Honduras rulers renounce OAS charter

Honduras's interim rulers spurned a demand from the Organisation of American States on Friday to restore leftist President Manuel Zelaya to power and said they would no longer recognise the OAS charter, deepening Central America's worst political crisis in decades.

The OAS, the Western Hemisphere's top diplomatic body, was expected to suspend Honduras's membership, and the interim government's latest action could be a preemptive move to distance itself from the organisation or even a step towards quitting it.

"The OAS is a political organisation, it is not a court of justice," said deputy foreign minister Martha Alvarado, announcing Honduras would renounce the OAS charter.

OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said in Tegucigalpa that he found no willingness by the caretaker government to reinstate Zelaya despite broad international condemnation of the coup.

"I'm afraid to say my efforts were unable to achieve this," Insulza said after talks with interim government officials.

Zelaya was ousted on Sunday in a dispute over extending presidential power and term limits. He is an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez but leaders from across Latin America, as well as US President Barack Obama, have demanded he be reinstated.

The bloodless overthrow in the impoverished coffee and textile exporting country of 7 million people has created a test of Washington's commitment to defending democracy in Latin America.

Insulza held talks with members of Honduras's ruling Liberal Party and the Supreme Court, which ordered the coup, to try to convince them to reverse Zelaya's overthrow.

"The clear result is that there is a clear rupture of constitutional order and those who did this have no intention for the moment of changing this situation," Insulza told reporters.

Zelaya upset the wealthy elite who have ruled Honduras for decades with his alliance with socialist Chavez and an attempt to change rules to let presidents run for a second term.

His popularity rating had fallen to about 30 per cent in recent months.

 

ANTI-ZELAYA PROTEST

Thousands of Hondurans waving the blue and white national flag staged a boisterous anti-Zelaya demonstration near the presidential palace.

Insulza met politicians, church leaders and judicial figures but did not talk directly to Roberto Micheletti, named by Congress as caretaker president, as the OAS wanted to avoid giving his government legitimacy.

The interim government's deputy foreign minister, Martha Alvarado, told local television immediately after Insulza's remarks that Zelaya's return as president was "not negotiable."

Insulza said he did not rule out violence.

"So far, unlike in other military coups, there have not been fatalities to lament, I cannot rule out the possibility of clashes," the OAS chief said.

Insulza, a former Chilean foreign minister, was told firmly by the Honduran Supreme Court that Zelaya would be arrested if he returns home.

"The president of the court told him the decision had been taken and there was no going back. If the president returns he will be arrested," a court spokesman said after the meeting.

The Honduras turmoil is Central America's biggest political crisis since the US invasion of Panama in 1989.

The United States has criticised the coup and will decide next week whether to cut economic aid to Honduras, one of the poorest countries in the Americas. But the Obama administration has let the OAS take the lead in trying to resolve the crisis.

The upheaval has not yet affected coffee supplies, although Central American neighbors staged a two-day trade blockade of Honduras to protest against the coup.

No foreign governments have so far imposed economic sanctions, and Micheletti's industry and commerce minister, Benjamin Bogran, told Reuters that an embargo would mainly hurt the country's poor. 

 

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