Sun Jun 28, 2009 6:48pm EDT
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba on Sunday condemned the military coup in Honduras as "criminal, brutal" and demanded the immediate return to office of deposed leftist President Manuel Zelaya.
The Honduran army ousted Zelaya and exiled him on Sunday in Central America's first military coup since the Cold War, after he upset the military by proposing an extension of his four-year term in office.
"I denounce the criminal, brutal character of this coup," Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez told a news conference in Havana.
Zelaya is viewed by Cuba's communist leadership as a leftist ally and former Cuban leader Fidel Castro had expressed backing for his efforts to hold an unofficial public vote on Sunday to gauge support for his plan to hold a November referendum on allowing presidential re-election.
"This coup has removed a legitimate and constitutional government simply for wanting to carry out a consultation ... in Honduras there is only one constitutional government, one constitutional president who should return immediately without conditions to the palace," Rodriguez said.
The Cuban foreign minister also denounced what he called the violent treatment by Honduran troops of several foreign ambassadors in Tegucigalpa, specifically those of Cuba and Venezuela.
Earlier, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Honduran soldiers took away the Cuban ambassador and left the Venezuelan ambassador on the side of a road after beating him during the coup. The Cuban ambassador was later released.
Rodriguez said the Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan ambassadors in Tegucigalpa had been seeking to give diplomatic shelter to Zelaya's Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas when a band of Honduran soldiers, their faces hooded, had tried to take her away. He said he was extremely concerned for her safety.
Chavez on Sunday put troops on alert over the coup in Honduras and said he would respond militarily if his envoy to the Central American country was kidnapped or killed.
Rodriguez said there were 84 people, including diplomats, women and children, at the Cuban embassy in Tegucigalpa and said Cuba was "ready to defend the integrity of our embassy".
(Reporting by Marc Frank, Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Philip Barbara)
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Granma
Actualizado a las 3:00 p.m., hora local
Cuba condena golpe de Estado en Honduras
LA HABANA, 28 de junio (PL).— Cuba condenó hoy el golpe de Estado contra el presidente constitucional y legítimo de Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, apartado por la fuerza de su cargo y llevado a Costa Rica.
El ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, llamó a los golpistas a devolver a su cargo a Zelaya al tiempo que los responsabilizó con la vida de la canciller Patricia Rodas.
Rodas se encontraba, sobre las 10 de la mañana hora de Honduras junto a los embajadores de Cuba, Venezuela y Nicaragua, de donde fue trasladada a la base de la Fuerza Aérea en Tegucigalpa por un grupo de unos 15 soldados con pasamantoñas.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
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4 comments:
In a democracy a president may be removed from office only by impeachment. Namely by a public hearing, open to the public, where the president may call witnesses in his defense.
But not so in Honduras, as their rich nobility created a smoke screen called a constitution that made the president as temporary and weak as possible, so that the military could continue to be as all powerful as possible.
Comes now our State Department in Washington to try and prove that they had nothing to do with the violent overthrow of Honduras by asserting that they tried to stop it. But surely the only way to stop it would have been to warn the democratically elected president about it.
i returned from Cuba, Sunday after a 14 day stay.
I am not surprised by this and in my opinion this is just the Obama Adm telling latin america, central america, and all caribbean countries that they had best toe the line or Big Daddy will make them pay the cost. Barak Obama, is all we have but as i have shared with your editor here i am not happy with my vote for him. Hillary Obama and the adm do not want ALBA!
Now, i will be honest and say that there has never been a pres with this much on his plate since Rosevelt. However, this is a man who in my opinion is fallowing suit and ridiculing, belittleing and humiliating another sovereign nation.
Pres Obama, has used the same tactics that Reagon did with the USSR when they stabbed NBuestras Cuab in the back?
Sr Pres silver tongue is an adept con artist who has not only failed to keep his promise to talk with Fidel etc, butb this man is a failure in that he does not even know who he is as a Black man.
He will be in Africa begging for Oil or because Russia is already in Ghana pumping, Obama will be there plotting to steal the Ghanians wealth?
Please stop by my blog again http://Gracisfidel.blogspot.com i have laid out my thoughts and welcome all
CubaVA
Obama did it -- MilagrosGV I agree
In the grand scheme of things, a coup to protect U.S. imperialism in Central America is the only scenario that fits reality, the real world as it transpires in time and space.
Now we can all see why Mccain was left alone to battle Obama, he was like a fly that Obama just swatted.
Git! you nasty old thing?
My concerns are for Cuba, because as i have said this is a message from the "BILDERBERGER" crew that Alba" will not be tolerated. There will be no union of OUR Amderica, there will be no sharing and caring for one another, and there will be no democratically elected officials without US dictatorship.
When i was younger and in law school i studied about how amerikka was challenged and forced to change the laws by good and decent freedom lovers of all races. And today, i would love nothing more than to support another worldwide demonstration calling for Obama to get this thing right. While in Cuba, a friend gave me an article to read and i am going to past it here. Once it is read i would like to know your thoughts..i have blogged it and it is on the web
http://racismfrmcongo2cuba2blknamerikkka2.blogspot.com/2009/07/real-obama-bilderberger-boy.html
let me know if it opens
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