Honduras' elected president, Manuel Zelaya, was taken prisoner by soldiers and forced out of the country on the day Hondurans were supposed to vote in a nonbinding referendum on changing the country's constitution.

Early in the morning, Zelaya was captured, beaten and forced onto a plane that took him to Costa Rica. Other members of his government were also detained--the whereabouts of several were unknown late Sunday night.

The events in Honduras were similar to a coup attempt against left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in 2002. But that U.S.-backed effort failed when masses of poor Venezuelans mobilized to demand Chávez's return.

Manuel Zelaya came to office in January 2006, following a highly contested election in November 2005. He is a long-time member of the Liberal Party, one of the main establishment parties of Honduras. He ran on the basis of a law-and-order program, narrowly defeating the equally right-wing candidate of the National Party of Honduras, Porfirio Pepe Lobo.

After coming to power, however, Zelaya initiated populist measures and developed a close relationship with Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez. This policy alienated the country’s wealthy elite and political establishment, including leading figures in Zelaya’s own party. Since he was elected, Zelaya has come into periodic conflict with the corporate elite, which is the principal social force behind the military.

In January, Zelaya increased the country’s minimum wage from 157 to 280 dollars, excluding special export zones. Corporations responded angrily and initiated mass layoffs.

General Romeo Vasquez, the head of the armed forces who led the military coup against the democratically elected president Zelaya, is a graduate of the notorious School of the Americas (SOA).

"The U.S. Army School of the Americas...is a school that has run more dictators than any other school in the history of the world."
- Congressman Joseph Kennedy (In total, the School has produced at least eleven Latin American dictators.)

Honduras - like the rest of Latin America - has first hand experience with bloody work of School of the Americas graduates and with SOA trained military dictators:

In 1975, SOA Graduate General Juan Melgar Castro became the military dictator of Honduras. From 1980-1982 the dictatorial Honduran regime was headed by, yet another SOA graduate, Policarpo Paz Garcia, who intensified repression and murder by Battalion 3-16, one of the most feared death squads in all of Latin America (founded by Honduran SOA graduates with the help of Argentine SOA graduates).


Protesters Confront Soldiers After Coup in Honduras

"TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — One day after the country’s president, Manuel Zelaya, was abruptly awakened, ousted and deported by the army here, hundreds of protesters massed at the presidential offices in an increasingly tense face-off with hundreds of camouflage-clad soldiers carrying riot shields and automatic weapons.

"The protesters, many wearing masks and carrying wooden or metal sticks, yelled taunts at the soldiers across the fences ringing the compound and braced for the army to try to dispel them. “We’re defending our president,” said one protester, Umberto Guebara, who appeared to be in his 30s. “I’m not afraid. I’d give my life for my country.”

www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30...nduras.html