Father Andress Tamayo, a priest from El Salvador, has left on November 16 the Brazilian embassy in the Honduran capital, where he was living since September 21st, when he moved in together with ousted president Manuel Zelaya. Tamayo used to celebrate mass, every Sunday, in the embassy.
Tamayo, who has lived in Honduras for 26 years, had his naturalization request denied by the de-facto government of Roberto Micheletti, after making public statements in support of Zelaya. The spokesman for the National Police, Orlin Cerrato, informed that the clergyman left the embassy by his own choice and that he didn't know the priest's reason to go away.
The religious man was taken to the El Salvador embassy by the consul of that country, Nelson Rodriguez, who promised authorities to remove the priest from Honduras by November 18. According to sources close to Zelaya, he decided to leave to be close to a brother who is very sick in San Salvador.
Now there are only 16 people left in the Brazilian embassy.
Monday morning, demonstrators from the Front of Resistance to the coup d'état that ousted president Manuel Zelaya once again occupied the National Congress square, after taking a break during the weekend to reassess strategies to oppose the de-facto government led by Roberto Micheletti
With the word "no," written in the palms of their hands, men, women and children spent the whole day listening to the leaders of the movement.
Rafael Alegria, who had been out of Tegucigalpa in the last few days, once again took the lead in the demonstrations. In an interview with Agência Brasil, he confirmed the movement's decision to boycott the presidential election and said that the very next day after the elections, they would start a campaign for a new Constituent Assembly.
Once again, the resistance tried to explain what Zelaya meant in the letter he sent American president Barack Obama, on Saturday, which left many people confused.
Alegria said Zelaya was not resigning the presidency, as the current government has been saying, but only reinforcing its position of not participating anymore in agreements that might be understood as endorsing an electoral process without democratic support.
Honduras is the second poorest country of Central America right after Haiti. At least half of their almost 8 million inhabitants live below the poverty line. Only three in each ten Hondurans earn more than US$ 2 a day. The political crisis that started in June with Zelaya's deposition exacerbated the economic situation even more.
According to data from the Finance Department, 70% of the funds for social programs come from international donations that are, at this time, for the most part suspended. Cautious, organisms like the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank decided to wait until everything get more well-defined in Honduras.
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Many businesses closed their doors in recent months and unemployment went up. The president of Honduras' Industries Association, Adolso Facusse, one of the most important business leaders of the country, said that the domestic political crisis made even worse the impact of the world crisis. Exports and imports have fallen significantly.
ABr
