Amesbury native Jeff Kukene moved to Honduras four years ago to get away from the rat race — traffic jams on 495, the waiting lines at popular area restaurants and long working commutes.

He found a diving, snorkeling, jungle paradise on the Caribbean island of Roatan, where he owns and operates a hotel quaintly named Casa Calico. But with the June 28 removal and exile of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, Kukene feels a shadow has been cast on his idyllic new Latin American home.

Amid newspaper reports that the U.N. General Assembly has demanded Zelaya's immediate restoration, and that the Organization of American States is threatening to isolate and remove Honduras for their breach of democracy, Kukene reached out from his island home to refute the notion that Honduran democracy is in danger. And he implored the international community to look deeper into charges against the ousted leader, who has become closely allied with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Kukene is joined this week by a number of bloggers and Honduran locals who have been interviewed by national media outlets when he says that the Honduran people are overwhelmingly behind the ousting of their leader, who is charged with trying to alter the constitution so that he could remain in power past the prescribed four-year term limit.

Kukene said that while the rest of the world is calling the removal of Zelaya a coup, a strong majority of Honduran people view the promotion of Roberto Micheletti to the presidency as a protection of their constitution.

"The people in Honduras are not calling it a coup d'etat," said Kukene, who cites the findings of La Prensa de Honduras that 89 percent of voters supported the ouster. "Most people are very, very happy with it. The current president was trying to change the constitution so he could remain president."

On the island known for its pristine white sand beaches and forest canopy tours, Kukene said he's become entrenched in the island community, which is made up primarily of native Honduran people. He's shared the fears of the locals as they witnessed the ever-growing ties their president was cultivating between himself and neighboring leader Chavez.

"(Chavez) is trying to get more of a hold in here because he's trying to spread communism throughout Latin America," said Kukene.

He worried along with them as their president sidelined the country's economic woes in order to prioritize and campaign exhaustively for the holding of a "non-binding" referendum that would allow him to change the country's constitution.

"He was doing nothing about crime, nothing about earthquakes or rebuilding parts of the country destroyed by the quakes," said Kukene. "He was just putting all his attention into changing the constitution so he could remain president for as long as he wanted."

On the island of Roatan, said Kukene, Zelaya's moves were seen as a direct attempt to make Honduras a dictatorship.

And even though the legality of Zelaya's June 29 referendum was disputed by the country's Supreme Court and Congress, he planned to continue with the referendum regardless. It's Kukene's opinion that in this case, the military had no choice but to arrest the leader.

"Here's a country where the president had become a dictator," said Kukene. "The government stepped in and removed him per the constitution and the rest of the world doesn't yet understand it."

Kukene said despite reports of increased military presence in the streets, he hasn't seen any change from the average patrol presence in Roatan.

"No more than the normal amount of police," said Kukene, who added some of the tensions that existed between island folks and mainlanders have disappeared as a result of the president's exile.

"Ninety percent of my friends are locals and we're all in agreement," said Kukene. "The president was trying to get the foreigners and islanders against the mainlanders, and trying to get people to hate each other. After the coup happened everyone was celebrating and happy together."

Kukene wasn't worried Friday about reports that Zelaya planned to return to the country yesterday accompanied by the presidents of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez, and of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo. He felt it was unlikely given the leader was facing approximately 20 charges and had been warned of his pending arrest if he returned. When the former president attempted to land in Honduras yesterday afternoon he was ordered by the Honduran Aviation Agency to land in El Salvador.

"The president and congress have said here, that if he comes back he will be arrested at the airport," said Kukene.

As pro-Zelaya leaders like Castro and Chavez ramp up the rhetoric in support of his presidency, and even threaten military action in the case of Chavez, Kukene isn't worried. He feels the country will rally around its own constitutionally upheld beliefs.

"I think in a couple months time it will blow over and people will start to know it was a good thing," said Kukene.

In the meantime, Kukene will stay put in Roatan, where his daughter Amanda, an Amesbury resident, often visits. Kukene's two brothers, James and George, still reside in Amesbury as well, and he gets back four or five times a year to visit. But coup d'etat or not, he's happy where he is, comfortable being accepted into the close-knit community he's found in Roatan.

"It's a lot more laid back here," he said. "You walk down the road and people say hi. They invite you to dinner and they really mean it. Lobsters and fried clams, that's all I miss."