Honduras' ousted President Manuel Zelaya, surrounded by supporters and journalists in Las Manos, Nicaragua, lifts the chain along the border with Honduras. He took a symbolic step into Honduras, where the de facto government has threatened to arrest him if he enters, but paused, avoiding a confrontation with security forces gathered there. Esteban Felix / Associated PressBehind the Honduran Mutiny -- Wall Street Journal
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- During Honduras' Independence Day celebrations last September 15, then-President Manuel Zelaya turned up for a time-honored ritual meant to promote national unity. But rather than merely making the traditional presidential cry "Long Live the Republic!" Mr. Zelaya treated political, civic and business leaders to a 15-minute diatribe against capitalism.
"The businessmen and corrupt oligarchy are responsible for our country's two centuries of poverty because they support an unjust neoliberal economic model that exploits humans and our natural resources," said Mr. Zelaya, wearing his trademark white Stetson hat, as members of the crowd began to shout "Fuera! Fuera! Fuera!" ("Out! Out! Out!").
Read more ....
More News ON Honduras
Honduras’ ousted president briefly returns -- L.A. Times
Honduras Chief's Return Scorned -- BBC
Exiled Leader of Honduras Steps Into Country -- New York Times
Clinton Calls Zelaya 'Reckless' for Trying to Return to Honduras -- FOX News
Zelaya 'reckless' to return to Honduras: Clinton -- AFP
Zelaya briefly steps into Honduras — What happens next? -- Yahoo News/AP
Inflaming Honduras -- Edward Schumacher-Matos, Washington Post opinion.
The OAS's Defense of Democracy -- José Miguel Insulza, Washington Post opinion
My Comment: Secretary of State Clinton is right when she called this move "reckless". Honduras is already a split and deeply divided country .... these actions are only going to insure more tensions and violence.
Putting his toe across the border may have served as a publicity for the world press, but in Honduras itself I doubt that this had the impact that President Zelaya was hoping for.
The problem that President Zelata has is that the term of his Presidency will be ending in a few months, and Presidential elections are just around the corner. He knows that the Interim Government is only playing for time, and he also knows that his legal rights to the President's office will end when his constitutional mandate to serve as President ends at the end of this year.
What are Mr. Zalaya's options .... from where I stand there are not too many of them. I doubt that he is the type of man who will organize an army that will cross into Honduras and forcibly take over the government ... that is not going to happen. His hope is that the military, with the support of key Government officials and politicians, all step up to support him. But at the moment that support is not there .... and I doubt that it will be there even at the end of this year when he is no longer "officially" the President.
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