WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. president, Barack Obama said Monday that the coup that deposed Honduran president Manuel Zelaya was illegaland would set a terrible precedent for the transition to a military force, unless reversed.
We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there, Obama said to reporters after a meeting in the Oval Office with his counterpart in Colombia, Alvaro Uribe.
Zelaya, in power since 2006, was overthrown in a coup d'etat at dawn after having caused the trouble on the Judiciary, Congress and the Army, attempting to constitutional changes that would have enabled him to seek reelection after a term of four years.
The Congress of Honduras Roberto Micheletti appointed interim president and the Supreme Court said that the country had ordered the military to dismiss Zelaya.
United States, the European Union and a variety of foreign governments expressed support for Zelaya, who was taken by force from his home by soldiers and sent quickly in a plane to Costa Rica.
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Obama said that will work with the Organization of American States (OAS) and other countries and institutions in obtaining the return of the Zelaya government.
It would be a terrible precedent if we start to roll back to an era in which we see military coups as a form of political transition, instead of election democratic, said Obama, noting the progress of the region to establish a democratic tradition in the last 20 years.
Despite the comments of Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the Government had not formally designated for now as the overthrow a military coup.
Such a designation would require the U.S. leader to suspend much of the assistance to Honduras.
Under United States law can not provide assistance to a country whose elected head of government has been overthrown by a military coup, although it is a measure to promote democracy.
We do believe that this has evolved into a coup, Clinton told reporters, adding that the U.S. government is holding back by that name now.
When asked whether United States considered suspending aid to Honduras, Clinton refused to head.
The U.S. State Department could not immediately specify how much aid sent to Honduras.
The White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said he did not think Obama has spoken with since the overthrow Zelaya.
He said that Washington had been working in recent days to try to prevent a coup and said that our goal now is set to restore democratic order in Honduras.
Analysts said that the swift criticism from Obama and Clinton on Sunday had a best reception from Latin American nations which had had previous U.S. interventions in the region.
Obama's position contrasted with the equivocal position taken by former U.S. President George W. Bush in 2002, which was interpreted as an acceptable tactic in a coup against the leftist Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.
Clinton emphasized that United States is working with other nations in the hemisphere to restore full constitutional order and democracy, but avoided specifically request that Zelaya is back in power.
A top U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that by delaying the legal ruling on the coup, Washington was trying to generate space for negotiation of an agreement.
(Additional Reporting by Doug Palmer; Published in Spanish in Marion Giraldo /Javier Leira)
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