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had withdrawn their ambassadors.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.
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