| Lot of tidbits in this news item. |
In an interview with The Associated Press on the eve of the one-month anniversary of Honduras' June 28 coup, Foreign Minister Carlos Lopez clearly bet on outlasting Zelaya. He said Zelaya might start to lose relevance as campaigning begins and noted that even the candidate for Zelaya's own party doesn't support the ousted president. "There will be a totally different context and once the campaigns begin, the obsession with Mr. Zelaya will start fading," Lopez said.
He expressed a perhaps optimistic view that other nations will recognize the results of the election, scheduled for Nov. 29. Some nations have said they would not necessarily recognize a vote held under what they consider an illegitimate government that has cracked down on pro-Zelaya media.
"Of course it will be recognized. There is no sense in talking about it not being recognized," Lopez said of the ballot to pick a successor to Zelaya, whose constitutionally mandated single term ends Jan. 27.
Lopez stood fast on the interim government's refusal to allow Zelaya to return to office, though Congress is scheduled to debate whether to grant him amnesty--one part of a compromise proposed by mediator Oscar Arias, the president of Costa Rica.
Zelaya contends the Nov. 29 election cannot be considered legitimate, and says he has settled in for the long haul at the impromptu headquarters of his government-in-exile in Ocotal, a Nicaraguan border town. He has not said how he plans to continue his struggle after January, but on Monday he urged a few hundred restive supporters who have joined him in Ocotal to be patient for what could be a long fight.
"It is our duty to struggle a day, two days, a month, six months, ten years. ... We are going to do it," Zelaya said. "The people's struggles are eternal."
He is trying to galvanize poor farmers, teachers and street activists into a movement strong enough to overcome his opponents and sweep him back into office, but Honduran military checkpoints kept all but a few hundred supporters from reaching Ocotal.
Many of those who did make it to Nicaragua wondered how long they could hold out away from their work and families, waiting for Zelaya to come up with a plan. Zelaya has vowed to remain on the border for at least a week, but hasn't announced any concrete strategy since he walked a few meters into Honduras and then retreated Friday.
The crowd, housed in two shelters in Ocotal, spent Monday in disarray. They boarded buses for a drive to the frontier line, only to turn back when they realized Zelaya didn't plan to join them. The ousted president showed up at one of the camps to address his supporters, only to find they had left for the border.
But hot meals arrived in the afternoon as Zelaya gave supporters an hours-long pep-talk, and a tractor trailer delivered hundreds of floor mattresses Monday evening for Hondurans sleeping at a municipal gymnasium.
The interim government that ousted Zelaya said Monday it had seized a series of what appear to be receipts from a key Zelaya organizer, indicating payments of between $3,000 and $20,000 to several protest leaders. None of the Zelaya supporters were immediately available to comment on the alleged payments or what they were for.
Zelaya's supporters have staged near daily protests in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, including 3,000 teachers who blocked an avenue Monday. But the demonstrations have failed to become more than a minor inconvenience for interim President Roberto Micheletti and the formidable forces that support him: the military, business executives, Supreme Court and almost the entire Congress, including many in Zelaya's own party.
Zelaya has received overwhelming support from nearly all foreign governments, which have condemned the coup and isolated the Micheletti government diplomatically. But Zelaya complains that international mediation efforts to force his return have flagged. He accuses the United States--Honduras' largest source of development aid and its biggest trade partner--of not being forceful enough against Micheletti, who has ignored sanctions threats and U.N. demands that Zelaya be reinstated.