"Homies Were Burning Alive" by Tom Hayden

[billbuckhead]

"Homies Were Burning Alive'


By Tom Hayden, AlterNet
June 1, 2004


TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS – In first-ever interviews, representatives of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS) gang in Honduras this week described how security forces were to blame for the May 17 prison fire that killed 105 of those they call their homeboys. In addition to starting the fire, police and prison guards allegedly kept the facility's gates locked for over an hour while trapped inmates were burnt alive or died due to smoke inhalation.



Human rights observers, children's advocates, and MS members say the tragedy is a direct consequence of Honduras' mano dura (strong fist) policies. These policies employ suppression tactics based on New York City's "zero tolerance" police strategies of the '90s, and were instituted on the advice of the Manhattan Institute think-tank and the Giuliani Group, which have exported the New York model to Latin America.



Mayor Rudy Giuliani's policies, while popular with many New Yorkers, resulted in notorious police shootings of innocent individuals such as Amadou Diallo. The tactics also included stop-and-frisk sweeps that led to the preventive detention of thousands of young blacks and Latinos, until lawsuits challenging racial profiling methods spelled the demise of the NYPD's Street Crime Units."

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<http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18843>

Is this why El Salvador sent troops to Iraq? So they can bask in our holier than thou moral superiority and then do whatever they want to the "evildoers"?

[Gman]

1. The policy blew up in NYC's face

after Amadou Diallo was murdered in cold blood. And to think some in the GOP want Giulianni for VP. (Personally, I'm not convinced he won't be on the ticket given the total 9/11 focus of the GOP convention. More dancing on graves and exploiting the dead.)

[TexasMexican]

2. I dont know much about El Salvadorans...

but they are pretty handy with blades in combat.

http://216.109.117.135/search/cache?p=el+salvador+soldier+knife+iraq&ei=UTF-8&cop=mss&u=story.news.yahoo.com/news%3Ftmpl%3Dstory%26cid%3D540%26e%3D9%26u%3D/ap/iraq_brave_battalion&w=el+salvador+soldier+knife+iraq&d=94AB6655F3&c=482&yc=48638&icp=1

probably going to have to copy and past that, I had to do a yahoo search to find the link to the story, and had to used the cached version.

Back when the story was first circulating one of the pictures is of the guy holding the knife with blood still on it, it looked like some small pocket knife, fucking hardcore shit there.

I found the thread on another forum with the picture. Not much conversation going on but here you go.

http://www.genmay.com/showthread.php?t=347951