Honduras’s deposed president, Manuel Zelaya, will appeal to the United Nations today to help him return to office after his supporters clashed with police last night in the capital, Tegucigalpa.
Zelaya will address the UN General Assembly as soldiers and civilians who overthrew him grew increasingly isolated following President Barack Obama’s assertion that their coup was illegal. An emergency session of the Organization of American States’ General Assembly is scheduled in Washington in a bid to diffuse the crisis.
Latin American leaders from market-friendly Mexican President Felipe Calderon to self-declared socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stood united against the region’s first coup since 2002 at an emergency summit in Nicaragua yesterday. Their unanimous censure contrasted with backing for Zelaya’s ouster by Honduras’s Supreme Court and congress, which named a caretaker until scheduled elections take place in November.
“The marching of the military into the presidential residence, the removal at gunpoint onto a plane out of the country -- this conjures up images of what we thought was part of Latin America’s past,” said Christopher Sabatini, policy director for the Council of Americas in New York.
