The dawn coup was strongly condemned by Zelaya’s regional ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez — who has long championed the left in Latin America. Chavez put his military on alert in case Honduran troops moved against his embassy or envoy there.
U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration and the European Union also voiced backing for Zelaya, who was taken by troops from his residence and whisked away by plane to Costa Rica.
Hundreds of pro-Zelaya protesters massed outside the presidential palace and demanded Zelaya be reinstated, but most residents of the capital, Tegucigalpa, stayed at home.
Honduras, an impoverished coffee, textile and banana exporter with a population of 7 million, had been politically stable since the end of military rule in the early 1980s.
But Zelaya has moved the country further left since taking power and struck up a close alliance with Chavez, upsetting the army and the traditionally conservative rich elite.
Zelaya tried to fire the armed forces chief, Gen. Romeo Vasquez, last week in a dispute over the president’s attempt to hold an unofficial referendum yesterday about extending his four-year term in office. Zelaya took office in 2006 and under the constitution as it stands would have been due to leave office in early 2010.
His move on changing the constitution put him at odds with the army, the courts and Congress.
Zelaya was set to fly to the Nicaraguan capital, Managua, to meet Chavez and other regional leftist leaders today, said a spokesman for Zelaya who was still in Honduras.
A former businessman who sports a cowboy hat and thick mustache, Zelaya 56, told Venezuela-based Telesur television station that he was “kidnapped” by soldiers and barely given time to change out of his pyjamas. He was later bundled onto a military plane to Costa Rica.
The global economic crisis has curbed growth in Honduras, which is heavily dependent on remittances from Honduran workers abroad. Recent opinion polls indicate public support for Zelaya has fallen as low as 30 percent. “Our country has been without a route and rudderless for quite some time, and agitated politically,” said opposition deputy Antonio Cesar Rivera. The army stood guard outside as Honduran deputies unanimously elected Congress head Roberto Micheletti, a member of Zelaya’s own Liberal Party, as interim president.
Some 2,000 pro-government protesters, some armed with shovels and metal poles, burned tires in front of the presidential palace as two fighter jets screamed through the sky over the city.
“We will stay here indefinitely to put pressure on the military thugs and corrupt politicians to return President Manuel Zelaya,” said protest leader Juan Baraona.
Speaking on Venezuelan state television, Chavez said he had put his troops on alert over the Honduran coup and would do everything necessary to abort the ouster.
He said that if the Venezuela ambassador was killed, or troops entered the Venezuela embassy, “that military junta would be entering a de facto state of war, we would have to act militarily.” He said, “I have put the armed forces of Venezuela on alert.”
Chavez has in the past threatened military action in the region but never followed through. The EU condemned the coup and Obama called for calm. “Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference,” Obama said in a statement.
A senior Obama administration official said later that Washington recognizes only Zelaya as president.
“We recognize Zelaya as the duly elected and constitutional president of Honduras. We see no other,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters in a conference call organized by the U.S. State Department.
Honduras was a staunch U.S. ally in the 1980s when Washington helped Central American governments fight left-wing guerrillas.
The White House denied U.S. participation in yesterday’s coup. “There was no U.S. involvement in this action against President Zelaya,” a White House official told Reuters.
Chavez, who is known for his stridently anti-U.S. rhetoric and has in the past accused the United States of backing his own removal, said there should be an investigation to see if Washington had a hand in Zelaya’s ouster.
The United States still has about 550-600 troops stationed at Soto Cano Air Base, a Honduran military installation that is also the headquarters for a regional U.S. joint task force that conducts humanitarian, drug and disaster relief operations.
Democracy has taken root in Central America in recent decades after years of dictatorships and war, but crime, corruption and poverty are still major problems. Zelaya said the coup smacked of an earlier era.
“If holding a poll provokes a coup, the abduction of the president and expulsion from his country, then what kind of democracy are we living in?” Zelaya said in Costa Rica.
The Supreme Court, which last week came out against Zelaya and ordered him to reinstate fired military chief Vasquez, said yesterday it had told the army to remove the president.
Honduras is a big coffee producer but there was no immediate sign the unrest would affect production.
