Zelaya’s flight home to Honduras diverted to El Salvador

TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS — The flight that was carrying ousted President Manuel Zelaya has been diverted to El Salvador because it lacked permission to land, Honduras’ top aviation official announced Sunday.

In a nationwide address that interrupted local programming, aviation official Alfredo San Martin said no plane without permission to land would be allowed to touch down in any Honduran airport. If heads of state are aboard, he said, they should request permission before coming.

”In that sense, the information we have up to this moment… is that plane that transported the citizen Manuel Zelaya has been redirected to the Republic of El Salvador,” he said.

The president of the United Nations joined the deposed president as he attempted to return to his country a week after military soldiers removed him from office in the early morning hours.

Zelaya will return to Tegucigalpa Sunday afternoon with U.N. General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto and an envoy of other Latin American leaders, he announced at a televised press conference held outside of the home of the Ecuadorean ambassador to the U.S. in Washington D.C.

”I’m going to return to my people,” Zelaya said in an interview aired on Venezuelan TV station TeleSur.

The return trip was scheduled despite the fact that Honduras’ new government has vowed to prevent Zelaya’s plane from landing. Should he enter the country, authorities have promised to promptly arrest him.

”I think that if 1,000 heads of state are accompanying him, if those people are not invited to this country as heads of state, then they are simple citizens and they have to respect Honduran laws,” said Ramón Custodio López, the nation’s human rights ombudsman. “If a plane of any nationality tries to land here, no matter who is aboard, if they do not have permission to land, they cannot land.”

Security around Tegucigalpa’s airport was beefed up with military guards blocking off the area, as helicopters fly overhead. American Airlines, Taca, and Delta all suspended flights to and from the country. Only Continental continues to offer service.

Zelaya and D’Escoto will head directly to Tegucigalpa, while another plane bound for neighboring El Salvador will carry several Latin American president’s including Argentina’s Cristina Fernández, Rafael Correa from Ecuador, Fernando Lugo from Paraguay, and José Miguel Insulza, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States.

Custodio stressed that the president of Argentina and the U.N. official were not invited to the country as diplomats or heads of state.

”Honduras has the right as a sovereign state to have its air space respected,” he said at a press conference held Sunday at the presidential palace.

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