Tensions mount as Honduras defies international body

Honduras headed toward international isolation yesterday after the country's coup leaders said they were pulling out of the Organisation of American States in the face of almost certain suspension by the international body.

Amid the political deadlock, thousands of frustrated Hondurans were expected to protest again, a day after OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said those who ousted President Manuel Zelaya last weekend did not plan to reverse the situation, and denounced a "military coup."

The interim government responded by pulling out of the OAS.

The body had been due to vote on suspending the Central American country in its meeting yesterday in Washington.

Honduras "ceases its compliance with the charter of the Organisation of American States... with immediate effect," deputy foreign minister Marta Lorena Alvarado said on national television late last Friday.

The OAS chief warned of increasing polarisation in the impoverished nation of 7.5 million.

Soldiers bundled Zelaya into a plane at dawn last Sunday and sent him to Costa Rica after he clashed with the country's courts, army and politicians - including some from his own party - over a bid to change the constitution.

A spokesman for the Supreme Court said it had told Insulza that the removal of Zelaya was "irreversible".

Insulza met here with politicians and legal and religious figures, but not the interim president, Roberto Micheletti, who he does not recognise.

Micheletti's supporters said the army was justified in ousting Zelaya - on orders of Congress and the Supreme Court - because he had called a referendum that they claim he planned to use to extend his rule.

"I don't know what you call it when a group of soldiers, sent by soldiers in a military operation, remove a president and send him off in a military plane to another country. That is a military coup," Insulza said.

The leaders who deposed Zelaya had said they may consider holding early elections to end the impasse, but now looked set to try to hunker down until scheduled elections in November.

Growing protests from supporters and detractors of Zelaya, a freezing of international aid and recalls of foreign ambassadors have shaken the country in the past week.

With their lives also disrupted by night-time curfews - which suspend some freedoms guaranteed by the constitution - as well as media blackouts and reported detentions, tension is rising among inhabitants of one of Latin America's poorest countries.

Zelaya has meanwhile travelled the region seeking support and said he no longer wishes to change the constitution.