Zelaya's Plane Circles Honduran Runway, Can't Land

Karin Antunez, 27, was in tears.

Soldiers arrive to protect the airfield as supporters of ousted Honduras' President Manuel Zelaya,...

Soldiers arrive to protect the airfield as supporters of ousted Honduras' President Manuel Zelaya, unseen, arrive to protest for his return at the international airport in Tegucigalpa, Saturday, July 4, 2009. Zelaya announced Saturday that he would return to Honduras to try to retake office following last week's military-backed coup, despite the interim government's insistence that he faces arrest and trial. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills)

(AP)

"We're scared. We feel sad because these coup soldiers won't let Mel return, but we're not going to back down," she said. "We're the people and we're going to keep marching so that our president comes home."

Zelaya called on the United Nations, the OAS, the United States and European countries to "do something with this repressive regime."

"We should look for an immediate solution," Zelaya told Venezuela's Telesur network. He landed in Nicaragua and met briefly with Ortega, then flew to El Salvador for consultations with the presidents of Argentina, Paraguay and Ecuador and the secretary-general of the Organization of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza, who flew there from Washington.

"We have to set a precedent and demand that we cannot tolerate — being the democratic presidents we are — that the constitutional order be broken in our countries," Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes said a news conference late Sunday with Zelaya and the other dignitaries.

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Zelaya won wide international support after his military ouster, but the presidents decided it was too dangerous to fly on Zelaya's plane, which carried only his close advisers and staff, two journalists from the Venezuela-based network Telesur and U.N. General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, a leftist Nicaraguan priest and former foreign minister.

Honduras' new government has vowed to arrest Zelaya for 18 alleged criminal acts including treason and failing to implement more than 80 laws approved by Congress since taking office in 2006. Zelaya also refused to comply with a Supreme Court ruling against his planned referendum on whether to hold an assembly to consider changing the constitution.

Critics feared Zelaya might try to extend his rule and cement presidential power in ways similar to what his ally Hugo Chavez has done in Venezuela.

But instead of prosecuting him or trying to defeat him at the ballot box, his political opponents sent masked soldiers to fly Zelaya out of the country at gunpoint, and Congress installed Micheletti in his place.