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Breaking news: ZELAYA BACK IN HONDURAS

According to Noticias 24 reports that deposed president Mel Zelaya is back in Honduras, staying at the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.

CNN reports that State Department spokesman Ian Kelly confirmed the news,

U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly confirmed Zelaya was in Honduras, but could provide no further information.

“We have confirmed that he is in Honduras,” Kelly told journalists, adding the State Department was trying to find out more details of Zelaya’s whereabouts.

Enrique Reina, the Honduran ambassador to the United States, told CNN en Español that he could not divulge exactly where Zelaya was for security reasons.

Rodolfo Pastor, the charge d’affairs of the Honduran Embassy in Washington, said Zelaya was at the United Nations offices in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa.

But Rebeca Arias, coordinator for the United Nations in Tegucigalpa, denied the leader was in the building.

“He’s not here,” she said, adding that Zelaya had called her late Monday morning and told her that he was in the country and would inform her within a few hours where he was.

As you can read in the Noticias 24 report, however, the Brazilian Embassy has confirmed that he is there.

Honduras’s Zelaya Says He’s Returned to Tegucigalpa

“I’m here in the Honduran capital, in the first place carrying out the people’s will, which has insisted on my restoration,” Zelaya said in a separate broadcast on Venezuela’s government-owned Telesur network. “I’m here to initiate a dialogue.”

He’s there, confirmed by the State Department, alright.

UPDATE
4:20PM Globovision reports that the Honduran government has issued an arrest warrant against Zelaya.

Photo of Zelaya at the Brazilian Embassy at Noticias 24. Never one for modesty, Zelaya says “it’s like a holiday for the country.”

What part the Obama administration played remains to be ascertained.

4:30 Welcome, Memeorandum readers.

22honduras.1901

5:20PM La Gringa posts,

El Tiempo reported earlier that former Minister of the Presidency Enrique Flores stated that Zelaya was returned “thanks to a coordinated international operative”.

Coordinated? By whom?

5:45PM Transcript of the US State Dept., via Dick, briefing

QUESTION: On Honduras, please?

MR. KELLY: Yes.

QUESTION: Do we know if President Zelaya has come home? And what does it signal?

MR. KELLY: Well, you know, literally, as I was about to come down, I saw the news report and I was able to talk to my colleagues in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. It does seem to be true that he has returned to Honduras. And the Embassy is still seeking details about what he hopes to achieve and what his next steps are.

I think that at this point, really, all I can say is reiterate our almost daily call on both sides to exercise restraint and refrain from any kind of action that would have any possible outcome in violence, refrain from activities that would – could provoke violence.

QUESTION: How did he come in, and where is he? What —

MR. KELLY: Don’t know.

QUESTION: When did it happen?

MR. KELLY: Like I say, the Embassy is trying to find out these details. But I do know that we have confirmed that he’s in Honduras. Where exactly he is, I don’t know. And we’re just trying to find out more details.

QUESTION: Last time we tuned in, he was under threat of arrest if he came home. Is that still what’s in play right now?

MR. KELLY: I’d have to refer you to the de facto regime in Tegucigalpa. Of course, we believe that he’s the democratic – democratically elected and constitutional leader of Honduras.

Zelaya’s phone interview (in Spanish)

Gateway Pundit reminds us that the freedom for Honduras demonstration in St Louis is scheduled for tomorrow.

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Comments

  3. Arrest him, charge him, make him stand trial for his crimes. Seems like he has played into the hands of the current legitimate government.

    The Brazilian Embassy staff should be expelled.

    Is this just wishful thinking? Yeah, I know, there will be riots and demonstrations. But surely the government can maintain order. Not a happy situation at all for Honduras, but it seems to me that Zelaya walked into a trap. Unless Obama does something even stupider like deploying US troops there against the government.

  4. If he’s in the Brazilian Embassy, he’s not legally in Honduras, he’s in Brazil.

    Wonder if he flew in via helicopter…

  6. @Dan S – Of course you are right. But I am assuming he’s not going to take up permanent residency in the Brazilian Embassy. Or live there by himself if their staff is expelled.

    So many good questions.

  8. I’m updating regularly from Honduras. Thanks for your coverage, Fausta. It is so obvious that this man wants power much more than he cares about what happens to his country or the people who follow him.

  9. So, Jose Manuel Zelaya returned Monday to the capital city of Honduras? For what? To be the Honduran president of the Brazilian Embassy courtyard? Most of the Honduran people do not want him. He should go live with one of his brothers, Chavez or Castro.

  11. Here’s his melodramatic account from the BBC: “[We travelled] for more than 15 hours… through rivers, mountains, until we reached the capital of Honduras in the early hours of the morning.

