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Indeed, many still remember their response to the previous coup d'etat in the region, which in 2002 briefly removed from power Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The OAS reaped strong criticism for its slow move to condemn events in Venezuela, while the government of US President George W Bush initially backed the coup attempt.

OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza indirectly acknowledged the errors of the past when he said that the organization's quick response to the coup in Honduras - through a vigorous resolution - "distancesit from obscure periods in the history" of the Americas.

"We want to change it (the OAS), we have tried to do it because we are convinced that its future is conditional on its ability to end the negative things that have caused so much damage to our countries in the past," Insulza said late Sunday.

As a crucial gesture, he offered to travel to Honduras with Zelaya on Thursday, where Zelaya faces arrest by the newly installed regime.

US President Barack Obama also signalled the new direction, condemning the coup and warning against "moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition."

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday defined the "unfortunate events in Honduras" as "a test of the inter-American system's ability to support and defend democracy and constitutional order" in the hemisphere.

The United States' actions in relation to Honduras are being closely watched from around Latin America.

Chavez rushed Sunday to blame events in Honduras on the policies of the "Yankee empire," as he calls Washington, and said they are a "consequence of the imperial policy" of financing right-wing groups in Latin America.

However, high officials of the US government rejected the accusations in very strong terms. In a conversation with reporters in Washington on the condition that their names be withheld, the high officials underlined the "multilateral" path - through the OAS - that the White House has chosen to face the crisis.

They stressed that the problem must be solved without foreign interference.

The New York Times underlined the "sharp contrast" between the Bush administration's behaviour in 2002 and Obama's quick response Sunday. Obama issued a statement in which he said he was deeply concerned over events in Honduras and called upon authorities in Tegucigalpa "to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic charter."

"Obama now has the opportunity to show both friends and foes in the western hemisphere that the United States has finally decided to side unequivocally with democracy - and that the rule of law matters in Tegucigalpa as much as it does in Washington," former Costa Rican vice president Kevin Casas-Zamora, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote in the online edition of Foreign Policy.

"The coup (in Honduras) offers an opportunity for the Obama Administration to show that it is serious about working together with hemispheric neighbors and trying to repair the damage in inter-American affairs," agreed Michael Shifter, vice president of the think-tank Inter-American Dialogue.

"Washington can use the Honduras crisis as a way to regain its credibility in Latin America," the expert added in an interview with the German Press Agency dpa.

For Shifter, the current US Administration is "trying to be more consultative and collaborative," in line with the spirit that Obama put forward during the Summit of the Americas in April, as he hailed a" new beginning" in hemispheric relations.

However, Shifter noted that the implications of US attitudes in the Honduras case go well beyond the Americas.

"Washington's response to Honduras will surely be an indication of its approach to democratic crises and also to multi-lateralism," he said.

"The real tests of policy always involve reactions to the unexpected. This was case in Iran and now, in this hemisphere, Honduras," Shifter said.