Protests erupt, gunshots heard after Honduras coup

By Mica Rosenberg
TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - The Honduran army ousted and exiled leftist President Manuel Zelaya on Sunday in Central America`s first military coup since the Cold War. Angry Zelaya supporters took to the streets and set up barricades.
The dawn coup was strongly condemned by Zelaya`s regional ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez -- who has long championed the left in Latin America. Chavez put his military on alert in case Honduran troops moved against his embassy or envoy there.
U.S. President Barack Obama`s administration, the European Union and a string of other foreign governments also voiced backing for Zelaya, who was snatched by troops from his residence and whisked away by plane to Costa Rica.
Zelaya, in office since 2006, had upset the judiciary, Congress and the army by seeking constitutional changes that would allow presidents to seek re-election beyond a four-year term.
Pro-Zelaya protesters, some of them masked and wielding sticks, set up barricades in the center of the capital, Tegucigalpa, and sealed off road access to the presidential palace.
Congress named an interim president, Roberto Micheletti, who announced a curfew for Sunday and Monday nights.
Honduras, an impoverished coffee, textile and banana exporter with a population of 7 million, had been politically stable since the end of military rule in the early 1980s.
But Zelaya has moved the country further left since taking power and struck up a close alliance with Chavez, upsetting the army and the traditionally conservative rich elite.
Zelaya tried to fire the armed forces chief, Gen. Romeo Vasquez, last week in a dispute over the president`s attempt to hold an unofficial referendum on Sunday about changing the constitution to allow presidential terms beyond a single, four-year term. Under the constitution as it stands, Zelaya would have been due to leave office in early 2010.
The country`s top court said on Sunday it had asked the army to remove Zelaya.
A former businessman who sports a cowboy hat and thick mustache, Zelaya, 56, told Venezuela-based Telesur television station that he was "kidnapped" by soldiers and barely given time to change out of his pajamas. He was later bundled onto a military plane to Costa Rica.
Zelaya was to fly on Sunday evening to the Nicaraguan capital, Managua, to meet Chavez and other regional leftist leaders.
The global economic crisis has curbed growth in Honduras, which is heavily dependent on remittances from Honduran workers abroad. Recent opinion polls indicate public support for Zelaya has fallen as low as 30 percent.
The army stood guard outside as Honduran deputies unanimously elected Congress head Micheletti, a member of Zelaya`s own Liberal Party, as interim president until after the elections in November.
Micheletti defied world pressure to reverse the coup, saying: "I don`t think anyone here, not Barack Obama and much less Hugo Chavez, has the right to come and threaten (Honduras)."  Continued...
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