Ousted Honduran President Manuel "Mel" Zelaya should have been on his way to Mexico Thursday, ending his three-month stay inside the Brazilian Embassy in Honduras.
But Zelaya's insistence on leaving Honduras as its president — and not as a political asylee — provoked the de facto government to halt those travel plans. "They wanted me to sign papers essentially resigning my position," Zelaya told The Miami Herald in a telephone interview Thursday.
"I told them, 'Don't waste your time sending your attorneys here because no one will receive them.' I will not sign such papers."
Honduras' interim government said Thursday that Zelaya can leave, but he'll have to do so according to its rules.
"If the countries want to get Zelaya out of Honduras, they will have to do it according to the law: by giving him asylum in their territories, but without a title," Rene Zepeda, information minister for the interim Honduran government, told The Associated Press. `
Forced from office at gunpoint in June on charges of treason and abuse of power, a deposed Zelaya has been hold up inside the Brazilian Embassy in Honduras since sneaking back into the country on Sept. 21.
From behind its walls, he's been trying to implore allies like Brazil and Argentina to help broker a way out of the dank embassy and back into the presidential palace before his term ends Jan. 27 and newly-elected Honduras President Porfirio Lobo assumes office.
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