---
category: "Political Figure"
tags:
  - Person
  - Politician
  - Military
summary: "Zelaya was ousted by a coup allegedly designed by General Daniel Lopez Carballo and Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, both friends of Jimmy Hughes."
---

[[Manuel Zelaya]] was the president of [[Honduras]]. On June 28, 2009, he was rousted from his home in Tegucigalpa and exiled at gunpoint to [[Costa Rica]]. He called the action a kidnapping and maintained he was still president. The [[United States]] and other countries condemned the coup.[^1]

Zelaya was ousted by a coup allegedly designed by [[General Daniel Lopez Carballo]] and [[Romeo Vasquez Velasquez]], both friends of [[Jimmy Hughes]]. The Honduran Supreme Court reportedly gave the order for the military to detain the president. The Honduran Congress formally removed Zelaya from the presidency and named congressional leader [[Roberto Micheletti]] as his successor.[^1]

[[General Daniel Lopez Carballo]] justified the coup by stating that [[Venezuelan President]] [[Hugo Chavez]] would eventually be running [[Honduras]] by proxy if the military had not acted. Zelaya had been in the process of forming a friendship or alliance with [[Hugo Chavez]], which could have led to the [[United States]] losing its airbase in [[Honduras]] (Soto Cano Air Base), which [[Oliver North]] once used as a base of operations for the [[Contras]].[^1]

### Footnotes

[^1]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro’s Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal*. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010.