Honduras talks start, police break up protest
TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Talks between representatives of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and the country's de facto leader began on Wednesday as top envoys insisted the ousted leftist be reinstated and police used tear gas on a protest.
Foreign ministers and diplomats including the head of the Organization of American States are overseeing the highest-level dialogue to take place in the coffee-growing nation since Zelaya was exiled at gunpoint three months ago.
Shortly before the meeting began, police fired volleys of tear gas to clear several hundred people marching past the U.S. Embassy in support of the logging magnate.
Police and soldiers armed with clubs and automatic weapons chased away demonstrators who shouted "Help us, OAS." Two people were injured, one by a rubber bullet and another by a gas canister, a local hospital said.
Zelaya and the OAS mission insist the president's return to power is a non-negotiable demand. De facto leader Roberto Micheletti previously ruled out that option but in recent days has not mentioned it, in a possible softening of his position.
"Those who thought it was possible to depose a president and normalize life in the country before starting an election campaign should realize that this has not been possible," OAS chief Jose Miguel Insulza said, flanked by the envoys.
A representative of Micheletti called for an end to the international isolation Honduras has suffered since the putsch and said sanctions had cost the poor country $400 million.
Honduras has a presidential election scheduled for November 29 but critics say curbs on media and public gatherings imposed by Micheletti mean the campaign will not be fair. The results may not be recognized without a prior agreement ending the crisis.
Zelaya said Micheletti only agreed to the talks to fend off international criticism and keep the de facto government going.
"They do not have the least intention of reverting the coup, they are just playing for time," he told the Telesur television channel from the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, where he has been holed up surrounded by troops since slipping back into Honduras two weeks ago.
ZELAYA ON CAMPING MATTRESS
Zelaya was toppled after drawing close to Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, whom powerful conservatives in Honduras say was advising Zelaya to extend his presidential term.
Micheletti took power after the June 28 putsch and wants his rival jailed. On Tuesday he said political amnesty was on the table but did not mention a return to office for Zelaya.
Peter Kent, Canada's junior foreign minister, said the OAS mission was pushing to have Zelaya live somewhere other than the embassy, where he sleeps on an inflatable camping mattress.
"We are realistic," Kent said. "This is not going to be achieved in a day or two days or perhaps even a week. But we believe there is room for progress."
The de facto government says the ouster of Zelaya, forced from his bed into exile by armed soldiers, is legal because he had violated the constitution.
Pro-Zelaya protests since his return to Honduras have led to clashes with security forces that caused dozens of injuries and the death of at least one protester.
Honduran rights group Cofadeh says 10 Zelaya supporters have been killed since June in violence linked to the coup.
Coups and military governments were common in Honduras for most of the 20th century. U.S. banana importer Sam Zemurray helped bring President Manuel Bonilla back to power in 1912 in return for favorable business conditions.
(Additional reporting by Gustavo Palencia, Miguel Angel Gutierrez and Ignacio Badal in Tegucigalpa and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Xavier Briand)
