Coup in Honduras?
Soldiers arrested leftist President Manuel Zelaya Sunday as he planned to carry out a controversial referendum to extend presidential term limits, despite a Supreme Court ruling that the vote would be illegal.
Soldiers arrested Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on Sunday.
Edgard Garrido/Reuters
Buenos Aires
In a move to thwart an attempt to rewrite the Honduran constitution, soldiers have arrested President Manuel Zelaya in what one leader has called a coup and which the European Union has condemned as unconstitutional.
Just before polls were to open on a controversial referendum to allow the president more than a single four-year term, which had led to escalating political tensions in this Central American nation in recent days, soldiers surrounded the president's home and took him into military custody.
Speaking to a local television station Sunday from the airport in Costa Rica's capital, San Jose, Mr. Zelaya said soldiers arrested him in his pajamas and beat his body guards in what he criticized as "a coup" and "a kidnapping."
Zelaya is an ally of leftist leader Venezuela President Hugo Chávez, who expressed support of his referendum along with Cuba's Fidel Castro. Honduras had joined ALBA, the alliance of leftist leaders in the region as an alternative to free-trade agreements they say are dominated by the US. Across Latin America, leftist leaders have successfully rewritten their constitutions to enable their re-elections. But while Mr. Chávez, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and Rafael Correa in Ecuador have successfully modified their charters to elongate their rule, it seems Zelaya miscalculated his institutional backing.
