Army overthrows Honduras President

The Honduran army ousted leftist President Manuel Zelaya and exiled him yesterday in Central America's first military coup since the Cold War, after he upset the army by trying to seek another term in office.

US President Barack Obama and the EU expressed deep concern after troops came for Mr Zelaya, an ally of socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, around dawn and took him away from his residence. A military plane flew Mr Zelaya to Costa Rica and CNN's Spanish-language channel said he had asked for asylum there.

Meanwhile Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez yesterday put his troops on alert over a coup in Honduras and said he would respond militarily if his envoy to the Central American country was killed or kidnapped. Mr Chavez said Honduran soldiers took away the Cuban ambassador and left the Venezuelan ambassador on the side of a road after beating him during the army's coup against President Zelaya.

Mr Chavez, on state TV, said if the Venezuelan ambassador was killed, or troops entered the Venezuelan embassy, "that military junta would be entering a de facto state of war, we would have to act militarily." He said, "I have put the armed forces of Venezuela on alert."

The socialist Chavez leads a group of leftist countries that includes the government of Honduras, and he has in the past threatened military action in the region but never followed through.

Honduras, an impoverished Central American country, had been politically stable since the end of military rule in the early 1980s, but Mr Zelaya's push to change the Constitution to allow him another term has split the country's institutions. Mr Zelaya fired military chief Gen. Romeo Vasquez last week for refusing to help him run an unofficial referendum yesterday on extending the four-year term limit on Honduran Presidents.

The EU condemned the coup and President Obama called for calm.

Honduras was a staunch US ally in the 1980s when Washington helped Central American governments fight left-wing guerillas.

"Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference," Obama said.

It was the first successful military ouster of a President in Central America since the Cold War era.

The country's Supreme Court last week came out against Mr Zelaya and ordered him to reinstate fired military chief Vasquez. The court said yesterday it had told the army to remove the President.

"It acted to defend the rule of law," the court said in a statement read on Honduran radio.