Ousted president's backers clash with police

Supporters of ousted President Manuel Zelaya clashed with police in the Honduran capital and some of them attacked the second-ranking member of Congress.

Protesters threw stones and police responded with tear gas to disperse the crowd in Tegucigalpa.

A group of demonstrators kicked and punched Ramon Velazquez, vice president of Congress, as he left his office, but he said he wasn’t hurt.

“The police and soldiers rescued me from the assailants. They didn’t do me much harm,” Mr Velazquez said.

In a nationally televised speech, interim President Roberto Micheletti condemned the clashes as “violent and terrorist”. He claimed they were aimed at disrupting campaigns that begin at the end of the month for the November 29 presidential election.

Police said 55 demonstrators were arrested during the clashes and 40 others were detained at a teachers college where Mr Zelaya’s loyalists have been sleeping. Police said they were investigating reports protesters made petrol bombs at the college’s lab.

Protest leaders criticised the raid on the college campus.

“We condemn and repudiate the police action of entering (the college) and taking our companions, firing tear gas canisters at people who were resting,” protest leader Juan Barahona said. “This is repression.”

Some 10,000 protesters arrived in Tegucigalpa on Tuesday after staging weeklong walks across Honduras, producing one of the largest demonstrations in support of Mr Zelaya since he was ousted by the army on June 28 and flown out of the country.

Attempts to resolve the dispute suffered a setback when the chief mediator, Nobel Peace laureate and Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, announced on Tuesday that he has swine flu.

Talks have stalled over the interim government’s refusal to bend to international pressure to reinstate Mr Zelaya. Mr Arias has proposed the Mr Zelaya resume the presidency in a unity government that includes all parties.

Despite the suspension of millions of dollars of US aid and the threat of more sanctions, interim leaders have made clear they expect to hold out until the November 29 election that was scheduled before Mr Zelaya was exiled.

Coup backers hope the election will calm international demands to restore Mr Zelaya, whose term ends on January 27.

Mr Zelaya was ousted after he ignored a Supreme Court order to cancel a referendum asking Hondurans if they wanted a special assembly to rewrite the constitution. Opponents say he wanted to abolish presidential term limits so he could run again. Mr Zelaya denies that was his goal.