Ex-Honduran president Zelaya returns from exile

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Reuters:

(Reuters) - Former president Manuel Zelaya returned to Honduras on Saturday after being exiled by the army two years ago in a coup, clearing the way for the nation to normalize relations with its neighbors in the Americas.

The Honduran army, acting on a court order with backing from Congress, whisked the left-leaning Zelaya out of the country in June 2009 after he pushed a referendum seen by the opposition as an attempt to extend his term as president.

Thousands cheering and waving flags greeted Zelaya as he stepped off the plane in Tegucigalpa in stifling heat. Zelaya, who the constitution bars from running for office again, had been living mostly in the Dominican Republic since his exile.

The expulsion of Zelaya in 2009 was condemned around the world as an anti-democratic flashback to the region's Cold War era past of dictators, coups and military rule.

Honduras was kicked out of the Organization of American States, or OAS, which groups democracies in the Americas. OAS members later cut off aid to the impoverished nation.

The coup plotters said Zelaya, a staunch ally of Venezuela's leftist president Hugo Chavez, was a threat to democracy and quickly held elections after his ouster.
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Well, now he gets to be leftist-in-chief again...