Honduras/OAS

Honduran leaders pull out of OAS

Article published on the 2009-07-04 Latest update 2009-07-05 07:48 TU

Organization of American States (OAS) chief Jose Miguel Insulza (L) addresses a news conference at a hotel in downtown Tegucigalpa
(Photo: Reuters)

Honduras is to pull out of the Organisation of American States (OAS), ahead of a meeting Sunday which was almost certain to suspend the country because of the ousting of President Manuel Zelaya. After meeting top Honduran officials OAS Secretary General Jose Manuel Insulza, said they had no plans to resore Zelaya to his post.

Honduras "ceases its compliance with the charter of the

Organization of American States ... with immediate effect," Deputy Foreign Minister Marta Lorena Alvarado said on national television. Interim leader Roberto Micheletti, who was appointed after the military threw Zelaya out of the country, was standing beside the minister during the broadcast.

On Friday, Insulza, who is visiting the country to lobby for Zelaya's return, said that the current leaders "have no intention of reversing the situation". He had met politicians and legal and religious figures but not Micheletti or the Attorney-General.

A representative of the Supreme Court, which ruled that Zelaya had violated the constitution by trying to change it, told Insulza that the situation is "irreversible".

Although Micheletti was appointed by the country's parliament which had clashed with Zelaya, Insulza insisted that a military coup has taken place.

"I don't know what you call it when a group of soldiers, sent by soldiers in a military operation, remove a president and send him off in a military plane to another country," he said. "That is a military coup."

Honduras returned to civilian control in 1981 after 18 years of almost uninterrupted military rule.