    We overcame military and police obstacles on the highways, because this country has been kidnapped by the military forces.”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8267982.stm

    Also –
    Critique of the US approach focusing on the elections in the Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0917/p09s02-coop.html

    A disgustingly biased article at Huffpo that nevertheless contains interesting information on what has and has not been cut in terms of aid and military relationships. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-carlsen/cutting-off-the-honduran_b_289520.html

    Best wishes and strength to those attending the Freedom for Honduras demonstration in St Louis today.

  16. DeMav,

    That CS Monitor piece was good. It certainly points out the shallowness of an administration that thinks a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

  17. Fausta, as much as I value your views and your prolific blogging, your support for the coup is essentially undemocratic.

    The repression of the popular movements and of the laboring, marginalizd classes has been harsh and brutal, especially against campesina women.

    Zelaya is the president, and he will remain in the political forground for years to come.

    Democracy is painful, and it’s movement is fraught with sacrifice. From what I have seen from the Honduran popular classes, they have earned it.

    The deathsquaders and coupsters will be prosecuted and jailed, as they should be.

    Viva the people of Honduras.

    Miami is the hip place to be, or so I am told.

    Oh, I forgot, they have no visas…then Panama will have to do.

  18. Steven, I appreciate your kind words. We will disagree on this.

    The Congressional Research Service’s legal review of the Honduran situation concluded,

    “”Available sources indicate that the judicial and legislative branches applied constitutional and statutory law in the case against President Zelaya in a manner that was judged by the Honduran authorities from both branches of the government to be in accordance with the Honduran legal system,” writes CRS senior foreign law specialist Norma C. Gutierrez in her report.”

  19. The question there is that even though the CRS is under a democratic congress, does the imperial… uh … other imperial … uh… executive … branch have the luxury of blowing their counsel off just as they do the Congressional Budget Office when it doesn’t fit their condescendingly racist narrative? Especially when the transparency in the fact finding crew in the executive branch of late has been so annoyingly opaque (and in comparison with the Pelosisphere, that’s saying something!).

    Guess so.

  20. Well Bill, the Honduran kites basically blew it when they opted for he easy way out.

    Now Zelayas supporters have developeda political movement that vey well might force revamping an outdated constitution.

    The majority of Honduras support Zelaya over the coup govenment.

    Despite the delusions that abound, the little people want leftward change–not emit-backed wage-slavery, ecological rape, and no changes to the miserable system of immiseration.

    This movement has only just started, he people have been awakened.

    Not allowing left poliical tendncy has back-fired on he Lain American elites.

    For elites, democracy sucks. Suffer.

  21. “The majority of Honduras support Zelaya over the coup govenment.”

    Uh.. Univision polls say that has 61 percent of the polled wanting him in Jail with only 23 and 6 percent wanting to either enter negotiations with him, or reinstating him. And I doubt Univision only polled “oligarchs” and “elites”.

  22. Yeah, Bill, and that is a non-biased poll!

    We both know how the Honduran business class reacts to honest attemts to poll the population. LOL

  24. Well shoot, now Gringo(I think) and I will never found out about those nuclear armed 24-hour a day bomber flights. But I did notice that Steven Hunt offers no rebuttal other than ad hominem to the polling in Honduras. I actually would be curious if the numbers are skewed one way or another as I would also like some information, if it actually exists, of new death squads in Honduras considering they were the ones suppressed by the current constitution in the 80’s. How do, “We both know how the Honduran business class reacts to honest attemts to poll the population. LOL.” Any citations to back that up or is that one of those everyone knows the moon is made of green cheese statements?

    The Hondurans, in reading their Constitution, have copied the intent of one of the most succesful charters the world has ever seen. That of limited government and rule by law not divine right of kings or tyrants nor mobs roaming the streets. Maybe we should ask ourselves who do we think would pass on his constitutional office peacefully at the end of the term, Micheletti or Zelaya?

  25. Gosh I forgot all about the nuke-em plan! We never heard about that did we… must be filed along with

    One thing about the poll I WILL concede is that it was a clickiebutton one. BUT, once again, if it’s true that a large sampling of Latin Americans support Zelaya or otherwise believes the “coup” meme would have created results more favorable to Mel. Despite what people think when the world is supposed to believe one thing as we are so often told, you can’t “bot” those polls with THAT kind of skewing.

    And that in itself implies, as if we didn’t know already, that the “elites” of the world are backing Mel (the wannabe president-for-life), not Micheletti (the guy who wants to quit and keeps daring Mel to do the same for the sake of the nation). This of course is not surprising given that global “elites” love pseudo “stability”. The same stability that keeps Chavez in power to now criminalize the same demonstrations that Steve loved to see against W & Blair, enables the witchdoctors in Iran keep the guy who got third place for the pretend-he’s-in-charge seat and presumes that any country that isn’t NATO (and now no longer even their PfPs) deserves nothing more than a president for life with no pesky checks and balances (so they don’t have to deal with the little people’s idea of Hope and Change). Such precious things we keep for ourselves, eh?