The Organization of American States has expelled Honduras in reaction to last week's military coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

The decision comes as Mr Zelaya, currently in Panama, vowed to return to Honduras today, despite being threatened with arrest.

Speaking on the regional TV channel Telesur, Mr Zelaya, who was forced to flee the country in his pyjamas, said he would arrive with the Presidents of Argentina and Ecuador.

"I am organising my return to Honduras. This is the return of the president elected by the sovereign will of the people," he said, calling on his followers to join him "without arms" on his arrival in Tegucigalpa, the capital.

Thirty-three out of 34 members of the OAS which gathered for an extraordinary session of its General Assembly voted in favour of Honduras' expulsion.

"The suspension takes effect immediately," Argentine Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana said, reading the resolution before the body. The move temporarily sidelines Honduras from any participation in the OAS, but obliges it to continue observing the body's rules in areas such as human rights.

The assembly acted on the basis of Article 21 of the OAS Charter that gives member-nations the right to suspend membership of a country in case of an "unconstitutional interruption of democratic order" and when "efforts to address the situation through diplomatic means have failed."

The article was used by the organization for the first time since 1962, when Cuba was suspended from the OAS after it joined the Soviet bloc.

Thousands of Mr Zelaya's supporters are exected to meet him at the airport when he arrives today, although the interim leader Roberto Micheletti has said he would be arrested as soon as he set foot on Honduran soil.

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina and Rafael Corea of Ecuador have both said they would accompany him to Honduras.

In a taped recording sent to Telesur, Mr Zelaya warned Mr Micheletti that the international community had turned against the interim government.

"Your actions will not go unnoticed because the international courts will have to try you for the genocide that you are carrying out in our country, in suppressing rights and repressing our people," he said.

Soldiers stormed the presidential palace and arrested Mr Zelaya last Sunday, after the President, a leftist who took power in 2006 defied a Supreme Court ruling that a referendum on constitutional changes was illegal.

His opponents say that he wanted to overturn term limits and extend his power like leftist regional allies such as President Chávez of Venezuela — a claim Mr Zelaya denies.

The new leaders and their supporters believe that if they stand firm against international pressure they will eventually persuade the world to see their side of the story.

The interim government, which insists that it acted within the law in exiling a criminal President, plans to send a delegation to Washington next week, hoping that it can bring officials round

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