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Aide: Ousted Honduran president en route home
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-07-17 09:49 Both sides had people lobbying on their behalf in Washington. Micheletti's supporters released a statement from his foreign affairs minister, Carlos Lopez Contreras, saying Zelaya's threats to return no matter what are an affront to Arias and Clinton.
Rodas pleaded Thursday for stronger action. "The US should suspend military aid and other support and freeze international reserves and personal and government bank accounts" to force an immediate resolution, she said.
Micheletti spoke of rumors Wednesday that Zelaya planned to enter over the Nicaraguan border Saturday, and suggested that forces he didn't identify were "were handing out some guns" to foment rebellion. He reinstated an overnight curfew that had been lifted only days earlier. Zelaya supporters blocking a road leading out of the capital Thursday denied they were carrying weapons. "Check it out: there is not one machete, gun or rifle here. This is a peaceful march," said peasant leader Rafael Alegria. Thousands have staged such protests almost daily since Zelaya's ouster, while crowds of roughly equal size have demonstrated in favor of Micheletti's government. Supreme Court President Jorge Rivera is next in line to the presidency, after Zelaya and Micheletti. The Supreme Court had issued an arrest warrant for Zelaya, ruling that his efforts to hold a vote on whether to form a constitutional assembly were illegal. The military decided to send him into exile instead, a move that military lawyers have since acknowledged also violates the constitution. Many Hondurans viewed the proposed vote as an attempt by Zelaya to push for a socialist transformation in the model of his ally, Venezuela's Chavez. Rivera questioned Zelaya's expulsion from the country in an interview with La Tribuna newspaper published Thursday. "The Supreme Court ordered Zelaya's capture and authorized the raid on his house so he could be captured," Rivera said. "The expulsion was not in the capture order, and in that sense, we have to analyze if (his expulsion) was the best thing given the necessities of the moment." He said Zelaya should be arrested if he comes back to Honduras, but said the interim government should also consider granting him amnesty as part of the negotiations in Costa Rica. "It should not be dismissed as a possibility. It could happen at the end of the tunnel, once a light is found in the path of dialogue," Rivera said.
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