U.S. not ready to declare coup, cut aid to Honduras

Ousted Honduras' President Manuel Zelaya speaks during a press conference Sunday before boarding flight to Nicaragua for a meeting with regional leaders. (AP Photo/Kent Gilbert)

The U.S. said Monday it views the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya as a coup but is not legally declaring this for now, a step that would require Washington cut off most aid to Tegucigalpa, Reuters reported.

Obama said Monday that removal of Zelaya was "not legal" and that he still is the president of Honduras.

Zelaya, in office since 2006, was overthrown in a dawn coup after he angered the judiciary, Congress and the army by seeking constitutional changes that would allow presidents to seek re-election beyond a four-year term.

The Honduran Congress named congressman Roberto Micheletti as interim president of Honduras, and the country's Supreme Court said it had ordered the army to remove Zelaya.

Hours before the swearing-in, heavily armed troops burst into the presidential palace in Tegucigalpa, broke through the door of Zelaya's bedroom, took him by force and flew him into exile in Costa Rica.

President Obama's administration, the European Union and a string of other foreign governments voiced support for Zelaya, who was snatched by troops from his residence and whisked away by plane to Costa Rica, Reuters reported.

"We do think that this has evolved into a coup," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters.

Whether the U.S. legally declares the event a military coup--a determination that Clinton said it was "withholding" for now--is vital because it could force Obama to cut off most aid to the country.

Under U.S. legislation, no aid, other than for the promotion of democracy, may be provided to a country whose elected head of government has been toppled in a military coup, according to the report.

Asked if the U.S. was currently considering cutting off aid, Clinton shook her head no.

The State Department said that it was unable to immediately say how much assistance the U.S. gives Honduras.

Clinton stressed the U.S. was working with other nations in the hemisphere to restore full democratic and constitutional order but stopped short of specifically calling for Zelaya to be restored to power, Reuters reported.

Analysts said quick criticism of the coup by Obama and Clinton on Sunday pleased Latin American countries bitter about the long history of U.S. intervention in the region, Reuters reported.

The Obama administration's stance contrasted with the equivocal position taken in 2002 by former President George W. Bush's administration, which was seen as tacitly accepting a coup against Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez.

Chavez has pledged to "overthrow" Micheletti.

This coup will be defeated," Chavez said in the meeting in Managua, also attended by the leaders of Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua and other countries allied with Honduras, The Washington Post reported. "We have to be very firm, very firm. This cannot end until Jose Manuel Zelaya is returned to power, without condition."

Micheletti responded to Chavez's threat Monday on Honduran radio, saying "Nobody scares us."

"I am sure that 80 to 90 percent of the Honduran population is happy with what happened," he said. Micheletti also said that he had not spoken to any other Latin American head of state, according to a Washington Post report.

Zelaya, speaking to reporters in Managua, Nicaragua, demanded that he be restored to power but said that violence was not an option. He also said that many Hondurans had no idea about the worldwide condemnation of the coup because private television stations in his country blacked out coverage, playing cartoons and soap operas instead, The Washington Post reported.

"Are we going to go back to the military being outside of the control of the civil state?" Zelaya said in comments to the press. "Everything that is supposed to be an achievement of the 21st century is at risk in Honduras."

Zelaya, 56, was in the last few months of his presidency when the coup took place.

Senior Obama administration officials said Sunday that U.S. diplomats had been negotiating behind the scenes to stop the coup.

"We have worked hard to avoid this," a senior Obama official said in a background briefing with reporters. "This has been brewing a long time."

Zelaya was removed from office as Hondurans prepared to vote Sunday in a nonbinding referendum asking them whether they would support a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution. Zelaya's critics said he wanted to use the referendum to open the door to re-lection after his term ends in January, an assertion that he denied.

The referendum was condemned as an obvious power grab, with the Honduran Supreme Court calling the referendum unconstitutional and leaders of Zelaya's own party denouncing the measure, according the WP report, among others.

On Sunday, the Honduran Congress voted to accept what it claimed was Zelaya's resignation letter. Zelaya denied that he had signed such a letter. A senior U.S. official said, "It is hard to take that letter seriously given how President Zelaya was removed from office."

Honduras is a poor, coffee- and banana-growing country in Central America with a population of 7 million.

Source: Reuters, The Washington Post