Reporting from Mexico City and San Salvador — Honduran army troops seized President Manuel Zelaya early today and sent the leftist president into exile in an apparent coup, reports from the Central American country said.
Troops moved through the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, and surrounded the presidential palace and other government buildings. The state television network was off the air as hundreds of angry Honduran citizens poured into the streets and shouted support for Zelaya. "The fact is, this is a coup d'etat and the president of Honduras has been kidnapped and beaten up," Honduras' ambassador to the Organization of American States, Carlos Sosa Coello, told CNN's Spanish-language network.
"This has been a brutal kidnapping," Zelaya told reporters in the Costa Rican capital of San Jose. He said he was rousted from his bed by masked army officers who shouted, fired warning shots and pointed a gun to his chest and head. Still in his pajamas, he said, he was hauled away to an aircraft, in which he was flown to Costa Rica.
Zelaya declared that he remained the president of Honduras and called on international support to "defend democracy."
The military action followed days of unrest ahead of a referendum over constitutional reforms scheduled for today. The vote was to ask Hondurans whether they wanted another referendum to change the constitution in a number of ways, including allowing re-election of the president.
Army leaders opposed the vote, which they, Congress and election officials said was illegal. In response, Zelaya last week fired the top military commander and then ignored a Supreme Court order to reinstate him.
President Obama, in a statement issued by the White House, said he was "deeply concerned" about the developments.
"As the Organization of American States did on Friday, I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter," the president said. "Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference."
Honduran Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas called on the public to support the missing president. "We will fight in the streets for the president to return to Honduras," she said. "We will resist until he returns."
