Zelaya and Chaves Must Be Doing to Much Cocaine

Zelaya said Coup Leaders
Planned to Have Him killed


By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
and wire services


Ousted president José Manuel Zelaya told supporters in México that he narrowly avoided assassination early June 28 when the military came to take him out of his country of Honduras. This is the first time he has mentioned the threat to his life.

Zelaya was in México to meet with President Felipe Calderón, who will be visiting with U.S. President Barack Obama this weekend. Zelaya wants the United States to step up the pressure on the interim Honduran government.

Zelaya said that civilian coup leaders planned to have him assassinated after he was deposed but that the military refused to go along with the plan, according to news reports.

In Honduras, police fired tear gas and used water cannon to disperse dozens of students who massed in the capital, Tegucigalpa, to protest the ouster of Zelaya.

The clashes happened Wednesday as the students blocked roads around the national autonomous university, then hurled rocks at the officers. The university's director, Julieta Castellanos, said she was beaten when she tried to calm the violence between the students and security forces.

As the clashes took place, foreign ministers from the Organization of American States met in Washington for talks on sending a high-ranking diplomatic mission to Honduras to resolve the political crisis.

The organization's deputy secretary general, Albert Ramdin, said the delegation will press the interim Honduran government to accept a proposal aimed at reinstating Zelaya. The military took Zelaya to Costa Rica June 28.

Ramdin says the organization believes the proposal is a "realistic" way to solve the political stalemate and return constitutional democracy to Honduras.

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez prepared the proposal. He has led a U.S.-backed mediation effort between the ousted and interim governments. The caretaker government of President Roberto Micheletti has refused any proposal that would allow Zelaya to return.

Interim leaders say Zelaya was ousted because he was trying to change the constitution illegally to extend his term in office. No government has formally recognized the Micheletti government.

Ramdin said it is unacceptable that a president who has been democratically elected is taken by force and transported out of the country. The Organization of American States suspended Honduras several weeks ago for failing to restore Zelaya.

This was the first time the Organization of American States had suspended a member since Cuba was excluded from the group in 1962.