TEGUCIGALPA - As a new president takes office, toppled leader Manuel Zelaya will leave Honduras on Wednesday for exile after pressure by the United States and Latin American countries failed to reverse a coup that ousted him last June.
He timed his exit to coincide with the day opposition leader Porfirio Lobo is sworn in as president, effectively ending a crisis that began with Zelaya's ouster by the army.
Lobo won a November 29 election denounced by some Latin American and European governments as illegitimate since it was organized by a de facto government.
The Honduran Congress voted late on Tuesday to give Zelaya political amnesty but the move does not affect the criminal charges hanging over him and was not expected to alter his plan to leave the country.
The mustachioed Zelaya, known for his signature white cowboy hat, plans to abandon the Brazilian Embassy where he has been holed up for months, surrounded by soldiers, as soon as Lobo takes office.
"I have an invitation ... to go to the Dominican Republic and I will accept the invitation, obviously with the approval of the new government," Zelaya told local radio on Tuesday.
Zelaya's departure marks a failure of regional diplomacy to push the de facto leaders to step down after the international condemnation of his predawn capture by the army on June 28.
U.S. President Barack Obama, trying to shore up relations with Latin America, slammed the coup as a threat to democracy and backed months of talks first in Costa Rica and then in Tegucigalpa, all which collapsed with no negotiated solution.
Brazil, in a bid to flex its diplomatic muscles in the region, gave Zelaya refuge in its embassy when he snuck back into Honduras from exile in September. But his supporters turned the diplomatic residence into a chaotic camp-out and soldiers ringed the building like a fortress.
Honduras' de facto leader, Roberto Micheletti, appointed by Congress the day of the coup, refused to resign even after the United States pulled military aid and multinational banks froze loans to the impoverished nation of 7 million people.
From the first hours of the coup, Micheletti said Honduras would hold a regularly scheduled election in November. He said he would step aside only when Lobo took over on Wednesday.
Human rights groups documented serious abuses, including deaths, as security forces cracked down on pro-Zelaya protesters and media outlets in the weeks following the coup.
Lobo, a wealthy landowner from the same ranching province as Zelaya, said he just wants to move on from Central America's worst political crisis in decades and get aid flowing again.
"I know we are going to normalize (relations) with everyone," Lobo told reporters at a news conference the day before his swearing-in ceremony.
Honduras, which relies on coffee and textile exports and money sent home by migrants abroad, was already hurting from the global financial crisis before the coup.
Most Hondurans are eager to leave the turmoil behind.
"It's a relief that now there is less pressure from the outside," said Jorge Sierra, a 43-year-old security guard.
Business leaders and political foes from Zelaya's own party accused him of violating the constitution to stay in power, mimicking moves by Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez.
Zelaya denies the charges but still has an order out for his arrest. Under the deal struck with Lobo to whisk him quickly to the Dominican Republic, he can avoid prosecution.
He has promised to return one day but his political future seems dim. His exile could also limit Chavez's regional reach.
"I'm sure Chavez is privately licking his wounds," said Heather Berkman, a political risk analyst at Eurasia Group. "I think it shows at least in the case of Central America that influence of Chavez only goes so far."
As a sign that Honduras is trying to erase memories of the coup, a Supreme Court judge cleared military leaders of any wrongdoing on Tuesday after prosecutors accused them of abuse of power for rousting Zelaya from his bed at gunpoint.
© 2010 Reuters. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
|
