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Ousted Honduran president back on border
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-07-26 09:53

LAS MANOS: For the second day in a row the deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya appeared Saturday on the border between Nicaragua and his country, from where he was expulsed in a coup almost a month ago.

Ousted Honduran president back on border
Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya returns to the Honduran border in Las Manos and announces he would set up camp there on July 25, 2009. [Xinhua] Ousted Honduran president back on border

He arrived at Honduras-Nicaragua border town Las Manos Saturday at 1 pm local time (1900 GMT).

Megaphone in hand, Zelaya asked his supporters to "stand firm" as they are setting camps on the frontier till Sunday morning, hoping for more followers to join.

On Friday he, along with his media entourage, crossed the border into Honduras and stayed in the neutral zone for about an hour and half before stepped back to Nicaragua "for prudence's sake."

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His "symbolic entry" as he called was criticized by many foreign leaders to be imprudent, even "reckless" as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has commented.

Xiomara Castro, the ousted president's wife, on Saturday told Xinhua that Zelaya is now studying alternative routes to enter the country after a month-long exile.

Zelaya also told local Radio Globo on Saturday that he might break into Honduran territory from other neighboring countries including El Salvador and Guatemala, or he has a helicopter to fly to San Pedro Sula, second biggest city and economic center of Honduras.

"We are organizing wherever we go," he said.

His wife said the ousted leader's followers, including herself, will continue waiting for his return in El Paraiso town, some 10 kilometers from the border line where they were stopped on Friday by military-police joint forces who fired tear gas towards the pro- Zelaya demonstrators.

On Saturday the 24-year-old Pedro Magdiel Martinez was found dead in Honduras' El Paraiso town bordering Nicaragua with clear signs of having been tortured.

Witness said the young protester was arrested on Friday by the police and disappeared ever since.

The dead victim and many other "Zelayistas" gathered on Friday in El Paraiso in an attempt to give the ousted state chief a "welcome-home," yet suffered a clash with the police under the de facto government's command.

Two have been confirmed injured in the clash by late Friday.

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