TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Honduras’ interim leader warned that the only way his predecessor will return to office is through a foreign invasion, even as the hemisphere’s leaders gave him 72 hours to hand over the presidency.
One potential confrontation was postponed today when the ousted president delayed plans to return — to a threat of arrest. Another loomed as hundreds of Manuel Zelaya’s supporters, some armed with baseball bats and bottles of gasoline, blocked the street before the country’s presidential palace.
Roberto Micheletti said in an interview with The Associated Press late Tuesday that “no one can make me resign,” defying the United Nations, the OAS, the Obama administration and other leaders that have condemned the military coup that overthrew Zelaya.
Pressure continued to grow today as Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman announced that joint U.S.-Honduran military operations are on hold “as we assess that situation.”
The U.S. has close relations with Honduras’ military and it has some 800 personnel at a Honduran air base used for anti-drug and other operations.
The U.N. General Assembly Tuesday demanded Zelaya’s immediate restoration, and the Organization of American States said today that coup leaders have three days to restore Zelaya to power or Honduras risks being suspended from the group.
That period for negotiation prompted Zelaya to announce he was putting off his plans to return home on Thursday until the weekend.
Micheletti vowed Zelaya would be arrested if he returns, even though the presidents of Argentina and Ecuador have agreed to accompany him, along with the heads of the OAS and the U.N. General Assembly.
Micheletti’s foreign minister, Enrique Ortez, said today that while Zelaya would be detained, “we will let his companions enter if they represent friendly countries. If not, no.”
Micheletti, a member of Zelaya’s Liberal Party who was named interim leader by Congress following the coup, said Zelaya “has already committed crimes against the constitution and the law.”
“He can no longer return to the presidency of the republic unless a president from another Latin American country comes and imposes him using guns,” said Micheletti, who shrugged off intense international pressure.
“No one can make me resign if I do not violate the laws of the country,” Micheletti said. “If there is any invasion against our country, 7.5 million Hondurans will be ready to defend our territory and our laws and our homeland and our government.”
He did not name any country, but Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that he had put his military on alert. Chavez said his country’s ambassador had been briefly detained and roughed up and warned that if Venezuelan Embassy was attacked, Honduras “would be entering in a state of war.”
Chavez said Tuesday that any aggression against Zelaya by Micheletti’s government should prompt military intervention by the United Nations.
Soldiers stormed Zelaya’s residence and flew him into exile early Sunday after he insisted on trying to hold a referendum asking Hondurans if they wanted to reform the constitution. The Supreme Court, Congress and the military all deemed his planned ballot illegal.
Zelaya backed down from the referendum Tuesday, saying at the United Nations that he would no longer push for the constitutional changes he wanted.
One of several clauses that cannot be legally altered in the Honduran constitution limits presidents to a single, 4-year term. Congress claims Zelaya, whose term ends in January, modified the ballot question at the last minute to help him eventually try to seek re-election.
“I’m not going to hold a constitutional assembly,” Zelaya said. “And if I’m offered the chance to stay in power, I won’t. I’m going to serve my four years.”
OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza said the OAS ultimatum is meant “to show clearly that military coups will not be accepted. We thought we were in an era when military coups were no longer possible in this hemisphere.”
France and Spain announced today they are recalling their ambassadors from Honduras as part of international efforts to reinstate Zelaya.
Young men wearing black T-shirts imprinted with the face of revolutionary icon Che Guevara used boulders, signposts and metal sheets yanked from fences to block all streets leading to the presidential palace today, just hours after soldiers took down their own barricades and allowed traffic to flow.
The faces of the Zelaya supporters were covered by bandannas and they had armed themselves with tree branches, metal poles and glass bottles filled with gasoline.
Thousands of rival demonstrators supporting Micheletti packed the city’s central plaza on Tuesday.
A small homemake explosive detonated outside the Supreme Court late Tuesday and another went off near the offices of Radio America, whose coverage has been sympathetic to Micheletti. Police would not comment on either explosion, but witnesses said neither caused injuries or major damage.
Some hospitals and schools remained closed due to walkouts by teachers and medical staff who support Zelaya, but life was little changed in most of the capital.
“We still have to go to work, despite what happened with the government,” said Manfredo Brizzio, a tour operator who said he supports Zelaya.
Asked if he was willing to protest in the streets, Brizzio replied: “I don’t have time.”
Zelaya’s popularity has sagged in recent years, but his criticism of the wealthy and policies such as raising the minimum wage have earned him the loyalty of many poor Hondurans.
Ortez threw a wild card onto the table on Tuesday, telling CNN en Espanol that Zelaya had been letting drug traffickers ship U.S.-bound cocaine from Venezuela through Honduras. Ortez said the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration was aware of Zelaya’s ties to organized crime.
DEA spokesman Rusty Payne could neither confirm nor deny a DEA investigation.
The U.S. government stood firmly by Zelaya, however. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Washington saw no acceptable solution other than Zelaya’s return to power. He said the United States was considering cutting off aid to Honduras, which includes $215 million over four years from the U.S.-funded Millennium Challenge Corporation.
The World Bank also said it was freezing loans.
“If living in democracy implies living with fewer resources, Hondurans will adjust to the situation,” Micheletti’s Finance Minister Gabriela Nunez said today.
Micheletti said he had no contact with any U.S. official since assuming the presidency.
The interim leader, who now occupies the same office in the colonial-style presidential palace that Zelaya did, insisted he was getting on with the business of governing.
He and his newly appointed Cabinet ministers were settling in, even as soldiers wandered the ornate hallways and manned barricades outside to keep Zelaya’s supporters away.
Micheletti, who promised he would step down in January and had no plans to ever run for president, said a key goal of his short term in office would be fixing the nation’s finances. Zelaya never submitted the budget to Congress that was due last September, raising questions about what he was spending state money on.
Asked if Zelaya could one day return to power stronger than ever, Micheletti said that “it’s not about sympathy, it’s not about being a martyr, but simply that we are following the letter of the law which he did not respect.”
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