Washington Denies US-Backed Honduran Government Kills Activists

[Judi Lynn]

Washington Denies US-Backed Honduran Government Kills
07:06 25.06.2016(updated 07:12 25.06.2016)

The United States has yet to admit that a Honduran right-wing regime brought to power as a result of a Washington-funded coup has a “kill list” to hunt down political activists, opposition figures and journalists in the Central American nation.

On Wednesday US State Department spokesperson John Kirby said, during a daily briefing, that there’s no “credible evidence” that Honduran activists’ “deaths (had been) ordered by the military.”

Media reports contradict Kirby’s statement. Citing a high-profile Honduran official, the Guardian reported earlier that the state military has a murder list of “dozens of social and environmental activists,” and is responsible for the death of Berta Cáceres, a native-rights activist killed in February.

The leftist government in Honduras was ousted in 2009, in a move facilitated by the US allocation of some $200 million to the new government, as well as providing training to elite military forces answerable only to the new regime.

More:
http://sptnkne.ws/b7KJ

[center]

US State Department spokesman, John Kirby, former Rear Admiral, USN. [/center]

[enough]

1. Of course they do. (nt)

[840high]

2. As expected. I didn't

think they would say anything different.

[99th_Monkey]

3. What else are they going to say? "Yes, we (the USA) support political murder in Honduras"

I don't think so.

[MisterP]

6. the real question is why wouldn't they? we'd vote for them anyway--DEFEND them, in fact

[99th_Monkey]

7. Because Trump is worse. n/t

[Eko]

4. Bam! totally nailed it! Conclusive proof!!

"Citing a high-profile Honduran official". Its one thing to say that this is possible, yet another to use such poor evidence, or rather lack of evidence to say that it is true.

[99th_Monkey]

8. Speaking out publicly in Honduras against their Death Squads is very risky business

As you might imagine, it's a good way to insure you get on their "kill list"

[Eko]

9. I think you missed everything I was saying

as your response has nothing to do with what I said.

[99th_Monkey]

10. Since you appear either incapable or unwilling to make your point more coherent

I have nothing more to say.

[Eko]

11. I seem to have missed

where you asked me to. I will be happy to if you like.

[99th_Monkey]

12. Near as I could tell, your point was to diss the anonymous sourcing

for the article.

Is this correct, or not.

[Eko]

15. Well then my point was coherent then wasnt it?

[99th_Monkey]

16. Ah, so it was you who missed my point ...

the one about how it is dangerous for people to speak out in Honduras, which
more than adequately explains the anonymity factor.

[Eko]

17. Nope, got that. Roger roger.

But, there are still standards of evidence, things that people of intellectual honesty must go by before they claim something is true. Is it possible? sure, is it proven? no. I don't claim things until they are true , silly me, I actually use truth and not vague claims to confirm my bias no matter how much I think they should be true.

[99th_Monkey]

19. That's what makes 'plausible deniability' possible

I'm not saying you're argument has no merit; but your refusal to admit
my point also has merit suggests that you have a distinct bias, i.e. you'd
like to believe that the US is utterly blameless for these brutal & illegal
murders of Honduran activists.

[Judi Lynn]

20. "Well, our hand doesn't show in this one, does it?" Richard M. Nixon, to Kissinger.

"Our hand" didn't show immediately to the world at large, but anyone with half a brain figured it out.

It's always hilarious watching the incredible stretching done by rightists determined to slip around the truth.

"Plausible deniability" is a nightmarish term. It definitely has been used to death, hasn't it?

[99th_Monkey]

21. Yes, Plausible deniability is a nightmare" indeed ...

especially when used to drown democracy in a sea of blood.

[Eko]

22. See post 4.

" Its one thing to say that this is possible, yet another to use such poor evidence, or rather lack of evidence to say that it is true. "

[Judi Lynn]

13. Brilliant post, one of the most magnificent we're likely to see here or anywhere, or not.

Meantime, here's the Guardian article mentioned in the original post, and it's clear why the person in the interview was not named, if that's all right:

Berta Cáceres's name was on Honduran military hitlist, says former soldier

A unit trained by US special forces was ordered to kill the environmental activist who was slain in March, according to an ex-member who now fears for his life

Nina Lakhani in Mexico City
Tuesday 21 June 2016 05.00 EDT

Berta Cáceres, the murdered environmental campaigner, appeared on a hit list distributed to US-trained special forces units of the Honduran military months before her death, a former soldier has claimed. Lists featuring the names and photographs of dozens of social and environmental activists were given to two elite units, with orders to eliminate each target, according to First Sergeant Rodrigo Cruz, 20.

Cruz’s unit commander, a 24-year-old lieutenant, deserted rather than comply with the order. Cruz – who asked to be identified by a pseudonym for fear of reprisal – followed suit, and fled to a neighbouring country. Several other members of the unit have disappeared and are feared dead. “If I went home, they’d kill me. Ten of my former colleagues are missing. I’m 100% certain that Berta Cáceres was killed by the army,” Cruz told the Guardian.

