Zelaya Returns to Honduras

Manuel Zelaya is back in Honduras, the ousted president told a Honduran TV station today, prompting thousands of his supporters to gather outside the UN building in the capital to celebrate. “I am here for the restoration of democracy, to call for dialogue,” Zelaya declared. The US State Department confirmed Zelaya’s return, though the country’s current de facto ruler denied it.

Zelaya wouldn’t say exactly where in the Tegucigalpa he was, but when a senior aide said he was inside the main UN building, as many as 4,000 supporters gathered outside, shouting “Yes, we did it!” Interim de facto president Roberto Micheletti called the reports “media terrorism,” insisting Zelaya remained "in a suite in a hotel in Nicaragua." (More Manuel Zelaya stories.)