Pressure Mounts on Honduras as Journalist Death Toll Rises

[Judi Lynn]

Pressure Mounts on Honduras as Journalist Death Toll Rises
By Thelma Mejía

TEGUCIGALPA, Apr 30, 2010 (IPS) - Honduran President Porfirio Lobo plans to seek help from police forces in Colombia and the United States to try to solve the murders of seven journalists committed in the space of less than two months, which will also be investigated by a delegation from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights next month.

Jorge Orellana, popularly known as "Georgino", was gunned down on Apr. 20, just a week after radio announcer Luis Chévez met a similar fate on Apr. 13.

Five fellow journalists -- Joseph Andoni Hernández Ochoa, David Meza, Nahum Palacios, José Bayardo Mairena and Manuel Juárez -- were shot and killed in March.

Five of the seven slain reporters worked outside the capital. Bayardo Mairena and Suárez were shot and killed in the northeastern province of Olancho while investigating a drug trafficking ring, according to unofficial reports, although the police have yet to comment on the possible motives behind their murders.

All of the journalists were killed in drive-by shootings by unknown gunmen riding on motorbikes, who fired on each victim over a dozen times. According to the police and the Observatory on Violence, a joint initiative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the public National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH), this is a modus operandi typical of hired killers.

Orellana worked for a television station in the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula, 250 kilometres north of Tegucigalpa, and also taught journalism classes at UNAH.

His murder has stepped up local and international pressure on Lobo, who returned to Honduras on Wednesday from a tour of the United States, where he visited universities and met with business leaders.

Lobo said Honduras would seek help from other countries with greater experience in criminal investigation to identify the killers of the seven journalists. He highlighted the work in this area of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in the United States.

Colombia, the other country where Lobo plans to request assistance, has been one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists for decades, and is currently engulfed in a scandal over a state-run intelligence apparatus set up to spy on and sabotage government opponents, activists and journalists.

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