 OCOTAL, Nicaragua Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on Tuesday launched a new international drive to revive his flagging bid to return to power, but Hondurans who had massed here in support began heading home.
In this Nicaraguan town about 10 miles from the Honduran border, where Zelaya had held rallies and launched an abortive attempt to march into Honduras, local authorities told Zelaya supporters to clear out of the municipal gymnasium, where they had been sleeping on the floor and on bleachers.
| "Your usefulness to our propaganda is over. Scram!" |
| It sounds like the local authorities very sensibly decided not to allow them become the Palestinians of the Americas, forever waiting for the conquest that would allow them to return home to triumph and the spoils of war... and in the meantime wreaking gang violence on their hosts out of sheer boredom. |
Zelaya and his senior advisors gave no indication whether they would return or when.
| When's the next photo-op? |
Meanwhile, the lawful de facto government in Tegucigalpa appears ready to tough it out, despite broad international pressure to allow Zelaya to return to the presidency.
``Zelaya is running out of options,'' said Mark Ruhl, a professor at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., an expert on Honduras. ``His chances to return look pretty poor right now.''
Zelaya held talks in Mexico City with President Felipe Calderón and planned to fly to Spain. Calderón expressed his solidarity with Zelaya during talks in Mexico City on Tuesday, and he also condemned the June 28 coup that led to Honduras' de facto government. Endorsements of this sort, however, have yet to move Honduras' de facto president, Roberto Micheletti, and the country's senior military leaders, who say that Zelaya repeatedly violated the constitution by trying to hold an illegal referendum that might have opened the way to his remaining in office.
| Possession is about 99% and climbing, I'd say ... |
Micheletti has also rejected a compromise plan offered by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias that would restore Zelaya for the final six months of his term but with limited powers.
| It sounds like President Arias concluded his former colleague is not as suited for his previous job as originally appeared. A pity I can't vote for him in the next Costa Rican election. |
The Organization of American States' mediation efforts have also proven fruitless. The Micheletti government has blocked Zelaya's efforts to force his way back into Honduras, and Zelaya's calls for a popular insurrection to toss out Micheletti have failed to materialize.
| People forget that Micheletti is a member of Zelaya's party, and the two used to be close. |
| The peepul won't pay in blood for his return? Gosh, perhaps that military ejection is an expression of the popular will as well as the Honduran constitution. |
Zelaya had hoped to mobilize enough Hondurans in Ocotal to compel his return. Ocotal offered both geographic and historic reasons for Zelaya to set up camp here. The city had served as a launching pad for Nicaragua's legendary guerrilla fighter Augusto Sandino in the 1920s and his political heirs, the Sandinistas, in the 1970s.
Some 3,000 Hondurans came to Ocotal and another border town, Las Manos, in the days after Zelaya was sent out of Honduras. Many arrived after an arduous trek over a mountain range to evade Honduran border authorities who answer to Micheletti. By Monday night, many of the Hondurans had returned home.
``People have families waiting for them. They need to take care of their children,'' said Orlin Calin Guzman, who arrived two weeks ago from the Honduran town of Choluteca. ``They feel impotent here.''
"You said we'd be important!"
"You misheard. Go home." |
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