Honduras’s Zelaya Not Welcome in Nicaragua,
Lawmakers Say
By Blake Schmidt and Eric Sabo
(Bloomberg) -- The head of Nicaragua’s
largest opposition party said deposed
Honduran President Manuel Zelaya should find
another country from which to stage a return
to power.
Zelaya and hundreds of supporters set up
makeshift encampments in Nicaragua after the
ousted leader briefly stepped into Honduras
from that nation on July 24. He has spent
the past six days hiking the hilly terrain
and urging more Hondurans to join him in his
cause, promising them food, water and
shelter.
“We certainly don’t want Zelaya around here
anymore,” Francisco Aguirre, a lawmaker with
the Liberal Constitutional Party, said in a
phone interview. “He represents too much of
a risk of an armed conflict with Honduras,
and he’s doing our economy a lot of harm.”
Stricter border curfews to prevent Zelaya
from returning to Honduras have blocked
about $3 million in trade each day,
Nicaragua’s Supreme Council for Private
Enterprise said. The government yesterday
requested humanitarian aid from the United
Nations to prevent the spread of disease as
the number of encampments rises.
The longer Zelaya stays along the border,
the less likely he’ll return, Aguirre said.
Lawmakers Blocked
Eduardo Montealegre, a lawmaker aligned with
Aguirre’s party, met with acting Honduran
President Roberto Micheletti and accused
Zelaya of “occupying” Nicaragua. Four other
legislators were blocked by protesters when
they traveled to the border to ask Zelaya to
leave, Montealegre said.
Zelaya said he is an invited guest of
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who
supports using his country as a base while
Latin American leaders and the U.S. urge
further talks to end the monthlong standoff.
The coup leaders who removed Zelaya on June
28 “committed a great error” and “opened up
a battlefield,” Ortega said yesterday.
“Hondurans crossing the border are here
because they’re persecuted politically,”
Zelaya told reporters late yesterday at a
gymnasium in Ocotal.
Contra rebels crossed into Nicaragua from
Honduras throughout the 1980s to fight
against Ortega’s revolutionary government.
Eliseo Balladares, a coffee grower who lives
near Zelaya’s encampments, said he’s seen
many “strange faces” close to the border
town of Las Manos.
“We don’t want a conflict,” said Balladares,
63. “We’ve already lived through chaos.”
Talks Sought
Costa Rican President Oscar Arias said he is
willing to jumpstart negotiations with
Zelaya and the interim government after
earlier talks broke down. Mexico, Colombia
and Central American nations yesterday
endorsed his 11-point proposal to end the
stalemate, which calls for restoring Zelaya
to the presidency.
Arias told reporters late yesterday that he
spoke with Micheletti by phone and that an
agreement to end the crisis is “still
alive.”
Zelaya was ousted after he ignored court
orders to reinstate the head of the
military, who had refused to help organize a
poll aimed at gauging support for changing
the constitution. The Supreme Court had
ruled the poll illegal.
Supporters of the interim government have
said that Zelaya, elected in 2005, became
too closely aligned with Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez and his plan for
“21st-century socialism.”
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