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TEGUCIGALPA - Defiant interim leader Roberto Micheletti prepared to govern a tense Honduras on Monday as worldwide calls increased for ousted President Manuel Zelaya to return to power.
Soldiers removed Zelaya from his bed early Sunday and sent him to Costa Rica, sparking international outcry.
Zelaya's overthrow was triggered by a standoff between the president and the military and legal institutions over his bid for a vote on changing the constitution, which would allow him a stab at a second term.
Latin American leaders gathered in Nicaragua Monday, along with Zelaya, to draft a response, while the UN General Assembly was meeting in emergency session on the political crisis in New York.
"Our immediate priority is to restore full democratic and constitutional order in that country," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday, urging all sides to hold talks.
Russia and Canada meanwhile joined a growing list of nations to condemn the coup, and the European Commission called an urgent meeting with Central American ambassadors to consider the future of trade talks.
Mexico offered to help with dialogue to try to resolve the political crisis, Patricia Rodas, the foreign minister from the ousted Honduran government, said in Mexico City before departing for Nicaragua.
The Honduran Congress voted Micheletti in as the country's new leader just hours after Zelaya left the country, while Zelaya said he was determined to return and "reclaim his post."
Micheletti on Monday began assembling his government and called on all government workers to return to work as normal, after a politically powerful national union of teachers announced an indefinite strike.
Shots were heard in the Honduras capital late Sunday after Micheletti imposed a nationwide 48-hour curfew.
Venezuelan President and regional leftist champion Hugo Chavez said the international community should teach the Honduran government "a lesson" after throwing his weight behind Zelaya at the Nicaragua meeting on Sunday.
Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega said leaders were determined to avoid "bloodshed."
In Honduras, Micheletti brushed off international condemnation of the takeover.
He said he "had come to the presidency not by a coup d'etat but by a completely legal process as set out in our laws."
The interim leader also warned Chavez his country was ready to "go to war" if there was interference by "this gentleman."
Micheletti said he had information that several battalions of troops were being prepared outside of Honduras for intervention.
In a veiled warning to Chavez and his allies, a senior US State Department official said that "a process" in Honduras should not be "interfered with bilaterally by any country in the Americas."
Sunday's dramatic events were the culmination of a tense political standoff over the past several days.
Zelaya, elected to a non-renewable four-year term in 2005, had planned a vote Sunday asking Hondurans to sanction a referendum on changing the constitution.
The referendum had been ruled illegal by Honduras's top court and was opposed by the military.
Last week Zelaya sacked the country's top military chief, General Romeo Vasquez and also accepted the resignation of Defense Minister Edmundo Orellana, after military commanders refused to distribute ballot boxes for Sunday's vote.
The heads of the army, marines and air force also resigned.
The Supreme Court said Sunday that it had ordered the president's ouster to protect law and order.
Micheletti, from Zelaya's Liberal Party, was appointed to serve out the rest of the term, which ends in January.
Zelaya, who was elected as a conservative, has shifted dramatically to the left during his presidency.
He is the latest in a string of Latin American leaders, including Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, to seek constitutional changes to expand presidential powers and also ease term limits.
- AFP /ls
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