people will sweep them away," he said. A U.S. State Department spokesman, P.J. Crowley, said Washington supported, but "would not impose," a peaceful negotiated solution. | |||
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #2 "We're going to bring "Mel" (Zelaya) back," said teacher Noemi Farias Reporter should have asked her how much she was paid to be there. Common at Zelaya "protests" |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2009-07-19 20:56 |
| #1 This is like Britain insisting Lincoln give Jefferson Davis a chance to talk things over about power sharing. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2009-07-19 20:54 |