• The Organization of American States called an emergency meeting for Tuesday to consider suspending Honduras under an agreement meant to prevent the sort of coups that for generations made Latin America a tragic spawning ground of military dictatorships.

   

  Zelaya was to address the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday to seek support from its 192 member nations.

   

  The new government, however, was defiant. Roberto Micheletti, named by Congress to serve out the final seven months of Zelaya's term, vowed to ignore foreign pressure.

   

  "We respect everybody and we ask only that they respect us and leave us in peace because the country is headed toward free and transparent general elections in November," Micheletti told HRN radio.

   

  He insisted Zelaya's ouster was legal and accused the former president himself of violating the constitution by sponsoring a referendum that was outlawed by the Supreme Court. Many saw the foiled vote as a step toward eliminating barriers to his re-election, as other Latin American leaders have done in recent years.

   

  Despite the protests at the palace, daily life appeared normal in most of the capital, with nearly all businesses open. Some expressed relief at the departure of Zelaya, who alienated the courts, Congress, the military and even his own party in his tumultuous three years in power.

• Mr. Zelaya, accused of breaking Honduran law to seek reelection after his presidential term ends in 2010, was deposed from  office Sunday morning in a court-ordered military coup.
• In response to the coup in Honduras, the presidents of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), a leftist bloc  headed by Venezuela,

• The presidents of ALBA demanded that Zelaya be returned to power immediately and without condition – a call echoed by other  governments across the world, including the United States. Mr. Correa called for the punishment of those behind the coup. 

   

  Latin American representatives to the Organization of American States (OAS), which held an emergency meeting in Washington  yesterday to discuss the situation in Honduras, also denounced the coup,

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• others say it's Zelaya who's guilty of turning back democratic progress. According to Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution,  not only is presidential reelection illegal, so, too, is any attempt to reform the law for the purpose of reelection.
• Zelaya, however, argues that popular consultation should never be illegal in a democracy. So, he proposed a nationwide, nonbinding  poll June 28 to ask the Honduran voters if they would be willing to support a ballot proposition on constitutional reform  in the November general elections. Among the proposed changes would be an extension of presidential term limits that would  allow Zelaya to run for reelection. Most state institutions argued – and the Supreme Court ruled – that his initiative was  illegal.

• The United States supported a number of military coups in Central America during the Cold War and used Honduras as a base for its counter-insurgency operations in the region in the 1980s.

      

  Washington still has several hundred troops stationed at Soto Cano Air Base, a Honduran military installation that is also the headquarters for a regional U.S. joint task force that conducts humanitarian, drug and disaster relief operations.

• The ousted president, who was in office since 2006, had wanted to hold a referendum that could have led to an extension of his non-renewable four-year term in office.

  Expulsion condemned

  Polls for the vote were due to open early on Sunday, but instead troops stormed the presidential palace at dawn, detained Mr Zelaya and flew him to Costa Rica.

  The military, Congress and the Supreme Court in the Central American nation had all opposed Mr Zelaya's referendum.

• Key leaders of Honduras military coup trained in U.S.

     

   

    

    At least two leaders of the coup launched in Honduras on June 28 were apparently trained at a controversial Department of Defense school based at Fort Benning, Georgia infamous for producing graduates linked to torture, death squads and other human rights abuses.
  
• According to the watchdog group School of Americas Watch, Gen. Vasquez trained at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at least twice -- in 1976 and 1984 -- when it was still called School of Americas.
  
  The Georgia-based U.S. military school is infamous for training over 60,000 Latin American soldiers, including infamous dictators, "death squad" leaders and others charged with torture and other human rights abuses. SOA Watch's annual protest to shut down the Fort Benning training site draws thousands.
  
• According to SOA Watch, the U.S. Army school has a particularly checkered record in Honduras, with over 50 graduates who have been intimately involved in human rights abuses. 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).
  
  General Vasquez isn't the only leader in the Honduras coup linked to the U.S. training facility.

• If the Honduran military does not immediately permit the elected President to return to office, these events seem likely to give rise to an investigation of the roles of U.S. citizens in preparing the coup. Honduras was the main base from which the U.S. launched its "contra" operation against Nicaragua in violation of international law in the 1980s.

    

  What training did the coup leaders have in the United States during their careers? What contacts have they maintained with U.S. personnel? What supply and other relationships does the Honduran military maintain with the U.S. military? Journalists are undoubtedly asking these questions privately today.

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