Original source: Morning Star (U.K.)

Pressure is mounting on the leaders of the coup d'etat in Honduras. The reactionary ruling elite's attempt to prevent progressive politics taking root in one of the poorest countries in the world is starting to look isolated.

The United Nations and the Organization of American States – hardly radical institutions – have said in no uncertain terms that coup leader Roberto Micheletti and his amigos in the armed forces cannot be allowed to remain in power.

The US seems to have grudgingly come to the same conclusion and even the World Bank has decided to suspend aid to Honduras while the coup leaders remain in power. When the forces of imperialism themselves turn against you, it's time to get worried.

The irony is that exiled President Manuel Zelaya and Micheletti are former allies and members of the same party.

Zelaya is no peasant, nor is he a prole. He is a fully paid-up member of the ruling class. He was born into great privilege in a part of the world where extreme wealth sits offensively and often shamelessly alongside dire poverty.

Not that long ago, he was supporting the free-trade agreement CAFTA, which follows the strict neoliberal line on privatization for profits and opening borders for foreign companies to exploit working people.

However, Zelaya apparently became disillusioned with the lack of results his government got from free-market fundamentalism.

Honduras is what the World Bank and IMF define as a heavily indebted poor country – a country with so much debt that no-one, whether a private bank or national government, will lend it any money.

Zelaya has explained why this was so and where this was to lead him.

'I had been looking for projects with the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and Europe and I have found very prudent, moderated responses,' he said.

'This obliges us to move toward new forms of finance like the ALBA.'

ALBA is the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America founded by Venezuela and Cuba. The logic of ALBA is not a drive for profits uninhibited by such inconveniences as trade unions that seek to protect workers' pay and conditions.

ALBA is based on cooperation between states for the mutual benefit of their peoples. So Zelaya signed up to ALBA in August last year.

And, having been shunned in the institutions of the north, he found comradeship in the south among the presidents of Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador in a new economic bloc.

In exchange, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, ever keen to build the anti-imperialist alliance, promised Honduras cheap oil for 'at least 100 years.'

'Zelaya is no peasant, nor is he a prole. He is a fully paid-up member of the ruling class, born into great privilege in a part of the world where extreme wealth sits offensively alongside dire poverty'

On top of that, Cuba has supplied Honduras with generic medicines. None of this endeared Zelaya to his former allies in the political class, nor to senior commanders in the armed forces. He had already alienated them by raising the national minimum wage by 60 per cent.

Honduras holds a special place in recent central American history. In the early 1980s, when the Sandinistas were in government in Nicaragua and the socialist FMLN was involved in armed struggle in El Salvador, Honduras was the pro-US territory that provided a safe haven for right-wing death squads.

The death and destruction meted out to working-class and rural people at this time with the passive support of the rich Honduran elite was horrific.

The elite and the military still have close links with the US, which maintains a base with 500 soldiers in Soto Cano, and they must be worried.

The Sandinistas are back in government in Nicaragua and the FMLN has finally taken power through the ballot box at the same time as a movement of more or less left-wing government unity across Latin America.

The ruling class has nightmares that its own government led by Zelaya is in alliance with former left-wing guerillas.

Top Honduran military lawyer Colonel Herberth Bayardo Inestroza said last week that 'it would be difficult for us, with our training, to have a relationship with a leftist government - that's impossible.'

However, Zelaya's leftward shift has not alienated everyone in Honduras. The second-poorest country in the Americas after Haiti has a lot of impoverished people about. There are also well-organized trade unions and social movements.

They have been on the streets in their tens, even hundreds, of thousands to demand the peaceful return of Zelaya to the presidency. They have faced brutal repression from the army in response – beatings, detentions without trial and even deaths.

Groups such as the global peasant organization Via Campesina, the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization and the Popular Bloc are central to the protests.

They know Zelaya's background and don't see him as an untouchable leader. They were already radicalized before he came along.

But they understand that he has done some good and his removal would be a retrograde step for the country.

Popular Bloc leader Juan Barahona said: 'Popular resistance against the coup d'etat will continue until whenever necessary.'

Via Campesina has even been organizing in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador to block these countries' borders with Honduras in protest.

The act that ostensibly saw Zelaya removed by the military was a proposal that the public vote in a non-binding poll to see if there was popular support for a democratic review of the constitution.

One of the alleged changes was a removal of the single-term limit for a president to remain in office. It is this that the coup plotters have focused on.

However, the constitution itself has interesting origins. It was written in 1981 when the military reluctantly took a step into the background after 10 years of dictatorship and permitted civilian rule. But only on their terms. They still wield significant political and economic power.

The growing strength and confidence of trade unions and social movements since Zelaya has joined forces with progressive governments elsewhere in Latin America must be a cause of alarm for the military.

That Micheletti and the armed forces exiled him on the eve of the vote, canceling it in the process, suggests they were determined not to let the grass roots have a view on the wording of the constitution. And it is this that seems to have brought people out to defend the president.

Only the coming days will reveal what will happen to the polarized situation in Honduras.

But, if Zelaya does return, the unity and determination of Latin American leaders to stand up for him and the militancy of grass-roots movements in his defense is likely to strengthen those who seek to bring an end to US imperialism in Latin America.