Here’s a recap from yesterday, via Latin Americanist:
The video’s from Al Jazeera, which outdoes CNN when it comes to in-country reporting from Latin America. The victim was Obed Murillo, 19 years old. Honduras’ La Prensa states there is one dead, not two, and several wounded. Zelaya apparently used TeleSur, Chavez’s cable TV station, to urge his followers to go to the airport.
The WSJ has a graphic with Zelaya’s travels of the past two days:
Zelaya’s trying to portray himself as a Christian evangelical of sorts:
In his interview with the Telesur network, Mr. Zelaya said, “Today I feel like I have sufficient spiritual strength, blessed with the blood of Christ, to be able to arrive there and raise the crucifix.”
…
Honduras’s influential Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez, the highest-ranking Roman Catholic Church official in the country, had gone on national television Saturday to urge the exiled president not to come back precisely out of fear of deadly violence.
After refueling in Nicaragua last night, Zelaya’s plane landed in El Salvador, again. Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa and El Salvador’s president Mauricio Funes greeted him at the airport. We’ll see what today’s news will bring.
I must again point out that the ruling party in Honduras is Zelaya’s own party.
Will update with today’s news as they develop.
Opinion:
Via The Corner (h/t commenter Vicky) Will Obama blackmail Honduras into installing a bullying would-be dictator?
The fact that the military carried out the Honduran Supreme Court’s orders in removing a would-be dictator, after he flouted the court’s rulings, does not make it a “military coup.” When court orders are defied by powerful government officials, troops are sometimes called out to enforce them, as happened in the U.S. in 1957 when federal troops forced Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus to stop blocking the court-ordered integration of Little Rock’s public schools. Indeed, Article 272 of the Honduran Constitution gives the military the power to remove a president even without a court order, if he seeks to violate the term limits prescribed in the Honduran Constitution. Even a legal commentator, Litho, at the leading liberal blog Daily Kos, which is run by a leftist Latin American immigrant, admits that the military’s action was “legal” in a “technical sense” under the Honduran Constitution.
Honduras Outraged by Obama-Chavez Alliance
Honduras at the Tipping Point
Why is the U.S. not supporting the rule of law?
What’s the Last Thing Honduras Needs?
A visit from the president of the United Nations General Assembly.
The Audacity Of Honduras
An abject situation for the Organization of American States.
At the blogs:
Don’t miss Hunter Smith’s photos from Honduras.
What Should the Obama Administration Do?
3:40PM
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to meet with ousted Honduras Presient Zelaya
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to meet Zelaya in Washington on Tuesday, a U.S. official said, in a sign the Obama administration — which has already condemned his ouster — wants to provide visible support. The official gave no other details of the planned meeting.
No word as to whether Hillary would be meeting with any representatives of the Honduran government who are scheduled to visit Washington.
4:40PM
Hunter Smith is trying to verify allegations by a member of the military that yesterday the police arrested 20 Nicaraguans from the crowd at the airport , who were armed with .357 pistols. So far there is nothing in the local press.
6:50PM
Mexico would offer asylum to Zelaya were he to request it, according to Foreign Relations Subsecretary Lourdes Aranda Bezaury.
Here’s another interesting take on the legalities of the situation, from a lawyer – http://www.etonomic.com/2009/07/06/honduras/