Zelaya Vows To Return to Honduras *UPDATE*

The situation in Honduras remains volatile and as we speak, Zelaya is on a plane headed for Honduras despite warnings from the new president that he will not be allowed into Honduras’ airspace:

Soldiers lined barricades surrounding the airport in expectation of confrontations between Zelaya and his supporters and the provisional government that has vowed to keep him from coming back from a weeklong exile.
Zelaya was en route to Tegucigalpa on Sunday evening, and several thousand supporters gathered outside the airport in expectation of his arrival. But Civil Aviation Director Alfredo San Martin said in a radio address that the ousted leader’s flight would be barred from landing in Honduras and diverted to El Salvador.

At a news conference, provisional President Roberto Micheletti said Zelaya’s return could create unrest in a country that has seen demonstrators for both sides in the streets since the June 28 military-led coup that sent Zelaya into exile.

More from the Huffington Post:

Flying with Zelaya were close advisers and staff, two journalists from the Venezuela-based network Telesur, and U.N. General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, a leftist Nicaraguan priest and former foreign minister who personally condemned Zelaya’s ouster as a coup d’etat. The Telesur crew enabled Zelaya to speak in a live interview from the air. “No one can obligate me to turn around,” Zelaya declared.

But with their safety not guaranteed, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa pleaded with the Honduran military forces to avoid bloodshed. “If there is violence the whole world must clearly know who is responsible,” he said.

If Zelaya’s plane is allowed to land, the others will land as well, Correa said. If not, Correa, the presidents of Paraguay and Argentina and Jose Miguel Insulza, the secretary-general of the Organization of American States, planned to land in El Salvador.

Despite little media coverage of this here in the US, apparently things have been getting very ugly between pro-Zelaya protesters and the military and police and word of press-blackouts have been numerous.

**My previous posts on the situation in Honduras can be found here, here, here and here.

UPDATE: Right now Zelaya’s plane has been denied permission to land at the airport and due to the military blocking the runway. CNN is reporting US officials have stated that if Zelaya is not allowed to land he will be back in Washington DC tomorrow to meet with the OAS again.