TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- Wendy Elizabeth Avila died from complications of asthma after being doused with tear gas at a rally supporting ousted President Manuel Zelaya.

Her husband, Edwin Espinal, said during her wake that maybe her death would help mobilize the masses that had so far failed to bring their elected leader back to office.

``To the streets!'' university activist Guillermo Amador roared, demanding payback. A few dozen mourners shuffled past, but none answered Amador's rally cry.

More than three months after Zelaya was toppled in a military-backed coup, his supporters have yet to mobilize in the kind of numbers required to force change. As teachers, taxi drivers, union members and peasants hold frequent rallies and caravans around the capital, de facto President Roberto Micheletti has succeeded in quashing their movement and staying in power. He has said that he plans to leave office after the Nov. 29 presidential elections.

``The Resistance'' -- as Zelaya supporters are called -- acknowledge that they never managed to paralyze the nation, despite claims that most workers are on their side. Its leaders say the months that dragged underscore a new urgency for their mission and say Zelaya followers are poised to start fighting dirty, including calling for a general strike or taking up arms.

``This is a peaceful struggle, which forces us to wonder: How many people have to die for there to be international reaction?'' Amador said during the wake. ``That's the point we are at. If they are not afraid of us unarmed, then do we have to be armed? The bloodshed cannot be all ours.''

A LEADER OUSTED

Zelaya is a former rancher who curried favor with unions and the working class by offering teacher raises and boosting the minimum wage. As Zelaya won their allegiance, he alienated everyone else in Honduras, including his own political party, Congress, the Supreme Court, the military and the business elite.

His enemies grew convinced that Zelaya's planned referendum asking voters whether they supported constitutional reform was a secret plot to stay in office. When the ballot was ruled illegal, Zelaya declared he would conduct the plebiscite anyway.

On June 28, the military roused the president from bed at gunpoint and flew him to Costa Rica in his pajamas.

In the first weeks, his supporters brought throngs of people to protest on his behalf, although people in the countryside were prevented from mobilizing by military roadblocks. But as the months wore on, and many of them found themselves in jail or roughed up by police, the momentum was lost.

``There are two reasons that from the outside it looks like there is no movement here: One, it's peaceful; and two, the media here doesn't report anything,'' said Resistance organizer Juan Barahona, a union leader. ``So from the outside, it appears as if there's a vacuum.''

The cause was reborn Sept. 21, when Zelaya sneaked back into Honduras and took refuge at the Brazilian Embassy.

That's where Avila and other protesters were doused with tear gas the next morning in the military's effort to clear the streets. An asthmatic, Avila died three days later.

``This gives us more strength to go forward,'' her husband told reporters gathered at her wake, held at Barahona's union headquarters. Dangling from the button hole of his blazer was a Che Guevara t-shirt hung on a coat hanger.

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