Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega claimed Honduras' coup-installed government might try to provoke a border military incident "to distract attention" from international efforts to restore ousted President Manuel Zelaya.
Ortega cited no evidence in making the claims, which come as Honduras' interim leader dampened hopes for a negotiated solution to the country's crisis, capping days of mixed signals by saying firmly that there's no way the ousted president can return to power. "There is a danger that, to try to distract attention from the internal conflict they themselves created, they might organize a group of people with military training to attack a Honduran army position, for that to serve as a pretext for a retaliation against Nicaragua," Ortega said in a speech in Managua, the Nicaraguan capital.
Ortega, who has been hosting Zelaya and a few hundred of his supporters camped out near the Honduran border, did not offer details on when such a provocation might occur. "But they shouldn't think they would have a cakewalk in Nicaragua," said Ortega.
The two countries' border was the scene of much of the fighting in the 1980s Contra war, in which U.S.-backed rebels fought Ortega's Sandinista government, and Ortega noted "we are not talking about an army that doesn't have a history of aggression against Nicaragua." |