Welcome to the New Honduras, Where Right-Wing Death Squads Proliferate

[Judi Lynn]

By Kari Lydersen
Welcome to the New Honduras, Where Right-Wing Death Squads Proliferate
The new regime in Honduras is assassinating union leaders, teachers and journalists. Why does the U.S. support it?
April 27, 2010 |

Things are back to normal in Honduras.

At least that's the message of right-wing president Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo Sosa and much of the international community. Several U.S. and international agencies are in the process of restoring aid to Honduras. U.S. biofuels, mining and other businesses are ramping up for increased investment in the impoverished Central American country. The massive repression of public protests, curfews and censorship that followed last summer's coup d'etat have abated.

But this image ignores a new reality in Honduras: the emergence of what many are calling death squads carrying out targeted assassinations, brutal attacks and threats. They have created an extreme climate of fear for the campesinos (peasants), teachers, union members, journalists and other community leaders involved in the resistance movement that continues to oppose the coup and Lobo's election.

Dozens were killed in street violence between the June 28 coup and the November 29 election, with the deaths largely attributed to police, military forces and other coup supporters. Lobo has tried to distance himself from the coup regime, but since the election, at least a dozen people have been killed and others beaten or raped in attacks with clear political hallmarks. The victims include a teacher shot in front of his students; a young union leader whose body was found with signs of torture after she disappeared; the daughter of a prominent anti-coup TV reporter shot in her home; five journalists killed in March alone; and a TV reporter killed April 21. In December, well-known gay rights activist Walter Trochez was kidnapped in Tegucigalpa and interrogated about the resistance while being pistol-whipped in the face. He escaped, but was murdered a week later. In February, a woman who was raped after a post-coup protest was kidnapped and terrorized by men including the rapist, who said "Pepe says hi," a clear allusion to the president.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/146608/welcome_to_the_new_honduras%2C_where_right-wing_death_squads_proliferate/

Also posted in Editorials:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x532219

[Judi Lynn]

1. Obama commends Honduran president in his first months in office -- White House

Obama commends Honduran president in his first months in office -- White House
Politics 4/27/2010 9:08:00 AM

WASHINGTON, April 27 (KUNA) -- U.S. President spoke today "for the first time" with Honduran President Porfirio Pepe Lobo, the White House announced here late Monday.

White House said in a statement that Obama commended President Lobo for his leadership in his first months in office in promoting national reconciliation and restoring democratic and constitutional order in Honduras.

"The President took particular note of the Truth Commission agreed to as part of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord and championed by President Lobo that is set to begin its work in the coming days," the statement added.

Obama also "expressed his concern with the human rights situation in Honduras, particularly the recent suspicious killings of a number of journalists and civic activists," according to the statement.

More:
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2078834&Language=en

[jep]

2. Welcome to the "New" Honduras?

"A new reality in Honduras." Really?

I assume you are not being serious, as any person with an internet connection, a rudimentary understanding of English or Spanish, and a milligram of motivation can easily access the last several years of articles reporting on such matters in Honduras - said articles revealing that this type of activity has been going on for a very long time. Implying that this activity is "new", or that the "targets" are only those who oppose Lobo, is putting on display an ignorance that is difficult to quantify, and makes the messenger look like the foolish tool of ideology.

For those not familiar with the likes of MS-13 et al., I suggest you do some studying and become acquainted.
Most if not all of the reporters that have been murdered were working on stories related to the trafficking of narcotics and gang activity. This type of activity is nothing new to Honduras, and the recent spate of killings is nothing more than opportunistic behavior on the part of gangs, crooked law enforcement, etc.

With regards to the intimation that Lobo has something to do with the loss of freedom of the press in Honduras, it should be pointed out that the Press Freedom Index ranking given to Honduras by Reporters Without Borders fell each year from 2006 until 2009 (the larger the number, the lower the index of freedom of the press):

2006: #62
2007: #87
2008: #99
2009: #128

Draw your own conclusions on how much specific blame to place on Lobo, Zelaya, or any politician for that matter.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Seventh journalist shot dead in increasingly alarming climate - Reporters Without Borders

Seventh journalist shot dead in increasingly alarming climate
Published on 21 April 2010

Georgino Orellana is the seventh Honduran journalist to be murdered in the past six weeks. A programme producer and presenter for Televisión de Honduras, Orellana was slain by a single shot to the head fired by an unidentified person who was waiting outside when he left the station’s studios in San Pedro Sula last night.

