Ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya vowed to end his month-long exile by staging a dramatic border crossing from Nicaragua yesterday, defying government threats to arrest him and warnings the move will prompt bloodshed.
The plan came as international rights groups slammed the government of interim leader Roberto Micheletti for a host of human rights violations since Zelaya’s ouster on June 28, including extrajudicial executions.
Zelaya — who was sent away by the Honduran military in a move supported by the courts and Congress — said he would make his latest bid to return home after Costa Rican-brokered talks with the interim government collapsed.
He was set to travel to northern Nicaragua on Thursday and “to the border the following day,” in a move sure to inflame already heightened tensions in the small Central American nation.
The exiled president would enter Honduras “when the conditions were ready,” an adviser, Alan Fajardo, said in Nicaragua, naming the conditions as sufficient citizen participation and an element of surprise.
Earlier this month, Zelaya made an abortive attempt to land in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, but was blocked by military units deployed at the airport.
On the ground, his supporters clashed with security forces loyal to Micheletti, killing at least one person and wounding several others.
Regional powers, including the US, have backed Zelaya’s quest to regain office, but urged him not to return for fear of prompting bloodshed in a country some say is teetering on the brink of civil war.
Honduras dominated talks at a regional Mercosur summit in Paraguay on Thursday, where Chilean President Michelle Bachelet called on the country’s leaders to avoid a bloodbath.
The crisis has sent thousands of both Zelaya detractors and supporters into the streets in recent weeks.
In an increasingly polarized Honduras, Zelaya supporters called a national strike on Thursday, with teachers unions suspending classes across the country.
The 15-person team of rights representatives — from the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights, the Washington-based Center for Justice and International Law and Spain’s Federation of Associations in the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights — said there had been “grave and systematic violations” in Honduras over the last month.
The groups mentioned extrajudicial executions during curfew hours, pressure on news media opposed to Micheletti’s government and the “suspension of fundamental rights of Hondurans.”
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
RSS