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FACTBOX: Zelaya set to return to power in Honduras

Fri Oct 30, 2009 7:51am EDT

(Reuters) - Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya is set to return to power after the country's de facto leadership bowed to U.S. pressure and agreed a deal to end a long crisis sparked by a June coup.

World

The breakthrough followed renewed pressure from senior U.S. officials who traveled to Honduras for a last-ditch effort to end a crisis that handed Washington a foreign policy headache.

Here are some facts about the ousted president:

* An unlikely working class hero, Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales was born on Sept 20, 1952 to a wealthy ranching family in the region of Olancho, known for pistol- and machete-toting men with a macho streak. He made money from cattle and logging before being elected to Congress in 1985.

* Nicknamed Mel and known for his bushy mustache and white cowboy hat, Zelaya rose in the Liberal Party ranks and was elected Honduran president as a moderate in 2005. He turned to the left once in office, raising the minimum wage, pushing social spending and creating powerful enemies by aligning himself with socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

* In 1975, there was a massacre of 14 peasant activists at the Zelaya ranch. Zelaya's father was jailed for five years and later pardoned. Some Zelaya family supporters blame the massacre on the military.

* The Honduran army forced Zelaya out of the country in his pajamas on June 28 after he clashed with Honduran business leaders, the Supreme Court, the Congress and the military over plans to hold a vote gauging public support for extending presidential term limits. His critics said he was trying to keep himself in power, but he denies that was his intention.

(Reporting by Sean Mattson and Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Kieran Murray)



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