TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — The U.S. military said Sunday that its troops in Honduras did not know of and played no role in a flight that took ousted President Manuel Zelaya to exile during a military coup.
Zelaya says the Honduran military plane that flew him to Costa Rica on June 28 stopped to refuel at Soto Cano, a Honduran air base that is home to 600 U.S. soldiers, sailors and airmen engaged in counternarcotics operations and other missions in Central America.
U.S. forces at Soto Cano “were not involved in the flight that carried President Zelaya to Costa Rica on June 28,” Southern Command spokesman Robert Appin said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Appin said the U.S. troops at Soto Cano have stopped conducting exercises with the Honduran military since the coup.
The administration of President Barack Obama has cut off millions of dollars in military and development aid to Honduras in an effort to pressure for Zelaya’s reinstatement. It has stopped short of imposing trade sanctions that could cripple the Honduran economy, which is highly dependent on exports to the United States.
Zelaya, a wealthy rancher who aligned himself with leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez during his presidency, has voiced frustration with Washington for not imposing tougher penalties.
During a visit to Brazil last week, Zelaya spoke of the stop at Soto Cano and voiced suspicions of U.S. complicity in the coup — although he stressed that he did not believe the highest levels of the Obama administration were involved.
“The Obama administration has been firm in condemning the coup and demanding my restitution. I do not see reasons to believe that the Obama administration has two faces,” although “there are some elements of the CIA that could have been involved,” Zelaya said.
The government of interim President Roberto Micheletti is trying to withstand international pressure to restore Zelaya before scheduled Nov. 29 presidential elections.
It insists Zelaya was legally removed from office after violating court orders to call off a referendum asking voters whether they would support rewriting the constitution.
