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UNITED NATIONS: Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on Tuesday vowed to return home later this week despite the threat of arrest and said he had never sought re-election to a second term.
He spoke to reporters shortly after addressing the UN General Assembly which adopted a resolution condemning the army-backed coup against him and demanding his "immediate and unconditional" reinstatement.
"I am returning to ensure there's peace, because the people voted for me and because they (the military) have expelled me by force," Zelaya said.
He stressed that President Cristina Kirchner of Argentina and President Rafael Correa of Ecuador as well as Jose Miguel Insulza, head of the Organisation of American States (OAS), had offered to accompany him.
A Honduran judge earlier said Zelaya would be arrested if he returned to Tegucigapa on Thursday as planned.
Judge Maritza Arita told local radio that she had made the order late Monday.
Legal authorities accused the ousted president of 18 crimes, including "treason to the country," and "abuse of authority," Arita said.
The deposed president also said he had the support of Washington for his return home although he gave no details.
"The United States is offering its support for my return," he said, adding that once home, he would seek a dialogue with the opposition and did not expect resistance from the military.
"I think that the armed forces in Honduras will back down and say: 'at your command, Mister constitutional President!'"
And Zelaya, who is on his way to Washington, insisted that he had never sought to stay in power for a second term.
"If offered the possibility to remain in power (for a second term), I would not do it," he told reporters.
"I am going to fulfil my term up until January 27," said Zelaya, who was elected to a non-renewable four-year term in 2005.
Soldiers rousted Zelaya from his bed early Sunday and flew him into exile in neighbouring Costa Rica just hours before a planned controversial vote asking Hondurans to sanction a future referendum to allow him to run again in November elections.
The 192-member General Assembly adopted by acclamation a resolution condemning "the coup d'etat that... resulted in the removal of the democratically elected president."
The UN resolution demanded "the immediate and unconditional restoration of the legitimate and constitutional government of the president of the republic, Jose Manuel Zelaya, and of the legally established authority in Honduras so that he fulfils the mandate for which he was democratically elected by the Honduran people."
Zelaya welcomed the resolution, saying it dovetailed with similar condemnations by the OAS and other regional groups of the "barbarity that a small group of usurpers sought to inflict upon our country."
In his address to the UN assembly, Zelaya defended his stewardship and blamed his ouster on the Honduran elite which believed "I was trying to bring down the system of privileges they uphold."
"I have not been put on trial. I have never been called upon to take the stand to defend myself. No accusation has been brought by any judge," he added.
He outlined steps he has taken since he was elected nearly four years ago to raise the standards of living for the poor in Honduras.
"There's much injustice in Honduras arising from inequality," Zelaya said.
He described his ouster as "a violation of the law undertaken in the context of a coup d'etat."
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has urged Zelaya to meet with US President Barack Obama, saying the US leader's attention to the matter could "deliver a major blow" to those who ousted Zelaya.
Protests flared in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa on Monday as hundreds of angry Zelaya supporters, defying a government curfew, erected barricades near the presidential palace.
They threw rocks and Molotov cocktails and used pipes and metal bars against shield-bearing riot police. Security forces cracked down with tear gas and gunfire, an AFP photographer said.
The violence, the most serious unrest in years in this Central American country, left several demonstrators and security forces injured. More protests were planned for Tuesday.
Obama said the United States believed Zelaya "remains the president of Honduras" and called for international cooperation to solve the crisis peacefully. - AFP/de
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