Former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya said on Sunday the coup that toppled him two years ago was an international conspiracy and that some of those plotting his ouster wanted to kill him.
Zelaya ended his long exile and returned to Honduras on Saturday under a deal brokered by Colombia and Venezuela, paving the way for the poor Central American country’s return to the Organization of American States and reintegration into the world community.
The former president said in a news conference held at his home that the June 2009 military-backed coup d’etat that saw him whisked out of Honduras by soldiers should be investigated.
“The coup d’etat is an international conspiracy, a conspiracy that has actors in different sectors of society and should be investigated,” Zelaya said without naming countries.
Zelaya has previously accused Washington of supporting the interim government of former Honduran president Roberto Micheletti, which replaced him after his ouster. US President Barack Obama and other US officials publicly criticized the coup.
During the news conference, Zelaya said General Romeo Vasquez, the former head of the armed forces of Honduras, told him that the backers of the coup wanted him killed.
“He told me: ‘Some day you are going to understand what happened, I can’t tell you, but the people who planned it contemplated your liquidation during the assault on your house and the armed forces totally opposed your assassination,’” Zelaya said, adding that he has conversed with Vasquez several times since the coup.
He said he was told that the coup-plotters were angered by the negative from the armed forces and threatened to hire paramilitaries to kill him.
“The question is who are they? General Romeo Vasquez should be asked this ... who wanted to stain our country with blood that day?” Zelaya said.
A truth commission formed in May last year and led by former Guatemalan vice president Eduardo Stein is scheduled to give a report on June 16 on what happened before, during and after the coup. However, Zelaya said he doubted that the commission would clarify everything because its members include coup sympathizers.
Zelaya was thrown out of office — and the country — 23 months ago by soldiers for ignoring a Honduran Supreme Court order to cancel a referendum asking Hondurans if they wanted an assembly to retool the Constitution. The opposition had called it a bid by Zelaya stay in power by allowing presidential re-election, while his supporters said the assembly was to reform Honduras’ economic and political structures.
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