Up to this point, the coup plotters might have been able to justify their actions to the international community by arguing that the military was fulfilling a legitimate court order to arrest the president. What happened next, however, deprived them of that luxury.
The military bundled Zelaya away to a military aircraft. Still in his pajamas, the president was flown to Costa Rica.
Even among some who supported the removal of Zelaya, the decision to expel him went beyond the pale, and the army's chief juridical advisor now acknowledges that the expulsion was illegal.
"It has made Honduras look bad for an action being taken to benefit a democratic system," said Jorge Canhuate Larash, one of the country's most powerful businessmen.
The military has assumed responsibility for what it says was a last-minute decision to remove Zelaya from the country, arguing that to leave him in a prison in Honduras would have invited mobs to attempt to break him free. But many here don't think they made the decision alone.
It is not clear what kind of role the Roman Catholic Church, another pillar of power and influence here, played before to the coup; Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga was at the Vatican that week. But within days he lent fervent support to the action.
Nine days after the coup and two days after Zelaya attempted unsuccessfully to land at the airport, the cardinal was overheard on his cellphone to the attorney general, urging him to produce drug trafficking evidence against Zelaya. "My son," he said, "we need that proof. It's the only thing that will help us now."
Two days later, one of Latin America's veteran negotiators, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, invited Zelaya and Micheletti to his home for talks. But the ousted leader and the man who deposed him refused to sit in the same room.
More talks were vaguely planned, Micheletti flew back to Honduras, and Zelaya bounced around from capital to capital, in any country that would have him.
--
wilkinson@latimes.com
Special correspondent Alex Renderos contributed to this report.
