TEGUCIGALPA, HondurasIn a high-stakes move to reclaim his post, ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya tried to fly to this Central American nation on Sunday. The provisional government said it would turn the aircraft away, even as it signaled a new willingness to negotiate a solution to the region's biggest political crisis in years.
Honduras' civil aviation director said Mr. Zelaya's plane was being redirected to El Salvador.
Mr. Zelaya, a leftist kicked out by Honduras' army last week in his nightshirt, departed from Washington to Tegucigalpa on an aircraft believed to belong to Venezuela's government. He was accompanies by the U.N. General Assembly president, Miguel D'Escoto. Also along for the ride was Argentine President Cristina Kirchner in her official plane and another plane carrying journalists.
"The blood of Christ sustains me," Mr. Zelaya said in a brief interview aboard the plane with Venezuela's state-run TV network Telesur.
For the first time since the crisis broke a week ago, Honduras' provisional government signaled it would be willing to negotiate a solution to the crisis, which took a dramatic turn last Sunday when soldiers forced Mr. Zelaya to leave the country after he insisted on holding a referendum that critics said was aimed at him staying in power.
Interim deputy foreign minister Martha Lorena Alvarado told a news conference the government would be willing to meet in "good faith" with the Organization of American States, according to AFP. A senior U.S. official also said Honduras was willing to negotiate, according to Reuters.
| Could be a smart move -- drag it out, talk it to death, and keep Zelaya out of the country in the meantime so that people are asking, "Manuel who?" |
The move by Honduras' provisional government to talk came a day after the OAS voted to suspend the country from the multilateral body, which has 34 active members. Earlier, Honduras' provisional government said it would rather be kicked out of the OAS than allow Mr. Zelaya to return to the presidential seat.
In a sign of how the crisis is causing regional tensions to flare, Honduras said Nicaragua's army were carrying out small-scale troops movements near the border between both nations, which were bitter Cold War enemies during the 1980s Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega is back in power in Managua.
Honduras' interim president Roberto Micheletti said the troop movements were "small" and "nothing to worry about," but warned Nicaragua to back off and said Honduras would be watching events closely.
The country's acting leaders have said repeatedly they would arrest Mr. Zelaya if he managed to return. In the days after he was sent packing to Costa Rica by Honduras' military, the provisional government has accused Mr. Zelaya of multiple crimes, from treason to drug trafficking. The AP on Sunday said the interim government had ordered the military to prevent Mr. Zelaya's plane or any unidentified one from landing.
If Mr. Zelaya manages to return somehow, the chances of a violent confrontation appear high. Responding to a call by the ousted president, thousands of his supporters turned up at the Tegucigalpa airport to show their support. But an equal number of Hondurans are adamant they don't want the president to return.
Honduras' influential Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez, the highest ranking Catholic Church official in the country, went on national television to urge the exiled president not to come back. "We think that a return to the country at this time could unleash a bloodbath in the country," Cardinal Rodriguez said. "To this day, no Honduran has died. Please meditate because afterwards it would be too late."
The prelate also criticized Mr. Zelaya, suggesting the Church was throwing its weight behind the provisional government. "The day of your swearing in, you clearly quoted the three commandments of the sacred law of God: Not to lie, not to steal, and not to kill," said the Cardinal, who was seen as a leading candidate to succeed the late Pope John Paul II. 
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