Honduras allows ousted Zelaya back to fight for his rights

Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted as president of Honduras in 2009 in a coup that set off a regional crisis, penned an agreement on Monday with Honduras' current leader Porfirio Lobo allowing him to return to the Central American nation.

The agreement was signed in Cartagena, Colombia, where the country's president, Juan Manuel Santos, and Venezuela's foreign minister, Nicolás Maduro, acted as witnesses to the deal.

"This accord will restore my right, and the right of my ministers, to return to my country with our freedom," Zelaya told the Telesur network.

The move also allows Honduras to rejoin the Organization of American States (OAS) from which it was expelled following Zelaya's ouster.

The day before Zelaya and Lobo met, the leaders of Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador met in Managua to sign a series of agreements, including one to strengthen regional security. Lobo publicly invited Zelaya, who was also on hand, to "return to the country so you can fight in the manner you wish."

Regroup supporters

Zelaya has said that he will return to Honduras to try to push for a constitutional assembly and regroup his supporters "because part of reconciliation means winning new spaces."

On the morning of June 28, 2009, military officers arrested Zelaya and put him on a plane to Costa Rica. Then-Congress President Roberto Micheletti ordered the expulsion after Zelaya insisted on changing the Constitution to lift his term limits after the Supreme Court prohibited him from doing so. Micheletti became de facto president.

Regional calls for Zelaya's return went ignored and the Honduran crisis ignited two years of diplomatic isolation, which were finally cooled when elections were held and Lobo elected in 2010.

It wasn't immediately clear when Zelaya would return. A Honduran court dropped the last remaining charges against Zelaya on May 2, but other former officials in his administration have outstanding arrest warrants for corruption. "The agreement isn't an amnesty or pardon, it is only the basis for national reconciliation," Rigoberto Espinal Irías, an advisor for the public prosecutor's office told El Heraldo of Tegucigalpa on Monday.

Among those who are wanted by Honduran authorities are Zelaya's former chief of staff and former director of the Honduran Social Investment Fund (FHIS).