MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Honduras closer to normalization allows return of former president Zelaya
President Lobo and ousted Zelaya Former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya says he won't return to Honduras for fear of being killed. Zelaya says he is in danger because “there are people who want to liquidate me and are still alive, and they have great power.”
Zelaya says some of those who want to kill him are powerful businessmen but gave no other details.
Zelaya made his comment to Honduran radio station Radio Globo on Saturday. On Friday, a Supreme Court judge dismissed three arrest warrants, so he can return to the Central American country without being detained.
Zelaya was ousted in a June 2009 coup and lives in the Dominican Republic.
Judge Oscar Chincilla said Mr Zelaya still faced corruption charges over his plan while president to hold a vote on changing the constitution.
President Porfirio Lobo has said he would like to see a legal solution that would allow Mr Zelaya's return. There have been clashes in recent days in the capital, Tegucigalpa, between security forces and supporters of Mr Zelaya, who are demanding his return.
He was ousted in a military coup and put on a plane to Costa Rica before he could hold a non-binding referendum on changing the constitution. Critics say the changes would have removed the one-term limit on the presidency, allowing his re-election. He denied he was seeking re-election.
The referendum was ruled illegal by the Supreme Court and Congress, and was opposed by the army. His ousting sparked an international uproar and left Honduras politically isolated for several months.
However, a period of relative stability began with the election of Mr Lobo as president in the November 2009 elections. More and more governments, including the US, have recognised the Honduran government's legitimacy and re-established the ties cut during the height of the crisis. President Lobo and ousted Zelaya belong to the same Liberal political party.
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Read all commentsYeah. The M_pyre's corporate masters will have no part of a guy like Z in office in C. America.
Mar 27th, 2011 - 01:35 pm 0Can anyone remember if it really was a MILITARY coup, as Mercosur seems to believe?
Mar 27th, 2011 - 02:18 pm 0If my memory serves me correctly, it was the politicians of the country that decided with the judiciary that Zelaya was acting beyond the Constitution. Did they not instruct the forces of law and order to escort Zelaya off the property?
And now, with an observably quiescent democracy operating under Lobo's governance, Zelaya is free to return. I doubt he will be allowed to stand for high office again - but sillier things have happened in the world and, after all, this is South America!
I cannot think that Mr Zelaya did anything sufficiently bad whilst in charge of Honduras that his life would be at risk if he returned - but again, perhaps I am wrong and there really are businessmen who seek him punished for earlier 'bad things' - if so, then they should do this through the laws of the land rather than 'summary justice'.
Come on! This is a democracy now!
indeed Geoff. I was all time surpised by the media hyping the idea of a coup in Honduras, even in Europe in spite of the selling title, which I felt a bit ashamed of. Nobody back then really analyzed what was really going on in Honduras.
Apr 02nd, 2011 - 03:20 pm 0If anybody with the understanding of democratic bases, whoever has a minor knowledge of Locke's and Montesquieu's teachings will see, that what Honduras did, was defending the pilars of democracy and upholding the seperation of powers! Their only mistake, was they had not a formalization for the “in-case-it-happens” procedure, which was solved in a very “latinamerican stlye”... just flew away the guy, in his piyama.
Everything we would have wished in Europe, to stop insane madmen like Hitler and Mussolini. In Honduras it happened, and it's a shame the world does not honour it.
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