Defying coup, Zelaya plans return to Honduras

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Defying a coup and bolstered by international support, ousted President Manuel Zelaya said he will return to Honduras on Thursday to serve out the rest of his term.

He said he would be accompanied by the Argentine and Ecuadorean presidents, and the U.N. General Assembly and Organisation of American States chiefs.

But the interim government -- set up after the army bundled Zelaya out of the Central American country on Sunday -- said it would arrest him if he tried to re-enter Honduras.

In the Honduran capital several thousand protestors took to the streets to rally against Zelaya, a leftist leader ousted in a dispute over presidential term limits.

Zelaya told a news conference at the United Nations he intended only to complete his mandate, which ends in early 2010, and would not run for president ever again.

"I going back to Honduras on Thursday, I'm going to return as president," Zelaya told reporters after the U.N. General Assembly urged member states to recognise only his government.

The coup in the impoverished coffee-producing country of 7 million -- the first in Central America since the Cold War -- has been greeted by a tide of condemnation, from U.S. President Barack Obama to Zelaya's leftist allies in Latin America, led by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

But the interim government set up with Roberto Micheletti, a veteran of Zelaya's Liberal Party, as caretaker president, said it would arrest Zelaya if he went back. Micheletti said he intends to stay on until November elections.

Enrique Ortez, the interim government's foreign minister, told CNN's Spanish-language channel that Zelaya had charges pending against him for violating the constitution, drug trafficking and organized crime.

"As soon as he enters he will be captured. We have the warrants ready so that he stays in jail in Honduras and is judged according to the country's laws," Ortez said.

ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY

Standard & Poor's placed Honduras "B-Plus" credit rating on its Creditwatch negative category to reflect the damaging economic impact of rising political uncertainty.

Coffee producers told Reuters that protesters had blocked parts of three major highways in the interior of the country. But the country's coffee institute said that exports had not been affected by the coup.

The World Bank has "paused" all program lending to Honduras following the coup, its president Robert Zoellick said.

Zelaya, a timber magnate who took office in 2006, had riled the armed forces, courts and Congress with his quest to change the constitution to let presidents seek re-election beyond a single four-year term. He upset conservative elites with his growing alliance with Chavez, a leftist firebrand in Latin America.

Zelaya said the U.N. General Assembly president, Miguel D'Escoto, OAS chief Jose Miguel Insulza, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa would accompany him back on Thursday.

But in the capital, Tegucigalpa, several thousand anti-Zelaya protesters waving blue-and-white Honduran flags packed in a square to back Micheletti and protest against the return of a leader they say wants to follow Chavez's socialist model.

After the coup, pro-Zelaya protesters clashed in the streets with security forces. But the capital was generally calm on Tuesday with traffic back to normal and many stores and cafes open for business again.

Troops and police tightened security at the main international airport in the capital.

NEGOTIATION?

Micheletti, who has the backing of the country's powerful business and political elite, told Reuters most Hondurans supported the ouster, which he said had saved the country from swinging to a radical Chavez-style socialism.

Zelaya has low support -- polls showed around 30 percent before his ouster -- as many Hondurans were uncomfortable with his tilt to the left in a country with a long conservative, pro-Washington position.

"Some sort of negotiation will have to occur," said Shannon O'Neil at the Council on Foreign Relations. "For the international community, the most acceptable solution is that Zelaya comes back and completes the last several months of his term as President, and then steps down."

Obama, facing a test as he tries to mend the battered U.S. image in Latin America, has called the ouster illegal and the White House said Zelaya was likely to meet U.S. State Department officials when he makes an expected visit to Washington for an OAS meeting later on Tuesday.

The U.N. General Assembly called on its 192 member states to recognise only Zelaya's government. In a resolution passed by consensus it condemned what it called a coup d'etat and demanded "the immediate and unconditional restoration of the legitimate and constitutional government" of Zelaya.

Zelaya said he had only tried to improve the lot of his country's poor but had been treated harshly by the army and business interests.

"No-one has put me on trial. No-one has called me to a court to defend myself, no-one has told me what the crime is," he told the assembly.

(Additional reporting by Enrique Andres Pretel, Mica Rosenberg, Gustavo Palencia in Tegucigalpa and Guido Nejamkis in Buenos Aires, Walter Brandimarte and Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations, Editing by Frances Kerry)

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