New elected president takes office in Honduras as previous one returns to exile

Does anyone else think it weird that the Honduran military ousted President Manuel Zelaya with the backing of political leaders because they reportedly feared he was planning to extend his term in office, and then Honduras' Congress voted a lifetime appointment to the guy they picked to replace him? Of course, Roberto Micheletti, the former legislative leader who took over the presidency on an interim basis after Zelaya was sent out of the country at gunpoint, didn't get appointed president for life or anything like that. He was named legislator for life after taking Zelaya's place until the November election, when Honduras elected a new president, Porfirio Lobo. Lobo, who lost to Zelaya in the 2005 election, was sworn in Wednesday. Lobo promptly signed an amnesty allowing Zelaya to leave the country and go into exile in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. The amnesty, passed by Congress on Tuesday, removed the threat of arrest to Zelaya on abuse of power charges but also immunized coup leaders from criminal charges, according to the New York Times . “We are emerging from the worst political crisis in our history,” Lobo said in his inaugural address at the national stadium in Tegucialpa. But Honduras faces huge challenges in the year ahead. No Western nations recognized Micheletti's interim government after the coup and Honduras was been expelled by the Organization of American States. The Times said Honduras lost $2 billion in aid and investment following the coup.

Proposed Honduras deal collapses as violence increases in capital

A pair of bombings Friday rocked the capital of Tegucigalpa as a week-old agreement to form a unity government to resolve Honduras' four-month political formally collapsed, apparently beyond repair. The two explosions Friday caused little damage and no injuries but put an explanation point on the failure of regional efforts to end the crisis, which began with a military coup in June, according to the Reuters international news service. Honduras has been isolated internationally since coup leaders forced the elected leftist president, Manuel Zelaya, into exile and named legislative leader Robert Micheletti to replace him. Military leaders feared that Zelaya, an ally of Venezuela's famously anti-U.S. president, Hugo Chavez, was planning to move impoverished Honduras even further to the left and was planning to stay in office beyond the end of his term of office in January. Zelaya repeatedly denied that he had designs on extending his term. Under pressure from the United States and other nations, the two sides announced an agreement last week to form a unity government and to have Honduras' Congress vote on who would lead the country, but that deal broke down over differences about who would lead the cabinet in the interim. Zelaya, who was forced to leave the country in his pajamas but had sneaked back into Honduras and took refuge in Brazil's embassy, said Thursday that the deal was dead and urged voters to boycott the Nov. 29 election. "It's absurd what they are doing, trying to mock all of us, the people who elected me and the international community that supports me," Zelaya said, according to Reuters. "We've decided not to continue this theater with Mr. Micheletti." Zelaya refused to appoint ministers to the reconciliation cabinet, as called for in the agreement, prompting Micheletti to name all of them. Micheletti took to the airwaves to announce the appointments. "We've completed the process of forming a unity government," Micheletti told the country. "It represents a wide spectrum despite the fact that Mr. Zelaya did not send a list of representatives." But the Micheletti government surrounded the Brazilian embassy with tanks and soldiers on Friday, signaling the end of reconciliation efforts and a continuation of the standoff.

U.S. officials step up pressure on Honduras coup leaders

Will leaders of the June coup that ousted Honduras' democratically elected leftist leader finally give in to international pressure and reinstate President Manuel Zelaya? That question took on increased significance this week after word that U.S. Secretary of State had telephoned the head of the interim government, former conservative legislator Roberto Micheletti, and Zelaya, prior to dispatching top officials to try to resolve the crisis. Clinton told Micheletti about "increasing frustration" in the United States and Latin America about the failure of months of negotiations to make any progress in returning Zelaya to power, according to the New York Times. Zelaya was removed from office June 30 by the Honduras military and forced into exile. Coup leaders accused Zelaya of plotting to change the country's constitution to extend his term in office beyond its January expiration, as his outspoken supporter in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, had already accomplished. National elections are scheduled in November. Zelaya secretly returned to Honduras on Sept. 21 and has been living in Brazil's embassy in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, under threat of arrest by coup leaders. The Obama administration condemned the coup in June but has since been accused across Latin America of failing to do enough to return Zelaya to power, the Times said. The interim government has been blamed for refusing to compromise and for repression of the press, human rights activists and supporters Zelaya, who hold daily demonstrations outside the Brazilian embassy, the Times said. But Micheletti has so far adamantly refused to agree to any deal that would return Zelaya to power. A U.S. State Department official told the Times that Clinton pressured Micheletti to resolve the crisis by the November election. “The purpose [of the call] was to remind him there were two pathways to the elections -- one where Honduras goes by itself and the other where it goes with broad support from the international community,” the official said. But the crisis also has led to friction in the U.S. Congress, where Democratic Party leaders have called for more U.S. pressure on the interim government to give up power and Republican Party leaders have demanded U.S. President Barack Obama reverse his condemnation of the coup.

