Ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya has warned the interim government that deposed him in a coup it must relinquish power within the week or face unspecified repercussions.
“We are giving an ultimatum to the coup regime that by our next meeting at the latest, to be held this week in San Jose, Costa Rica, they comply with the mandates expressed by international organizations and the Constitution of Honduras” demanding his immediate restitution, Zelaya told reporters on Monday at the Honduran embassy in Nicaragua’s capital, Managua.
Mediation efforts initiated last week in San Jose “will be considered a failure” and “we will proceed with other measures,” he added, if interim leader Roberto Micheletti and his two-week-old administration continue to delay Zelaya’s return to the helm of the Honduran government.
Zelaya was in Nicaragua on his most recent stop as he travels throughout the region to drum up support for his presidency, after being sent into exile in a military-backed coup on June 28.
The deposed Honduran leader’s tough words came after Micheletti set Saturday as a possible date for talks to resume in Costa Rica.
The ousted Honduran president held weekend talks in Washington with State Department officials and the head of the Organization of American States (OAS), Jose Miguel Insulza.
Washington reiterated its support for Zelaya, calling for a return to democratic order in his country and backing the dialogue between representatives dispatched by the rival Honduran leaders.
Meanwhile, Bolivian President Evo Morales, who has often had tense ties with the US, accused the US military of being behind the coup in Honduras.
“I have first-hand information that the empire, through the US Southern Command, made the coup d’etat in Honduras,” Morales said during a visit to the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo.
The coup that saw Zelaya swept up by the military in his pajamas and expelled from Honduras “is an aggression, a provocation of the empire,” he said.
Negotiations between Micheletti’s and Zelaya’s camps began last week over two days in San Jose, brokered by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, who won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for helping resolve civil wars in Central America.
Zelaya has proposed that the next negotiations be held in Honduras, even though the interim government has refused to allow him to return and did not allow his plane to land in Tegucigalpa last week.
The ousted leader’s supporters have vowed to continue protest marches and road blockades demanding that their leader be reinstated.
“We are going to continue the protests,” said Luis Sosa, a leader of the anti-government Popular Bloc. “Our commitment is to maintain them permanently until the democratic process is restored.”
Meanwhile, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega condemned on Monday the violence against Zelaya supporters and reiterated his call for an early solution to the political crisis gripping the country to “stop shedding the blood of our brothers.”
Ortega, who was playing host to Zelaya in Managua, denounced the killing of two of the beleaguered leader’s supporters, without naming them. One was taken from his home and another fell from a bus before being killed, he said.
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