Honduras has been the world’s deadliest country for the media since the start of this year. Three journalists have fled abroad to escape the wave of violence.

Orellana’s killer left the scene immediately after last night’s shooting and the motive is not yet known. A university teacher as well as a journalist, Orellana used to work for the privately-owned broadcasting group Televicentro. Reporters Without Borders offers its condolences to his family and colleagues.

San Pedro Sula police chief Héctor Iván Mejía insisted that his murder “will not go unpunished.” But, despite recent government promises, justice has not been rendered in any of the attacks on the press since the June 2009 coup d’état, whether they were linked to the coup or not. Already bad because of the high level of criminal violence, the plight of journalists has got much worse since the coup.

One of example of this is the threats against the staff of Radio Progreso, which was occupied by the army in the hours following the coup to prevent it broadcasting any information about the president’s ouster. When contacted by Reporters Without Borders, Radio Progreso’s management preferred, for safety reasons, not to name the journalists and contributors who have received threats.

Community radio station La Voz de Zacate Grande was meanwhile subjected to intimidation yesterday by local police officers and security guards employed by businessman Miguel Facussé Barjum because it has been defending the cause of the Zacate Grande Peninsula Development Association, which is embroiled in a land dispute with Facussé.

According to the Committee for Free Expression (C-Libre), a Honduran NGO, shots were fired at local TV station Canal 40 in the Atlantic-coast town of Tocoa on 9 April. Journalist and presenter Emilio Oviedo Reyes believes the shots were fired by two individuals who have been targeting him since the coup.

It was Oviedo who alerted the police when fellow TV journalist Nahúm Palacios was gunned down in Tocoa on 14 March. It seems probable that Palacios was killed in connection with his work.

Finally, a criminal court in Tegucigalpa acquitted four officials with the National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel), including its former chairman, Miguel Ángel Rodas, on 12 April on charges of abuse of authority for ordering the closure of Radio Globo and Cholusat TV (Canal 36) – the two media that had voiced the most criticism of the coup – and seizing equipment from them. This took place last September, when the de facto government declared a state of siege after ousted President Manuel Zelaya secretly reentered the country.

The court’s president judge, Martha Murillo, ruled that freedom of expression “was not obstructed in a situation of state of exception.” Article 73 of the Honduran constitution nonetheless takes the position that freedom of expression is paramount and forbids any confiscation of equipment from a news media or any interruption of its work. This constitutional guarantee cannot be suspended by a state of siege, C-Libre points out.

http://en.rsf.org/honduras-seventh-journalist-shot-dead-in-21-04-2010,37102.html

[subsuelo]

5. maybe you misinterpret use of the word "new"

I think they are referring merely to the new regime under Lobo. The first sentence in the article is "Things are back to normal in Honduras"

Welcome to DU.

[jep]

6. Not exactly...

First, thanks for the welcome to DU - I enjoy the site.

As for my reply: it was directed to the entire article - from the title to the final word. The intimations of the article are quite clear: that along with Lobo have arrived right-wing death squads and violence toward the press. This is at best a gross oversimplification of the situation, and clearly (purposefully) fails to take Honduran/Latin American history into account in order to try and exaggerate the overt point of the article.

Were one to look at the current situation with a more objective eye, one may notice that:

-There have been numerous documented cases of murders of high-profile Hondurans that directly or indirectly supported or rejected the recent actions by the Honduran government (seems that Enzo Micheletti has already been forgotten).

-Freedoms of the press have been steadily deteriorating since 2006 (when the former President took office).