Crisis atmosphere returns to Honduras with Zelaya's return from exile

Demonstrators returned to the streets of Tegucigalpa on Monday after ousted leftist President Manual Zelaya returned to Honduras for the first time after a June coup forced him from office. Zelaya was forced to sneak back into the country and took refuge in Brazil's embassy under threat of arrest by the new conservative government, according to the Reuters international news service. Thousands of protesters defied a curfew and stayed outside Brazil's embassy in a peaceful show of support of Zelaya, who was forced into exile by the military in a dispute over term limits. Conservative legislative leader Roberto Micheletti, who was chosen to lead the interim government, has resisted worldwide calls to restore Zelaya to office. The United States, the Organization of American States and the European Union have refused to recognize the Micheletti government and have called for the restoration of Zelaya to power. "I am the legitimate president chosen by the people and that is why I came here," Zelaya told Reuters by telephone from inside the embassy. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Zelaya and the coup leaders must find a way to avoid violence in Honduras, Reuters said. "It's imperative that dialogue begin ... (and) there be a channel of communication between President Zelaya and the de facto regime in Honduras," Clinton said after a meeting with President Oscar Arias of nearby Costa Rica. But Micheletti wants Zelaya arrested on corruption charges and called on Brazil to turn him over to the de facto government. "A call to the government of Brazil: respect the judicial order against Mr. Zelaya and turn him into Honduran authorities ... The eyes of the world are on Brazil and Honduras," Micheletti said. Zelaya was due to leave office in January but his opponents accused him of trying to change Honduras' constitution to permit him to stay in office. In New York, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim told Reuters he hoped Zelaya's return to Honduras would start a new stage in negotiations to end the crisis.

Honduras suspends diplomatic relations with Argentina

Will coup leaders in Honduras ever accept the inevitable and allow the country's duly elected president to return to power? That question, which has been asked repeatedly in regional capitals since the military seized power in June, was back in the news again this week when Honduras suspended diplomatic relations with Argentina. The move was in retaliation for the South American country's expulsion of Honduras' ambassador a week earlier for what it said was a failure to protest the coup, according to Cable News Network (CNN). The ambassador, Carmen Eleonora Ortez Williams, was appointed by Jose Manuel Zelaya before his ouster and remained in her post as Honduras' new government, led by the legislature's leader, Roberto Micheletti, took over. The United Nations, the Organization of American States and the European Union have refused to recognize the Micheletti government and have called to Zelaya to be restored to power. Argentina had asked Ortez to leave for "for supporting the de facto government of Roberto Micheletti," CNN said, so Honduras ordered Argentina's diplomatic personnel to leave Tegucigalpa, the capital, within 72 hours. Honduras said its relations with Argentina would be "channeled" through the Argentine embassy in Israel, CNN said. The Honduran military seized power after Zelaya insisted on holding a referendum to extend term limits, even though the legislature had outlawed the vote and the supreme court said it was illegal. Micheletti, who was named provisional president by the legislature after Zelaya was sent into exile by the military, denied that a coup had taken place and said Zelaya was removed constitutionally.

Honduras takes giant step backward -- military coup topples leftist government

No doubt, the military geniuses who engineered Sunday's dawn overthrow of the democratically elected president of Honduras, leftist Manuel Zelaya, thought they were doing the right thing. And maybe they were. The Supreme Court said it had ordered military commanders to remove the president after he precipitated a political crisis last week by firing the armed forces chief, Gen. Romero Vasquez, over a disagreement about a national election Zelaya had called in an effort to change the constitution to allow him to run again, according to the Reuters international news service. Zelaya was put on a plane and flown to exile in Costa Rica over objections from the United States, the European Union and other nations; and the Honduran legislature named Roberto Micheletti, a member of Zelaya's Liberal Party, as the new president of the poor Central American nation. Micheletti immediately declared a curfew for Sunday and Monday nights as the streets of the capital, Tegucigalpa, filled with pro-Zelaya protesters, Reuters said. U.S. President Barack Obama called for the reinstatement of Zelaya but Micheletti refused, Reuters said. "I don't think anybody here, not Barack Obama and much less Hugo Chavez, has the right to come and threaten," Micheletti said. It was Zelaya's growing relationship with Chavez, the leftist Venezuelan president famous for his angry anti-U.S. rhetoric, that appears to have upset the generals, Reuters said. The court ordered Zelaya's removal, saying he had exceeded his authority by firing Vasquez. The coup was a rather painful reminder of the political turmoil that characterized Central American governments last century, but which had calmed down in the past few decades as democracies became firmly established. The United States still has 600 troops stationed at Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras, Reuters said.