Already volatile Honduras slid toward greater instability after soldiers'- blocked an airpbrt' runway tq keep ous,ted President Manuel Zelaya frdm returning, and protests that had remained largely peaceful yielded their first death.

Police and soldiers blanketed the streets of the capital overnight Monday enforcing a sunset-to-sunrise curfew with batons and metal poles.

The extended curfew added to the tension after a turbulent Sunday that saw soldiers clash with thousands of Zelaya backers who massed at the airport in hopes of welcoming home their deposed leader.

Zelaya's plane, on loan from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, arrived to find the runway blocked by military vehicles and soldiers under the command of the government that has ruled this Central American country since Zelaya's ouster last

weekend.

His Venezuelan pilots circled around the airport and decided not to risk a crash.

' Zelaya instead headed for El Salvador, and vowed to try ^again Monday or Tuesday in his high-stakes effort to return to power in a country where all branches of government have lined up against him.

"I call on the Armed Forces of Honduras to lower their rifles," he said late Sunday at a news conference, flanked by the presidents of El Salvador, Argentina, Paraguay and Ecuador, and the secretarygeneral of the Organisation of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza, who flew there from Washington.

"I am risking myself personally to resolve the problems without violence," said Zelaya, who planned to fly later to Nicaragua. He urged the United Nations, the OAS, the United States and European countries to "do something with this repressive regime."