Cáceres, an indigenous Lenca leader who won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015 for a campaign against the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam, was shot dead in her home in March. Before her murder, she had reported 33 death threats linked to the campaign and had warned international human rights delegates that her name was on a hitlist. According to Cruz, Cáceres’s name appeared on a list given to a military police unit in the Inter-institutional Security Force (Fusina), which last summer received training from 300 US marines and FBI agents.

Five men have been arrested for her murder, including Maj Mariano Díaz Chávez, an active-duty major in the Honduran army. Díaz had previously participated in joint US-Honduran military operations in Iraq, and is reported by local media to be a graduate of the elite Tesón special operations course which is partly taught by US special forces. Diaz was a military police instructor when arrested, but has since been given a dishonourable discharge.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/21/berta-caceres-name-honduran-military-hitlist-former-soldier

If you're hoping to tussle with someone over that original post, I'm just not the guy to do it.

[Eko]

14. Yes, a former soldier.

I am not saying it's not possible, just that the evidence for it is no way enough to come to a conclusion and those that have come to a conclusion are engaging in confirmation bias. Hopefully that is all right.

[Judi Lynn]

5. As we know, this subject has been discussed extensively here since the coup. Here's a refresher:

June 29, 2015
Honduras Bleeding

by ERIC DRAITSER - RAMIRO S. FUNEZ

~ snip ~

Equally unsurprising is the US role in the training and backing of the Honduran generals who carried out the coup on that early morning in late June 2009. As School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) noted at the time:

The June 28 coup in Honduras was carried out by the School of the Americas (SOA) graduates Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, the head of the of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Honduran military and by Gen. Luis Prince Suazo, the head of the Air Force… SOA-trained Honduran Army Attorney Col. Herberth Inestroza justified the military coup and stated in an interview with The Miami Herald ‘It would be difficult for us, with our training, to have a relationship with a leftist government. That’s impossible.’ Inestroza also confirmed that the decision for the coup was made by the military… According to information that SOA Watch obtained from the US government through a Freedom of Information Act request, Vasquez studied in the SOA at least twice: once in 1976 and again in 1984…The head of the Air Force, General Luis Javier Prince Suazo, studied in the School of the Americas in 1996.

The School of the Americas (since renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, aka WHINSEC) is a US military institute located at Fort Benning, Georgia infamous for graduating a literal who’s who of Central and South American military dictators, death squad leaders, and other assorted fascists who left their bloody marks on their respective countries. It’s been called the “School of Dictators” and a “coup factory,” and it seems that Honduras in 2009 was merely the latest victim of its illustrious alumni. Indeed, this was not the first time for Honduras, as both General Juan Melgar Castro (military dictator, 1975-1978) and Policarpo Paz Garcia (death squad leader and then military dictator, 1978-1982) were graduates of the School of the Americas. Needless to say, the legacy of the United States in Honduras is a bloody and shameful one.

Honduras: A US Military Foothold in Central America

One should not be fooled into believing that since 2009 and the US-backed coup and subsequent regime change, somehow the US has not been involved militarily inside Honduras. Indeed, just weeks ago the US military announced that it would be sending a contingent of US Marines to Honduras, ostensibly to “provide assistance during hurricane season.” However, the reality is that the US is merely continuing, and indeed expanding, its ongoing military partnership and de facto occupation of Honduras and a number of other key Central American countries.

In an exclusive interview with Counterpunch, the US Coordinator of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) and Refoundation Party (LIBRE), Lucy Pagoada succinctly explained, “The coup forced us to wake up to the reality of Honduras. I lived in Honduras until I was 15 years old. I’ve never seen my country so militarized as the way it has become after 2009. It has turned into a large military base trained and funded by the US. They even have School of the Americas forces there…There have been high levels of violence and torture since the coup against the resistance and the opposition.” According to Pagoada and other activists both in Honduras and in the US, the country has essentially become an annex of the US military, acting as a staging area for a variety of Washington’s military operations in the region.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/29/honduras-bleeding/

[Judi Lynn]

18. Honduras denies murdered activist was on army 'hit list'

Honduras denies murdered activist was on army 'hit list'

By AFP Jun 22, 2016.

Honduras denies murdered activist was on army 'hit list'

Honduran authorities on Wednesday denied a British newspaper report alleging their military had issued orders to kill a high-profile environmental activist who was murdered at her home in March.

The article by The Guardian quoted a source identified as a former soldier who said the activist, Berta Caceres, was on a "hit list" given to two elite military units.

"I'm 100 percent certain Berta Caceres was killed by the army," the source, a 20-year-old ex-first sergeant who spoke under a pseudonym, said, according to The Guardian. He was quoted saying that he fled to a neighboring country but that several members of his former unit have disappeared and were feared dead.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/honduras-denies-murdered-activist-was-on-army-hit-list/article/468329#ixzz4ClQilP6C