TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Police and soldiers clashed with thousands of protesters outside Honduras’ national palace Monday, leaving at least 45 people injured, as world leaders from Barack Obama to Hugo Chavez demanded the return of a president ousted in a military coup.
President Manuel Zelaya said he would seek to return to his country Thursday and reclaim control of the government. He said he would accept an offer from the head of the Organization of American States to accompany him to Honduras.
Across Latin America, leftist leaders pulled ambassadors from Honduras. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala would cut trade with Honduras for at least 48 hours.
Chavez, president of Venezuela, called for Hondurans to rise up against those who toppled his ally. He later vowed to halt Venezuelan oil shipments to Honduras and called for its soldiers to rise up against “that tyrannical, puppet government.”
Protests outside the presidential palace grew from hundreds to thousands, and soldiers and police advanced behind riot shields, using tear gas to scatter the protesters.
The demonstrators, many choking on the gas, hurled rocks and bottles as they retreated.
At least 38 protesters were detained, said human-rights prosecutor Sandra Ponce.
Officers briefly detained four journalists from The Associated Press and three from Venezuela-based Telesur, arresting them at their hotel with rifles drawn, loading them in a military vehicle and taking them to an immigration office, where two officials demanded to see their visas. The group was released a short time later.
In Washington, Obama said the United States will “stand on the side of democracy” and work with other nations and international groups to resolve the matter peacefully.
“We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the democratically elected president there,” Obama said.
“It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition rather than democratic elections,” he added. “. . . We don’t want to go back to a dark past.”
The OAS called an emergency meeting today to consider suspending Honduras under an agreement meant to prevent the sort of coups that for generations made Latin America a tragic spawning ground for military dictatorships.
Honduras’ new government was defiant.
Roberto Micheletti, named by Congress to serve out the final seven months of Zelaya’s term, vowed to ignore foreign pressure and began naming Cabinet members, including a minister of defense.
He insisted Zelaya’s ouster was legal and accused the former president himself of violating the constitution by sponsoring a referendum that was outlawed by the Supreme Court.
Many saw the foiled vote as a step toward eliminating barriers to his re-election, as Venezuela’s Chavez and other Latin American leaders have done in recent years.
