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CENTRAL AMERICA |
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Bomb
Explodes at Party’s Offices in Northern
Honduras
TEGUCIGALPA – A bomb exploded on Saturday at
the offices of the opposition, center-right
National Party in the northern city of El
Progreso, causing damage to the main gate
but no injuries.
The blast left the gate “destroyed,” Ricardo
Bermudez, a National Party congressional
candidate, told HRN radio.
At the time of the explosion, which occurred
at around 7:45 a.m. local time (1345 GMT),
“none of our activists was inside the
building” and the guard had gone out for
breakfast, he said.
Bermudez added that, according to
preliminary reports by the National Police,
the bomb, hurled by unknown assailants, was
made of a “plastic explosive.”
The candidate said the perpetrators of the
attack, rather than seeking to cause
material damage, were trying to “intimidate
citizens” into staying away from the Nov. 29
general elections, the first since a June 28
coup ousted elected President Mel Zelaya.
“Those few (who reject the elections) are
trying to intimidate people from going to
the polling stations, but that won’t happen;
the Honduran people won’t let themselves be
intimidated, they like to live in peace,” he
said.
Several bombs have exploded in recent weeks
in Honduras, although no one has been
injured and no arrests have been made in
connection with the attacks.
The leader of the Honduran de facto
government installed by the coup, Roberto
Micheletti, said Thursday he will step down
for a week on either side of the election to
choose a successor to Zelaya.
Honduran opponents of the coup, backed by
most of the international community, say a
free and fair vote is impossible given the
repression imposed by the de facto regime,
which is blamed for at least a dozen deaths
and numerous other human rights abuses.
Zelaya dismissed Micheletti’s plan to
temporarily step down as a machination “to
deceive fools.”
Hours before Micheletti’s announcement,
Zelaya urged Hondurans to continue peaceful
resistance to the coup and suggested
delaying the elections at least until after
Dec. 2, when Congress is to begin debate on
reinstating the ousted president, whose
terms ends in late January.
The elections “have no legality, do not
enjoy international support, especially from
the OAS (Organization of American States)
and the United Nations,” Zelaya said earlier
Thursday in a statement.
“All countries have officially said they do
not recognize this electoral process, except
the United States of America, which speaks
with ambiguity,” said Zelaya, who has been
holed up at the Brazilian Embassy in
Tegucigalpa since slipping back into the
country Sept. 21.
Most members of the OAS and the Rio Group, a
hemispheric club that excludes the United
States and Canada, say they won’t recognize
the elections as valid without Zelaya’s
reinstatement beforehand.
Micheletti contends Zelaya’s ouster was not
a coup, insisting that the troops who
dragged him out of the presidential palace
and put him on a plane to Costa Rica were
simply enforcing a Supreme Court ban on the
president’s planned non-binding plebiscite
on the idea of revising the constitution.
But while coup leaders and their apologists
accuse Zelaya of seeking to extend his stay
in office, any potential constitutional
change to allow presidential re-election
would not have taken place until well after
the incumbent stepped down. |
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