Honduran security breaks up pro-Manuel Zelaya demos

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Honduras' airports and borders were closed Tuesday, while baton-wielding police fired tear gas to chase thousands of demonstrators away from the embassy where their deposed president is holed up to avoid arrest.

Some gas canisters were also hurled over the walls of the Brazilian embassy, where President Manuel Zelaya, his wife, some of their children, Cabinet members and journalists kept a tense watch on police and soldiers who patrolled neighboring rooftops.

Manuel Zelaya told The Associated Press he has no plans to leave the haven at the embassy where he arrived Monday, but the leftist leader said he would like to speak with interim president Roberto Micheletti, who took power after the June 28 coup.

Those negotiations have yet to begin, and with his embassy the current hotspot for the Honduran crisis, Brazil's president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called Manuel Zelaya and pressed him not to do anything that might provoke officials to invade the diplomatic mission.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in New York, said that by allowing Manuel Zelaya into its embassy, Brazil only did what any democratic country would do.

Diplomats around the world, from the European Union to the U.S. State Department, were urging calm. And the secretary general of the Organization of American States, who is trying to convince Micheletti to step down and put Manuel Zelaya back in power, said he was "very concerned" that the situation could turn violent.

"They have been calling us a lot from there. It's a hostile situation and I hope the defacto government fulfills its obligation to respect this diplomatic seat," said Jose Miguel Insulza. So far, the government of interim President Roberto Micheletti has refused to budge on demands to reinstate Manuel Zelaya.

It asked Brazil to hand him over for arrest on charges of violating Honduras' constitution as president and an adviser to the foreign ministry, Mario Fortin, denied that international law would keep officials from raiding the embassy to grab Manuel Zelaya.

"The inviolability of a diplomatic mission does not imply the protection of delinquents or fugitives from justice," the adviser said.

"My country is in an unusual position this week," Micheletti wrote in a letter published Tuesday in the Washington Post. "Former president Manuel Zelaya has surreptitiously returned to Honduras, still claiming to be the country's legitimate leader, despite the fact that a constitutional succession took place on June 28...

"That the people of Honduras have moved on since the events of that day," Micheletti wrote, saying that the country is "looking forward to free, fair and transparent elections on Nov. 29."

Supported by the U.S. and other governments since his ouster, Manuel Zelaya apparently timed his surprise arrival in Honduras' capital to coincide with world leaders gathering this week at the United Nations in New York, putting renewed international pressure on the interim government to let him return to power.

The government ordered a 26-hour shutdown of the capital beginning Monday afternoon, closed all the nation's international airports and border posts while setting up roadblocks on highways leading into town to keep Manuel Zelaya supporters from staging the sort of protests that disrupted the city after his ouster.

Manuel Zelaya loyalists ignored the decree and surrounded the embassy, dancing and cheering and using their cell phones to light up the streets after electricity was cut off on the block housing the embassy. "We're here to support him and protect him, and we're going to stay here as long as it's physically possible," said Carlos Salgado, a 43-year-old jewelry maker from Manuel Zelaya's home state of Olancho.

Manuel Zelaya was removed in June after he ignored court orders and tried to hold a referendum that would reform the constitution. His opponents feared he wanted to end a constitutional ban on re-election — a charge Manuel Zelaya denied.

But the Supreme Court ordered his arrest, and the Honduran Congress, alarmed by his increasingly close alliance with leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuba, backed the army as it forced him into exile in Costa Rica.

For the past three months Zelaya has traveled to various countries meeting with political leaders, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to garner support.

Talks moderated by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias stalled over the interim government's refusal to accept Zelaya's reinstatement to the presidency. That proposed power-sharing agreement, now being reintroduced in the midst of Zelaya's return, would limit his powers and prohibit him from attempting to revise the constitution.