LEFT-WING Latin American leaders rallied around ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya yesterday after an army coup that sparked protests in the impoverished nation and drew worldwide condemnation.
Some 200 pro-Zelaya demonstrators defied a night-time curfew to hold vigil by the presidential palace in the capital, Teguci-galpa, while Mr Zelaya held talks in Nicaragua with that country's president Daniel Ortega, Venezuela's firebrand Hugo Ch
avez and Ecuador's Rafael Correa.
Bolivia's Evo Morales and Jose Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the Organisation of American States (OAS), were due to join the group for talks.
The coup – triggered by a dispute over Mr Zelaya's push to extend presidential terms – is the biggest political crisis in Central America in years and will test US president Barack Obama as he tries to mend Washington's battered image in the area.
The White House called Mr Zelaya the only legitimate Honduran president, placing itself in the same camp as the leftist Latin American governments that are at ideological loggerheads with the US.
The OAS also demanded Mr Zelaya's immediate return, saying no other government would be recognised.
The coup followed a week of tension after Mr Zelaya, a Chavez ally who took office in 2006, angered the Honduran Congress, Supreme Court and army by pushing for a public vote to gauge support for changing the constitution to let presidents seek re-election beyond a single four-year term.
Before he could hold the poll on Sunday, the Honduran military seized Mr Zelaya and flew him to Costa Rica in Central America's first successful army coup since the Cold War era of dictatorships and war in the region. The Supreme Court, which last week overruled Mr Zelaya's attempt to fire the armed forces chief, said it had told the army to remove the president.
"We cannot allow a return to the past. We will not permit it," said Mr Chavez, who survived an attempted army coup in 2002 and who has put his troops on alert in case Honduras moves against his embassy.
Roberto Micheletti, named by Congress within hours of the coup as interim president until elections due in November, imposed a curfew for Sunday night and last night.
But hundreds of pro-Zelaya protesters defied the curfew, and railed against the wealthy conservative class that traditionally ruled Honduras, and much of Central America, after independence from Spain in the 19th century.
"We are going to be here until President Zelaya returns. Micheletti is the president of the rich and powerful who own this country," one protester outside the presidential palace said.
