Brazil demands reinstatement of Zelaya

Brazil on Wednesday demanded that Manuel Zelaya be reinstated as president of Honduras, and warned the country’s interim government against violating Brazil’s diplomatic mission in Tegucigalpa.

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday morning, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian president said: “The international community demands that Mr Zelaya return immediately to the presidency of his country and must be alert to ensure the inviolability of Brazil’s diplomatic mission in the capital of Honduras.”

Brazil’s insistence comes as tension in Tegucigalpa has risen this week after the surprise appearance of Mr Zelaya on Monday, almost three months after he was removed from power at the point of a gun by the country’s military.

On Wednesday, there were conflicting reports of the first political death since Mr Zelaya stole into the country apparently undetected and headed straight for the Brazilian embassy.

According to one report, a 65-year-old man was shot dead in clashes between Zelaya supporters and police in a depressed Tegucigalpa suburb.

Holed up in the Brazilian embassy, the leftwing Mr Zelaya told press that 10 of his supporters had been killed by authorities. By Wednesday afternoon, the interim government led by Roberto Micheletti insisted that there had been no fatalities.

US-based Human Rights Watch on Wednesday issued a statement saying that it had received “credible reports that the use of excessive force by Honduran security forces against demonstrators has caused at least one death, and possibly more”.

José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at HRW, said: “The international community should immediately take steps to prevent further abuses by the Honduran security forces.”

On Tuesday evening, the country’s de facto government momentarily appeared to hold out an offer of peace after it said, for the first time, that it would be willing to hold talks with Honduras’s ousted leader.

“I am prepared to discuss how to resolve the crisis, but only inside the parameters of the constitution,” said Mr Micheletti in a statement read out on national television by Carlos López, the de facto government’s foreign minister.

However, almost in the same breath Mr Micheletti made it clear he would not countenance Mr Zelaya’s return to power – a point on which not only Mr da Silva but also the entire international community has insisted.

Mr Micheletti, a 66-year-old veteran of national politics and a bitter enemy of Mr Zelaya even though they are from the same Liberal party, claims that the former president was lawfully removed from power on June 28 after he ignored several Supreme Court rulings not to go through with a nationwide opinion poll asking whether Hondurans wanted to change the constitution.