The U.S. ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, an extremely competent diplomat, tried hard to keep Congress from ousting President Manuel Zelaya. After his arguments and pressures were exhausted, and faced with something that seemed inevitable, he did something that ennobles him: He sheltered the president's son in his residence to save him from any violent outcome.

Fortunately, Zelaya's expulsion from the presidency and from his country was bloodless. It wasn't exactly a military coup: The Army obeyed the orders of the Supreme Court after continued violations of the law by a leader intent on getting reelected, even if by violating the Constitution, and dragging the nation to Hugo Chávez's ''21st-century socialism'' camp against the will of his compatriots.

Nevertheless, it seems that there is still something worse than the depressing spectacle of a freely elected president who is forced to leave his country at gunpoint: trying to impose his return by force. If Zelaya steps again on his native soil he will be arrested and charged with 17 different crimes that he likely has committed. He will be imprisoned and that's going to be very embarrassing for those who, irresponsibly, may decide to accompany him in that mad adventure.

This is most grave. That situation, fanned by Venezuela's Chávez and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, who are already talking about invasions and resorting to force, can unleash a blood bath in the country that would destroy the weak political institutionality painstakingly achieved three decades ago, when the era of military dictatorships mercifully ended. Peter Hakim, president of Inter-American Dialogue, without abandoning his firm condemnation of the manner in which the president was removed, put it this way: ``Zelaya is fighting with all the institutions in the country. In reality, he is in no condition to govern.''

And that's the truth. According to the Mexican polling firm Consulta Mitofsky, in a survey made in April, the most unpopular leader in Latin America was Manuel Zelaya. Only 25 percent of the nation supported him. Another survey revealed that 67 percent of Hondurans would never vote for him again. Why? Because the Hondurans attributed to him a deep level of corruption; because they assumed he had links to drug trafficking, especially the drugs originating in Venezuela, as former U.S. Ambassador to the OAS Roger Noriega revealed in a well-documented article published in his blog, and because violence and poverty increased dramatically during his three years in power.

Simply put, a huge majority of the country -- not excepting the most popular sectors, the two major political parties (including Zelaya's), the Christian churches, the other branches of government and the armed forces -- do not want him as president, although all agreed that he should finish his mandate and leave power in January 2010.

However, they didn't want him to break the law to perpetuate himself in the presidency, as Chávez has done and Ortega, Evo Morales and probably Rafael Correa are trying to do in their respective countries. The Hondurans, without question, do not want to go down the path of the collectivist and anti-Western caudillismo, allied to Iran, Cuba and North Korea, advocated by Chávez.

What to do under these circumstances? The worst move, I insist, is to resort to force against the will of the people themselves. The government of interim President Roberto Micheletti already is summoning reservists as the Army prepares to defend the nation's sovereignty. The nationalist discourse is heating up, and a mindset of ''defense of the motherland'' against foreign enemies is beginning to imbue Honduran citizens. A huge majority thinks that an aggression is being prepared abroad, shrewdly propelled by the Chavistas, in which -- inexplicably this time -- the Americans are involved on the side of the enemies of democracy and the rule of law. If a conflict explodes, one of the poorest countries in the Americas will suffer the bloodletting already experienced by Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua during the Cold War.

However, there is a satisfactory solution within almost everyone's reach -- to move up the general elections planned for November. The candidates are already there, freely elected in open primaries, and both enjoy much popularity. Why plunge that society irresponsibly into a maelstrom of violence? Once the new government is selected, a government enveloped in the legitimacy generated by a democratic process, the Honduran people can put this lamentable episode behind them.

That will be best for almost all parties in the conflict. Mel Zelaya may lose the game, but the Hondurans would not pay with their blood the price for the mistakes and misdemeanors of a maladroit ruler.