New York/Brasilia/Rio de Janeiro - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Tuesday in New York that he expects Honduras' de facto government not to attack the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, where ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya has taken refuge. Zelaya, who was ousted in a coup on June 28, secretly returned to Honduras on Monday and has since being staying at the Brazilian embassy.
Lula told Brazilian media that coup leaders "should give their place to the person who has the right to hold that place, namely the democratically elected president of Honduras."
Zelaya continues to be recognized by the international community as the legitimate Honduran leader. The government set up after the coup is headed by former congress speaker Micheletti, who was next in line under presidential succession rules.
Honduras' de facto government on Tuesday accused Brazil of allowing Zelaya to turn its embassy into his "headquarters," from where he was trying to instigate an "uprising."
Brazil had "shamefully" allowed Zelaya to address a crowd from the embassy, urging Hondurans to break the law by coming to the capital in spite of a curfew being in force, Honduran Deputy Foreign Minister Martha Lorena Alvarado said.
The minister said Honduras would give Brazil a deadline to grant Zelaya political asylum or hand him over for a trial in Honduras.
"We cannot accept that, due to political differences, people think that they have a right to oust a democratically elected president," Lula was quoted as saying. "What cannot be is that a coup perpetrator thinks he has the right to be president without winning an election."
Brazil's ambassador to Honduras said Tuesday that Zelaya's arrival at the embassy in Tegucigalpa was "a complete surprise."
"He showed up there and surprised everyone. There is speculation that he came from Guatemala, but it's speculation. We do not yet know how he got there, if he was in disguise, we don't know," ambassador Brian Michael Neele told the Brazilian news website G1.
Neele was in Brazil the day of the coup. The Brazilian Foreign Ministry ordered him not to return to Tegucigalpa until Zelaya was reinstated, and he has since been waiting for the crisis to end.
The Brazilian government's Chief of Staff Dilma Rousseff - widely regarded as Lula's favourite in the race to succeed him in next year's election - stressed Tuesday that Brazil did not "encourage" or assist Zelaya in his return to Honduras Monday.
"Brazil was simply respectful. These are fundamental human rights," Rousseff.
Lula's advisors told reporters that the Brazilian leader spoke to Zelaya over the phone Tuesday to request from him "great care so as not to allow any pretexts that lead the coup perpetrators to use violence.
Lula said that Brazil has no intention to replacing the current mediator in Honduras, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, but noted that the best mediator would be Jose Miguel Insulza, the secretary- general of the Organization of American States (OAS).
Ambassador Neele expressed his concern over the future of Honduras.
"We do not know what is going to happen. It is a country that is looking for a solution to a very serious problem. (They are) a very peaceful people, and I hope there is dialogue."
Brazilian political analyst Eliane Cantanhede, however, noted that despite the claims of being taken off guard, Brazilian authorities celebrated Zelaya's arrival at the embassy.
It showed "the leadership and the power as moderator that Brazil is gradually taking on" in the region.
"There were other more obvious destinations, like the Mexican embassy, for example, since Mexico is in several respects a country that is closer to Central America and that has (influence) in Honduras," Cantanhede told the daily Folha de Sao Paulo.
"But Brazil is not only more a politically half-way line between Washington and Caracas, but it is also a country that is rising in that region," the analyst said.
