Zelaya Says He Will Return to Honduras on Thursday

Latin American Presidents, OAS Secretary General, and Citizen Caravans Will Accompany Him

Ousted Honduran President Manual Zelaya has announced that he will return to Honduras on Thursday.  "I'm going to finish my four-year term, whether or not you coup leaders are in agreement," he stated. 

Zelaya will return to Honduras accompanied by the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, and a commission of Latin American presidents.  The Argentine government has announced that its President Cristina Fernandez will accompany Zelaya to Honduras as part of the presidential commission.  In a press conference following his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Zelaya stated that Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa will also accompany him.

Colinas, Santa Barbara, Mayor Amable de Jesus Hernandez told TeleSUR that citizen caravans were being organized to travel from his region to the capital of Tegucigalpa on Thursday to receive President Zelaya. 

Threat of Arrest?

Reports in Honduran and international press that interim President Roberto Micheletti says that "if Zelaya sets foot on Honduran soil he will be arrested" are overblown, thanks in large part to a provocative headline in that regard published by Colombia's Radio Caracol.  Yes, Micheletti has stated that Honduran courts have issued arrest warrants against Zelaya, but thus far he has not definitively stated that his forces will attempt to arrest Zelaya when he arrives accompanied by Secretary General Insulza, President Fernandez, President Correa, and possibly other Latin American presidents.

Reports that Micheletti has threatened to arrest Zelaya arose out of an interview Micheletti did with Radio Caracol.  The interviewer asked Micheletti how he planned to respond in the event that Zelaya follows through on his promise to return on Thursday.  Micheletti responded: "My country's courts have arrest warrants against him for breaking the law."  He then went on to explain his case for why Zelaya had broken the law when he attempted to carry out a public opinion poll on forming a new constitutional convention to draft a new constitution.  Micheletti never told Radio Caracol that his government planned to act on the aforementioned arrest warrants.

However, Radio Caracol decided to publish its interview with Micheletti under the headline "Micheletti: If Zelaya Sets Foot on Honduran Soil He Will Be Arrested." The story--with its somewhat misleading title--has been picked up all over the world.

On a side note, La Prensa reports that members of Zelaya's cabinet and other officials who helped organize and promote Zeyala's opinion poll may be criminally prosecuted.  According to La Prensa, more details will be released later today.

If Micheletti's forces do decide to arrest Zelaya upon his return, it would constitute a brazen and desperate move of a dictatorship in its final death throws.  The United Naitons, the OAS, the Bolivarian Aliance of the Americas (ALBA), the Rio Group, the Central American Integration System (SICA), Mercosur, and virtually all nations that have taken an official stance on the crisis on Honduras have condemned the coup and demanded the immediate and unconditional return of Zelaya as Honduras' constitutional president.