Laht.com: The coup d'etat in Honduras continued to hog the headlines in Venezuela with President Hugo Chavez again, and quite predictably, taking the top slot amid a chorus of condemnation of the military takeover.

Chavez, who had made lengthy statements Sunday on the overthrow of elected Honduran President Manuel Zelaya while attending a summit of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas -- ALBA, a Chavez-inspired rival to the Washington-sponsored but stillborn Free Trade Area of the Americas formerly the "Bolivarian Alternative" -- showed no signs of letting up the next day.

"We cannot permit a return to the caves," he further declared Monday in Managua, the Nicaraguan capital, where the summit was being held. "We've seen the capacity of rapid response of all the mechanisms of international integration against the coup d'etat in Honduras."

Meetings were being held to fix positions, he continued. "It's what we have to do against the barbarity we're seeing." Military men were attacking protesters, there was a "media circus" in cohorts with coup mongers, nobody was sure what was happening, and "we're not going to put up with it." For him, the villains of the piece were, unsurprisingly, an oligarchy and a bourgeois elite against the people. No negotiation was possible, because "we demand the immediate return of President Manuel Zelaya."

Chavez denied that Venezuelan troops were entering Honduras, as some reports had suggested. "We would never do that to the sacrosanct Honduran sovereignty," he said, "we're here supporting, with respect, the people of Honduras." The denial appeared to have been prompted by a statement from opposition Metropolitan Mayor Antonio Ledezma in Caracas rejecting any "foreign incursion" in Honduras -- promptly making it clear he was talking specifically about a Venezuelan one.

"As a Venezuelan, I must hope that these conflicts develop in the framework of the constitution of Honduras," Ledezma said, hoping also there wouldn't be bloodshed. "I demand as a Venezuelan citizen that an end is put to all these rumors indicating that Venezuelan soldiers are going to be sent to Honduras ... this would be a great irresponsibility."

Then he told Chavez to occupy himself with Venezuela's problems, not least by starting to sow seeds of peace at home. This is a frequent opposition criticism of Chavez, not least of all when it comes to his largesse in selling oil to neighboring countries at a discount and providing money for other purposes -- or at least to those countries governed by leaders he perceives as his allies. Zelaya is seen in that light.

There could be no negotiation with coup mongers, declared Chavez, who first marched into the public eye as the visible head of a group of military officers who staged an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow then President Carlos Andrés Pérez in Venezuela back in1992. "They should resign," he said of the Honduran officers. "What there has to be is to be very firm, like rocks, in the face of some coup mongers, and tell them to hand over the government to President Zelaya without
conditions."