Thousands of protesters again blocked major roads across Honduras July 16 to demand the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya. In a telephone call broadcast to protesters, Zelaya said: "I call upon you to maintain the resistance. Do not desist for a moment, or else Honduras is doomed [derrumba]." Meanwhile in Costa Rica, President Oscar Arias is proposing a "government of national reconciliation" in the dialogue he is mediating between Zelaya and de facto President Roberto Micheletti. Arias said both sides have agreed to the notion of a unity government that would include members of all political parties and serve as a check on presidential powers—and to an amnesty, both for Zelaya and those who ousted him. (AFP, NYT, July 16)

Honduras' de facto President Roberto Micheletti told a report in Tegucigalpa July 15 that he is "willing to leave office if at some point that decision is needed to bring peace and tranquility to the country, but without, I stress, the return of former President Zelaya." The move comes as Zelaya supporters threatened to call widespread strikes to protest his ouster.

The Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras (CODEH) has filed a legal case with the Specialized Prosecutor for Organized Crime against the coup plotters and perpetrators. The complaint demands "that the investigation of these crimes proceed immediately, that the people responsible for their commission be identified... that orders for imprisonment be issued, and [that] the national police and Interpol be instructed regarding their immediate detention." (Rights Action, July 14)

On the evening of July 11 a group of men entered the home of Honduran activist Roger Bados in the 6 de Mayo neighborhood of the northern city of San Pedro Sula and shot him dead. Bados was the former president of the union at a local cement factory and a member of the leftist Democratic Unification Party (UD) and of the Popular Bloc, a coalition of grassroots organizations active in the struggle against the military coup that overthrew President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales on June 28. Erasto Reyes, another grassroots leader, told the Venezula-based television network TeleSUR that the murder came at "a moment in which the political crisis is aggravating the security situation for leaders." But he said the organizations will continue to carry out "peaceful, nonviolent" mobilizations. "We're not letting down our guard; we're continuing in the struggle."

The appearance of unity within the Honduran military and the de facto government is deceptive, according to statements by Argentine deputy defense minister Alfredo Forti published in the Buenos Aires daily Clarín on July 11. "People with the rank of colonel have been sending messages to the outside saying that they're at the limit of their ability to withstand the pressure and that they think a moment is coming when they'll have to separate themselves from the current position because otherwise there might be a bloodbath," said Forti, who was ambassador to Honduras from 2004 to 2007. "These are expressions of fractures within the armed forces. We don't know if it's because there are military people who support the Constitution or because they see it's a situation that's lost and they're trying to find a way out."

On July 10 the de facto government in Honduras received support from a city council member in Santiago, Chile. "It appeared to be a common, ordinary coup" at first, Lucía Pinochet Hiriart said, according to the satirical and investigative Chilean weekly The Clinic, but later it turned out that "the one who wanted to carry out the coup d'état was Zelaya." He "makes himself out to be the victim," she said, but his own allegedly unconstitutional acts left the military no choice but to do "something unconstitutional." Pinochet Hiriart, who represents the exclusive Vitacura neighborhood in eastern Santiago, is a daughter of late Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, who seized power from elected president Salvador Allende Gossens in a bloody 1973 coup. (Qué, Spain, July 10 from EFE)

On July 11 seven US trade associations—including the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA), the US Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel (USA-ITA) and the US Chamber of Commerce—sent a letter to US president Barack Obama on the situation in Honduras. The letter stressed the "particular importance" Honduras has "for the US textile and apparel supply chain" and called it "the linchpin to the Western Hemisphere supply chain for this sector. Honduras is the third largest market for US textile mill products (US exports were $1.4 billion in 2008), the fourth largest supplier of apparel to the US market and the largest DR-CAFTA [Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement] supplier to the United States."

The Los Angeles Times runs an op-ed July 10 entitled "Honduras' non-coup," by Miguel A. Estrada, identified as a partner at the Washington office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, a native of Honduras, and a member of the official US delegation to President Zelaya's 2006 inauguration. The kicker reads "Under the country's Constitution, the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya was legal." His argument is the same one we've heard over and over: