Colorado’s Lamborn joins conservative congressmen on Honduras visit, defying US coup policy

Lamborn defends Honduras trek despite coup policy

DENVER — A Colorado Republican is defending his visit to a Honduran leader deemed illegitimate by the White House.

Rep. Doug Lamborn joined three other Republicans on Friday to meet interim President Roberto Micheletti in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital. The Obama administration has condemned the coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya and brought Micheletti to power.

Lamborn insisted that Zelaya was legally removed from the presidency because he broke the law by seeking a second term in office.

“It was not a coup,” Lamborn told The Associated Press by telephone from Miami, where the GOP delegation stopped to refuel on their way back to Washington.

“Now, let me say, they should have arrested him and thrown him in jail instead of sending him out of the country,” Lamborn added. “But either way, what (Zelaya) was trying to do was illegal.”

Friday’s trip highlighted a divide between congressional Republicans and the administration over Honduras and Latin America policy in general.

The White House is working to reinstate Zelaya, and the U.S. and the European Union have suspended aid to Honduras.

Some in the GOP believe that Zelaya would have promoted Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s socialist agenda in Latin America.

Lamborn said people he met in Honduras don’t think Zelaya was wrongly ousted.

“They don’t want their country to come under the influence of Venezuela,” he said, adding that the delegation met with some Honduran citizens but not Zelaya, who is back in Honduras under protection of the Brazilian embassy.

The Republicans, led by Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, also met with four candidates for a scheduled Nov. 29 presidential election and members of Honduras’ Supreme Court.

DeMint has blocked U.S. Senate votes on Arturo Valenzuela, Obama’s nominee to be assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, and Thomas Shannon, his nominee for U.S. ambassador to Brazil.

The Honduras trip raised the ire of Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Massachusetts Democrat issued a statement blasting “DeMint’s intransigence.”

Also on Friday’s trip were Reps. Aaron Schock and Peter Roskam of Illinois.

Lamborn, a second-term representative whose conservative district includes Colorado Springs, said he heard of the trip Thursday and asked to join. Lamborn doesn’t serve on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Lamborn told the AP that the GOP group would try to meet with State Department officials to urge a different approach toward Honduras and to support that country’s scheduled election.

“That is the way countries having difficulty establish their bona fides as a democracy,” Lamborn said.

Associated Press Writer Ben Fox in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, contributed to this report.

On the Net:

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn: lamborn.house.gov

(This version CORRECTS Corrects graf 3 to show Zelaya seeking a 2nd term sted 3rd)