Exiled Honduran leader Zelaya makes 2nd trip to border, will camp out

LAS MANOS, Nicaragua – Deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya returned to the Honduran border Saturday and announced he would set up camp there, despite foreign leaders urging him not to force a confrontation with the government that ousted him in last month’s coup.

Zelaya arrived at a rural frontier crossing and immediately grabbed a megaphone, shouting to a crowd of 150 supporters and about as many journalists. He vowed to wait near the border and demanded his family be allowed to meet him.

“We are going to stand firm,” Zelaya told the crowd, complaining that the interim government has not allowed him to reunite with his family, whom he hasn’t seen since he was whisked at gunpoint from his home June 28 and forced into exile.

“Today, we are going to set up camps here, with water and food. We are going to stay here this afternoon, tonight and tomorrow morning,” he said.

Zelaya’s wife, Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, told CNN by telephone that she was stopped at a roadblock on a highway leading to the border and that police and soldiers would not let her and others pass.

Manuel Zelaya said he is going to commute back and forth between the border crossing and the Nicaraguan town of El Ocotal, about 25 miles down the road, and probably won’t try another border crossing like the brief, symbolic trip a few yards into Honduran territory he performed Friday. He said he fears soldiers would attack his supporters if he did.