Honduras under international pressure

The new leaders of Honduras are under intense pressure from the United States and other nations a day after a military coup. But the country’s new president says the move was legal. Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with Frances Robles of the Miami Herald who is in the capital Tegucigalpa.Listen

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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins, and this is the World. There’s a nationwide curfew in Honduras today, but it couldn’t stop hundreds of demonstrators from taunting Honduran soldiers outside the Presidential palace. The demonstrators denounced the man who    is now the acting President of Honduras. He replaced President Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted yesterday. Zelaya had insisted on going ahead with a referendum that might have allowed him to stay in power beyond the one-term limit. But the Honduran military kicked him out of the country. One protester today said Hondurans want United Nations peacekeepers to intervene.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: [TRANSLATED TO ENGLISH] We want the blue helmets. We want an army to liberate us. We don’t want this man who usurped power. We want our President.

LISA MULLINS: Frances Robles of the Miami Herald is there in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa. She spoke with us earlier this afternoon.

FRANCES ROBLES: What’s really interesting, I’m standing outside the Presidential palace, and what I can see, I would say about two blocks, as far as I can see are young men. Some of them with handkerchiefs around their faces, other ones carrying clubs. And a number of just families and older people demanding the return of the President. But what’s more interesting is that there’s quite a contradiction in reaction here. If you watch the television news media, they’re carrying on as if nothing has happened, frankly. They’re playing soap operas and cartoons.

LISA MULLINS: When you say that some of the protestors have handkerchiefs around their faces, what’s the purpose of that? Are they feeling they’re at risk by being out?

FRANCES ROBLES: I think they’re trying to look menacing [INDISTINCTIVE] [LAUGHS], because I don’t see any authorities here making any effort to stop them from protesting. So I don’t know if they’re trying to hide their identity. I think some people are just trying to cover their mouths from smoke. You see a lot of people wearing the medicine masks that you see for the people protecting themselves from swine flu, because there are burning piles of trash and tires and things of that nature.

LISA MULLINS: And those things that are burning are part of the protest?

FRANCES ROBLES: Part of the protest, yes, absolutely.

LISA MULLINS: [TALKS OVER] What do we hear in the background there right now, Frances?

FRANCES ROBLES: What you’re hearing is a number of people on loud speakers demanding the return of the President, and saying that they will not recognize Roberto Micheletti as the President of Honduras. They say that they’re not leaving here until Manuel Zelaya comes back.

LISA MULLINS: Until he comes back. And is there any indication that the former President will indeed be back?

FRANCES ROBLES: I don’t have that sense because they have an uphill battle. Because what I’m sensing here is a vast majority of the population [INDISTINCTIVE] establishment. You have the Attorney General’s office, you have the military, you have the supreme court, and you have congress decidedly on the side of this new President saying, you know, “Zelaya had to go, and this is the way we had to do it, and we did it [INDISTINCTIVE]. And then you have a small percentage of the population that I’m watching now in front of the Presidential palace saying, “No, no, no. That’s not the way things should be done.”

LISA MULLINS: And meanwhile, there is pressure coming in from the United States, maybe you can tell us how significant that may or may not be with Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, saying that they support the President who was ousted yesterday. That they believe that democracy should reign in Honduras. Here is what the acting President though has to say. This is Roberto Micheletti, who is speaking to Spanish TV.

ROBERTO MICHELETTI: [SPEAKS IN SPANISH]

LISA MULLINS:  Frances, I don’t know if you caught enough of that for me to ask you to translate for us. Did you hear that?

FRANCES ROBLES: I did heard. And actually, what he says is, nobody has the right, not Barack Obama or Hugo Chavez, has the right to come and threaten Honduras. Because there had been some comments from Hugo Chavez, sort of suggesting that this warrant of military action.

LISA MULLINS: To what extent does he fear what either Hugo Chavez, or certainly Barack Obama has to say about the coo that happened that brought him to power yesterday. I mean, the United States has been close to the Honduran military, but then we have the military, the supreme court of Honduras, the congress of Honduras, the Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church, all coming out in favor of this coo. I mean, what does that say in terms of how the US and its influence is viewed there.

FRANCES ROBLES: The US is in a bit of a tight spot because what you have here is enough institution that we’re in fear of the President, what looked like the President was about to conduct some kind of power grasp, where he was going to conduct this referendum despite the fact the Supreme Court has a little bit of ego, that the Attorney General has a little bit of ego, and that the Armed Forces refuse to participate in it. And then you have people who, “Oh okay. If that’s the case, then we’re gonna get this guy out of the country, we’re gonna [INDISTINCTIVE] him away. So what’s the United States supposed to do? On the one hand, I think they recognize that perhaps President Zelaya was perhaps up to no good. On the other hand, there’s ways to get rid of a President, than perhaps breaking into his bedroom in the middle of the night, is not the way you’re supposed to do it.

LISA MULLINS: Alright. Thank you very much. Speaking to us from the Presidential Palace in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Frances Robels from of the Miami Herald. Thank you.

FRANCES ROBLES: Thank you.

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