-The recent violence against media officials and their family members is not necessarily related to Lobo or the new administration - correlation is not causation. When one investigates the overall picture surrounding the slain reporters, one finds that many of them were not only supporters of the past administration but, and maybe more importantly, that they were also involved in reporting (in a negative manner) on various aspects of organized crime and narcotics related matters, and there is evidence (primarily in the manner in which said individuals were murdered) that their demise was the result of gang/narcotics related reprisal, as the circumstances of the murders fit a certain modus operandi. If that is the case, the question should be: why now? A quick look at history should remind all that, when new administrations take control of non-first world societies (or even some first world countries), such transitions are almost always followed by similar violence between groups who have bones to pick with each other. This effect is exaggerated when the transition between one regime and another is not "smooth", as the resultant political fuzziness provides a certain degree of "cover" for those with grudges to take care of business. In other words, unless Honduras were a relative freak of nature, the odds were highly stacked in favor of the occurrence of the current spate of violence that we are seeing. Simply put, it appears to be a lot of opportunistic score-settling.

Unfortunately, certain ideologies allow for blind finger-pointing that absolves the finger pointer from taking into account the entirety of the situation.

This is in no way an endorsement of the current administration in Honduras, nor am I trying to justify any of the violence, which I find abhorrent. I simply feel that, as somebody who has been watching this region first-hand for many years, there is no place for such uninformed and misplaced blame in a responsible conversation about the goings on in Latin America.

Could Lobo and Company be behind all of this? Sure. Is there any more evidence that places the blame on them than on MS-13, simple regional feuds or numerous other actors? Not at the present time.

Regards,

JP

[Judi Lynn]

4. ‘TEXT-BOOK’ STATE TERRORISM IN HONDURAS: DEATH-SQUADS KILL TEACHER, BROAD DAYLIGHT, IN FRONT OF STUD

‘TEXT-BOOK’ STATE TERRORISM IN HONDURAS: DEATH-SQUADS KILL TEACHER, BROAD DAYLIGHT, IN FRONT OF STUDENTS

Rights Action
March 28, 2010

On March 23, at the same moment that a group of seven Honduran lawyers were presenting information to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission in Washington DC concerning systematic human rights abuses being committed against the pacifist Honduran National Resistance Front (FNRP), a death squad comprised of heavily armed men wearing ski masks and civilian clothes, killed a prominent FNRP member, a teacher, in front of his high school students. According to a communiqué issued by the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras (CODEH), "At 3pm an unknown person was spotted in front of the San Jose del Pedregal High School.

The unusual presence of a stranger caused concerns among students and thirty teachers who make up the staff of teachers who work at the school. Among the teachers was Professor of Social Science Jose Manuel Flores, who worked as teacher counselor. "Witnesses on the scene saw two pickups approach the rear of the school premises, apparently 2009 models, one green and white.

"Professor Manuel, as his friends called him, was in the back of the facility overseeing pupils, when the assassins found him. They passed the perimeter fence and fired their guns at close range. "The teacher was on a balcony from which he fell, and they fired on him again from above. As they fled, the ski mask of one of the attackers became entangled in the razor coil over the fence which they had cut open to look for their victim. The teacher died instantly."

THIS IS STATE TERRORISM
The killing of a prominent teacher in front of his students and colleagues, in the middle of the day, a man who was active in the FNRP, participating in protests and publishing articles in alternative press, is calculated act of repression designed to terrorize other Honduras and to send a silencing message. Among many in the FNRP, the timing of the crime -- at the same time as the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights hearing held in Washington - is part of that message, reminiscent of the attack on the family lawyer Jari Dixon Herrera immediately following a CNN interview in Washington DC.

While the attackers' identity is not known, it is important to note that when current Minister of Government Oscar Alvarez served as Minister of Government, under the administration of President Maduro, he instituted a practice in which police dressed in civilian clothes and wearing ski masks (of varying types) participate in raids. Their appearance makes them indistinguishable from organized crime assassins, who operate with impunity throughout Honduras and the region. This is the same modus operandi of state terrorism and death squads that operated in U.S. backed regimes in Honduras throughout the 1970s and 1980s, during the so-called 'cold war'.

During the eight months since the June 28, 2009 military coup in Honduras, dozens of FNRP activists have been killed, some during illegal detention by police forces, others in death squad type situations like the killing of Professor Manuel. There is not a credible or functional justice system operating in Honduras. Proper investigation by Honduran authorities is not possible. In reaction to the killing, teachers are holding a national strike and there is a national protest scheduled to occur March 25. Millions of Hondurans, along with the Organization of American States (OAS) and many nations around the world, do not recognize the legitimacy of the current acting president of Honduras, Pep Lobo.

More:
http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/honduras/6643.html