I have been here in Tegucigalpa, Honduras for the past few days, covering the crisis that came to world attention when soldiers forced President Manuel Zelaya to leave the country on June 28. Since then the country has been ruled by an interim government headed by President Roberto Micheletti. Mr. Zelaya's supporters call Mr. Micheletti the gorilla and accuse him of being an interloper serving the interests of the Central American nation's elite. Mr. Zelaya tried to return here Sunday and I was at the airport with thousands of his supporters who hoped to welcome him back. The plane that carried him was supplied by Venezuela's leftist leader, Hugo Chavez. It came into Honduran air space without the permission of authorities here on the ground. It made a high-speed pass over the runway, which had been blocked by military vehicles, and then left. It was a bit of a show. Mr. Zelaya made the point that he has not given up being president and is determined to return and the de facto government showed that it will go to extreme lengths to prevent his return.

Unfortunately, shooting broke out at some point after I had left the scene where the largest crowd had gathered, near the airport entrance. I was checking out demonstrators on the other side of the airport zone when I heard the announcement on the radio that some people had been shot. The exact details of what happened are still unclear. Most news media outlets are saying "at least one person was killed" even though some human rights groups claim there was one more. In such a polarized situation it is hard to know whom to believe.  It is quite possible that the young soldiers ordered to protect the airport overreacted to stone-throwing young protesters, who had broken down a fence. There are many examples in history of panicked soldiers shooting into crowds of unarmed protesters. In this day and age, they should be better trained and have non-lethal devices to use in such situations.

But there is a further twist to the airport shooting. The government says the caliber of weapon used to kill the (at least) one victim and wound several others is not one used by the military here. Zelaya supporters produced some shell casings on the scene that they claim came from the army rifles. But, if the soldiers were holding their ground against the crowd and firing at them, how would anyone have been able to go over there and pick up their shell casings? There may be good answers to these questions, but I present them here as an example of how confused things can get in a polarized nation where there is no independent authority respected by all.

At this point, the shooting incident and the demonstrations are no longer the main focus of the story. Today (July 7) both Mr. Zelaya and the interim government agreed to meet in Costa Rica under the mediation of that country's president, Oscar Arias, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his efforts to end armed conflicts in Central America. He succeeded in bringing about an agreement between the leftist Sandinistas in Nicaragua and their opponents, called the contras, in 1989. As a result, an internationally supervised election was held in February, 1990 and the Nicaraguan voters threw out the Sandinistas. A demonstration of how well democracy has taken hold in the region since then is that the Sandinista leader, Daniel Ortega, won the 2006 election and is now back in power. Oscar Arias also came back to power that year.

The issue of re-election is at the core of the conflict here in Honduras. Many Latin American countries do not allow re-election out of fear that someone will develop too much power and never leave office. Here, in Honduras, the constitution expressly forbids a second term for a president and even declares an attempt to change that provision by a sitting president to be an illegal act.  Manuel Zelaya was trying to set up a non-binding referendum to see what Hondurans think of changing the constitution. His opponents say this was an illegal attempt by him to continue his presidency beyond January, when he was to turn the office over to whoever wins the election in November. Such maneuvers have been used by leftists in other Latin American nations with the support of Venezuela's President Chavez. Mr. Zelaya rejects this idea, however, saying that he did not seek a second term for himself.  He says he only wanted to consult the people about the idea of holding a constitutional convention to make some changes.

The problem with his argument is that the nation's Supreme Court ruled against him and he said he would proceed anyway. He then tried to fire the Armed Forces Chief of Staff, General Romeo Vasquez, when he refused to carry out what he regarded as an illegal order. On the eve of his ouster, Mr. Zelaya had defied not only the Supreme Court and the military, but the nation's attorney general and the Congress as well.  The officials who carried out the operation to remove him say the action was legal and necessary to prevent a dictatorship.  Unfortunately for the interim government, few people outside Honduras are buying the argument. Most critics of what was done, including all the member states of the Organization of American States (OAS), say using military force against a president who was democratically elected is unacceptable.

But arguing the legal points and principles is somewhat beside the point now. This is a political conflict that has revealed deep divisions in Honduran society and it cannot be resolved through any legal judgment. The people who support Mr. Zelaya's return include union members, common laborers and peasants. They believe the country's wealthy class runs the government and the courts. This is what many of them have said to me when I talked to them at the demonstrations. When I posed this question to Eduardo Facusse Handal, one of the most influential business leaders here, he rejected the notion. He says he and other entrepreneurs have invested their money here to build the economy and create jobs. He says the worldwide recession and the policies of President Zelaya over the past year or so caused many job losses that hurt the poor. Facusse is a Honduras-born son of Palestinian immigrants who came here to find a better life and did. He says he wants what is best not only for himself and his family, but for the country as a whole. "This is where I was born and this is where I will be buried," he told me.

The debate over such issues is bound to be intense when the next presidential election takes place in November. Those who support President Zelaya would like him to return to finish his term in office. Those who oppose him are probably hoping the talks in Costa Rica will drag on long enough to run out the clock. But there is another group here I should mention-- the many people I have talked to who don't identify with either side. They just want to get on with their lives and not be bothered by politics. They will be happy to see this whole crisis fade away.