Ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya vowed to return to Honduras as angry supporters clashed with riot police near the presidential palace.
Zelaya told a meeting of regional leaders in the Nicaraguan capital of Managua he planned to travel yesterday to Washington, where US President Barack Obama has denounced the coup as illegal.
From there he would go to New York and address the UN General Assembly. The UN held emergency talks on Monday on the crisis.
And he added: “I go to Tegucigalpa on Thursday,” thus setting up a potentially explosive showdown with the newly installed interim administration of congressional leader Roberto Micheletti.
Zelaya also accepted the offer of Jose Miguel Insulza, the head of the Organization of American States, to accompany him back to Honduras, along with leaders of other friendly countries who may wish to travel with him.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged Zelaya to meet with Obama, saying the US president’s attention to the matter could “deliver a major blow” to those who ousted Zelaya.
In Washington on Monday, Obama told reporters: “We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there.”
He called for international cooperation to solve the crisis peacefully.
In Tegucigalpa itself, hundreds of angry Zelaya supporters, defying a government curfew on Monday, erected barricades near the presidential palace.
They threw rocks and Molotov cocktails and used pipes and metal bars against shield-bearing riot police. The security forces cracked down with tear gas and gunfire, a photographer said.
The violence, the most serious unrest in years in the country, left several demonstrators and security forces injured.
Zelaya was deposed on Sunday when troops bundled the 57-year-old out of his bed in pajamas and whisked him away to exile in Costa Rica.
Just hours later, the Honduran Congress swore in its speaker, Micheletti, as the interim president until elections in January.
Politicians, business leaders, most communications media and a good part of the population have applauded Zelaya’s overthrow, despite the violent street protests.
Micheletti brushed off international condemnation of the takeover, insisting he “had come to the presidency not by a coup d’etat but by a completely legal process as set out in our laws.”
The military moved against Zelaya after he pressed ahead with plans for a referendum on changing the Constitution to allow him to run for a second term in November elections.
But it was almost uniformly condemned in Latin America, the US and Europe.
Meeting in Managua, the Rio Group, an organization of 22 Latin American countries, condemned the coup and called for Zelaya’s “immediate and unconditional” reinstatement.
They also said they were recalling their ambassadors, as did Mexico and Chile.
Neighboring countries in Central America agreed to isolate Tegucigalpa politically and economically, ordering the regional bank to suspend loans and payments.
Russia and Canada have joined the growing list of nations speaking out against the overthrow, and the European Commission called an urgent meeting with Central American ambassadors to consider the future of trade talks.
NO HUMAN ERROR: After the incident, the Coast Guard Administration said it would obtain uncrewed aerial vehicles and vessels to boost its detection capacity Authorities would improve border control to prevent unlawful entry into Taiwan’s waters and safeguard national security, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday after a Chinese man reached the nation’s coast on an inflatable boat, saying he “defected to freedom.” The man was found on a rubber boat when he was about to set foot on Taiwan at the estuary of Houkeng River (後坑溪) near Taiping Borough (太平) in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), authorities said. The Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) northern branch said it received a report at 6:30am yesterday morning from the New Taipei City Fire Department about a
IN BEIJING’S FAVOR: A China Coast Guard spokesperson said that the Chinese maritime police would continue to carry out law enforcement activities in waters it claims The Philippines withdrew its coast guard vessel from a South China Sea shoal that has recently been at the center of tensions with Beijing. BRP Teresa Magbanua “was compelled to return to port” from Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Shoal, 仙濱暗沙) due to bad weather, depleted supplies and the need to evacuate personnel requiring medical care, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesman Jay Tarriela said yesterday in a post on X. The Philippine vessel “will be in tiptop shape to resume her mission” after it has been resupplied and repaired, Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, who heads the nation’s maritime council, said
CHINA POLICY: At the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China, the two sides issued strong support for Taiwan and condemned China’s actions in the South China Sea The US and EU issued a joint statement on Wednesday supporting Taiwan’s international participation, notably omitting the “one China” policy in a departure from previous similar statements, following high-level talks on China and the Indo-Pacific region. The statement also urged China to show restraint in the Taiwan Strait. US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and European External Action Service Secretary-General Stefano Sannino cochaired the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China and the sixth US-EU Indo-Pacific Consultations from Monday to Tuesday. Since the Indo-Pacific consultations were launched in 2021, references to the “one China” policy have appeared in every statement apart from the
More than 500 people on Saturday marched in New York in support of Taiwan’s entry to the UN, significantly more people than previous years. The march, coinciding with the ongoing 79th session of the UN General Assembly, comes close on the heels of growing international discourse regarding the meaning of UN Resolution 2758. Resolution 2758, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1971, recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the “only lawful representative of China.” It resulted in the Republic of China (ROC) losing its seat at the UN to the PRC. Taiwan has since been excluded from