Police chief doubts compel US to review Honduran aid
Source: El Pais
Police chief doubts compel US to review Honduran aid
Human rights concerns over destination of Washington humanitarian money
Eva Saiz Washington 27 MAR 2013 - 19:05 CET
The US State Department announced Monday that it was investigating how much foreign aid destined to the Honduran police force goes to units under the control of the country's law enforcement chief, who has been accused of human rights violations.
The announcement made by department spokesman Patrick Ventrell came after the Associated Press reported that all police units in Honduras fall under the control of the department's director general Juan Carlos Bonilla, who in 2002 was accused of three extrajudicial killings and links to 11 more deaths and disappearances. Bonilla, whose nickname is "The Tiger," was tried on one killing and acquitted. The rest of the cases were never fully investigated.
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Honduran Foreign Minister Arturo Corrales assured last week that US funds that go to law enforcement programs are put under the supervision of the security and defense ministries. But AP found that under Honduran law, all police units fall under Bonilla's control.
US Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, demanded that the State Department ensure that no money gets into the hands of units accused of human rights violations. His so-called Leahy Law is a human rights stipulation first introduced in 1997, and which is included in all US foreign assistance legislation.
Read more: http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/03/27/inenglish/1364407598_960255.html
flamingdem
(39,313 posts)Why does Honduras get reported about everywhere but here ....
Judi Lynn
(160,527 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,527 posts)Violating Own Laws, US Backs Alleged Death Squads in Honduras
John Glaser, March 28, 2013
US support for Honduran security forces has skyrocketed since the military coup took place there in 2009. Washingtons own commando-style troops have been working closely with Honduran police in training and weapons procurement, even as reports of extra-judicial killings, disappearances and other human rights abuses have increased.
Recently, allegations that US-backed security forces are essentially running death squads have reached such a fever pitch that Washington was forced to respond. The State Department this week reassured the public that taxpayer money only goes to specially vetted and trained units that dont operate under the direct supervision of a police chief once accused of extrajudicial killings and social cleansing, reports The Associated Press.
That police chief is one Juan Carlos Bonilla, who has been accused of, and in one case tried for, extra-judicial killings and disappearances of dozens of people. While US and Honduran officials promise US support doesnt go to any forces under Bonillas command, evidence suggests otherwise.
~snip~
Last November, forces that were trained, vetted and equipped by the US government chased down and murdered a Honduran teenager. In June, DEA agents and Honduran security forces killed a suspected drug dealer who allegedly reached for his gun when they came after him. And in May before that, DEA agents cooperated with Honduran security forces in the killing of four civilians, including two pregnant women, in an incident US officials later described as a mistake.
More:
http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/03/28/violating-own-laws-us-backs-alleged-death-squads-in-honduras/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AWCBlog+%28Antiwar.com+Blog%29
Judi Lynn
(160,527 posts)Honduran Police State Repression
By Stephen Lendman
3/28/2013 at 13:33:27
Honduras is a fascist police state.
On June 28, 2009, Obama colluded with Honduran fascists. With US approval and support, they ousted Honduras' democratically elected president.
Manuel Zelaya was arrested at home. Security forces confronted him at gunpoint.
Junta rule replaced him. Porfirio (Pepe) Lobo Sosa heads Honduras' government. It's illegitimate.
State terror is policy. The infamous CIA-created Battalion 316 was reactivated. In the 1980s, death squads disappeared, tortured, and murdered regime opponents.
A state of siege exists. Human rights violations are horrific. Killings, beatings, disappearances, and intimidation are commonplace.
Human rights workers, trade unionists, journalists, and other regime opponents are targeted. Honduras is Latin America's murder capital. It's a virtual free-fire zone. It's unsafe to live in.
More:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Honduran-Police-State-Repr-by-Stephen-Lendman-130328-853.html
Judi Lynn
(160,527 posts)Weekend Edition March 29-31, 2013
From Western New York, 1779, to Honduras, 2013
Honduran Cops, The Latest U.S.-Backed Killers
by NICK ALEXANDROV
Official U.S. support for bands of killers dates back to the nations inception, likely one reason H. Rap Brown called violence as American as cherry pie. The countrys founding father helped start the trend when he sent General John Sullivan to Iroquois territory in 1779, giving him explicit instructions that the country may not be merely overrun, but destroyed. It will be essential to ruin their crops, the Town Destroyeras Washington became knownemphasized. Sullivan and his men brought their adventure to a close when they skinned the bodies of Indians from the hips downward, to make boot tops or leggings, historian Ernest Cruikshank wrote in the late 1800s, prompting a contemporary, John Watts de Peyster, to wonder which were the savages, the Continental troops or the Indians, in the situation just described.
Scholars today tend to remark only that Washington seems more a monument than a man, as Gordon Wood never tires of pointing out; Wood spoke a month ago at an event celebrating Washingtons birthday, beginning with the premise that the first U.S. president was great, and proceeding from there. Bertrand Russell once criticized medieval philosophy for assuming in advance it knew the truth, thereby avoiding genuine inquirystill apparently a prerequisite for academic success, given Woods reputation.
The belief that indigenous groups wasted the opportunities the land provided drove policies of dispossession and extermination, the latter being the term Jefferson, Jackson, and other luminaries favored. Little wonder Hitler admired this facet of U.S. history. During the California Gold Rush, whites murdered and raped the regions native inhabitants, some of whom had known there was gold in the area, without valuing it as an exploitable resource. What could the lands rightful owners do with such people? Why not annihilation? Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum asked in an 1890 editorial, capturing the zeitgeist.
These assumptions about the right to control territories, and the obstacles blocking enlightened developers from achieving their aims, grew more expansive after the Native American genocide. As WWII drew to a close, U.S. planners outlined a system of foreign missions throughout the world in conformity with corporate aims. We are colonizing to some extent, Representative Eugene Worley (D-TX) affirmed, not quite doing justice to Washingtons plans to copy the British imperial modela good goal to shoot at, because they are the masters, the American Maritime Councils John E. Otterson argued, voicing views his audience, a House subcommittee, received well. After listening to Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berles 1943 discussion of U.S. intentions to govern the planets skies, Representative Charles A. Eaton (R-NJ) asked him to define for us the difference in principle between Mr. Hitlers program to obtain control of all land and all peoples and all oceans and seas, and the proposed program now for America to obtain control of all the air on earth[.]
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/29/honduran-cops-the-latest-u-s-backed-killers/