Former Honduran leader returns

HONDURAS: Former president Manuel Zelaya made a triumphal return to Honduras Saturday, as tens of thousands of people cheered and waved banners to welcome him home nearly two years after he was ousted in a coup.

Zelaya, wearing his trademark white cowboy hat, landed in Tegucigalpa with his wife and aides aboard a Venezuelan plane on a flight from Managua, and immediately went to a nearby plaza to rally his supporters.

“We arrive full of optimism and hope to search for an exit to this crisis. At one moment we had almost lost it all, but they never defeated us,” he told the enthusiastic crowd, dressed mostly in red t-shirts.

Zelaya, 58, thanked his supporters and paid homage to those “who spilled their blood in this plaza,” including an 18 year-old shot dead during a protest a week after the coup.

Tegucigalpa, Sunday, AFP