Vowing to return home to recover his presidency, Mr. Zelaya boarded a plane in Washington for Honduras on Sunday afternoon with the United Nations General Assembly president, Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, and a small group of advisers and others.
But the leaders who expelled Mr. Zelaya in an early-morning coup last Sunday announced bluntly that the plane carrying the deposed president and other aircraft accompanying it would be denied permission to land. “If he pushes it, there will be 10,000 people on the runway to prevent him,” said Enrique Ortez, foreign minister of the caretaker government.
The government’s announcement did little to dissuade crowds of Mr. Zelaya’s supporters from ringing the airport on Sunday evening, where hundreds tried to break down the fences to get in.
Soldiers, standing in formation at one end of the runway and in trenches dug into a hillside, fired in the air and set off tear gas, while a helicopter hovered overhead.
A least one person was killed and two were badly wounded, a medic and emergency services at the airport said, according to Reuters.
Adding to the drama, Mr. Zelaya was giving interviews from the air as he approached Central America. “No one can obligate me to turn around,” he told Telesur, a Venezuelan network that had reporters on the plane. “The constitution prohibits expelling Hondurans from the country. I am returning with all of my constitutional guarantees.”
link: Ex-Honduran President Tries to Return as Clashes Erupt - NYTimes.com
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