The Legacy Project: Honduras Report

January 30: Report from Tegucigalpa: Where 93% of Murders Go Unpunished

The journey into Honduras and towards Tegucigalpa has the ability to kindle homesickness. The sun-drenched hills, speckled with pine trees and lava rock, call to mind the Sierra Nevadas. The dilapidated highways, wiped out in places by earthquake or rain, place one firmly back on Highway 1, balanced precariously between mountain peak and craggy coast. And the final descent into Tegu, on which one passes McDonald's, 2 Pizza Huts, 2 Wendy's, Dominos, 2 Popeyes, Little Caesar's, 2 Dunkin' Donuts, Chili's, 2 Burger Huts, and surely others I missed, recalls ... well, it recalls most every American town and city.

Once in the heart of Tegu, however, all memories of other places are set aside. They have to be. The city is too congested already, and forced to make room for more migrants - and the occasional tourist - every day. The falconer can be found in a local internet cafe, trying to Skype the falcon, but it's very dubious if the connection can hold.

Tegu has clearly outgrown its infrastructural britches. The downtown is a tangled network of single-lane, one-way roads, perennially lined with exhaust-belching vehicles. Above each road hangs several dozen cables. This does evoke one more memory - the back of my television in high school, with cable, NES, Sega, and VCR all somehow strung together. The scales - TV table vs all of downtown Tegu - are a little different, though.

Despite all of those things - the congestion, the pollution, the real threat that, should those cables slip, I would be facing Indiana Jones's ordeal with the asps, with the added treat that the asps would be shooting electrical current from their forked tongues - despite that, Tegu is a surprisingly charming place. Rarely can a capital city be called homey, but that is the case here. In the Central Plaza, every bit of sittable space is claimed, friends stroll with ice cream from McDonald's or Dunkin' Donuts, kids play soccer in the seconds enough space is clear. Surrounding mountains flit by like coquettes, offering brief glimpses through the narrow lanes but never a full profile. And, periodically, historic architecture jumps around the corner, anachronistic yet more accentuating than disjointing.

Given this, I feel an almost paternal urge to thrash the guidebook authors who steer people away from Tegu, harping on the danger involved. All cities have their dangers; the most limited of common sense should get one through.

But, then again, Tegu is a little different. Everything is locked and/or staffed with armed security, and sometimes both. And Subway restaurant falls in the latter category. National police are a fixture in the downtown area and tourists are strongly, forcefully advised to not be out after dark in the downtown area.

In preparation for my meetings with CODEH (Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras) and COFADEH (Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras), I read how each had experienced personal loss over the last year. CODEH in particular has seen two of its members assassinated. Fighting for human rights in Honduras is a dangerous business. So, how safe can the individual feel when those fighting for individual safety are constantly imperiled?

---------------------------------------------------------

Andres Murillo is the son of a banana plantation worker who moved to Tegu at the age of 6. For 8 years he has worked as the Director of CODEH. Their headquarters is small, consisting of a main room, stuffed to the gills with all manner of print archives, and several smaller offices. I am relieved to hear his clear Spanish and to see a full range of facial expressions. Comprehension is a wonderful thing.

In order to outline Honduras's troubled '80s and the present struggle, Andres first goes back to the 1920s. In the historical narrative that follows, his key point is that Honduras was at the center of the Cold War conflicts in Central America in the 1980s, even if it never hosted a full-fledged war.

As was the case in so many Latin American states, the second half of the 20th century found Honduras with the majority of its land in the hands of a few, the legacy of colonial rule. As such, it was, for all intents and purposes, an oligarchy; only the military could offer any counter-balance to the elites and, for the most part, they saw eye to eye. Indeed, the military protected the wealthy's property, while the wealthy ensured the military was properly funded. A whole lot of back-scratching going on...

For Honduras to experience any meaningful economic development, or for any beyond the lucky few to have any hope of advancement, agrarian reform was essential. This was a challenging concept at the time, though, if for no other reason than it sounded a little Marxist. And, as the US had already made clear in Chile, we didn't take too kindly to the spread of communist, or even socialist, tendencies in our hemisphere. The US fully subscribed to the Domino Theory, which argued that should one state fall to communism, it would set off a chain reaction, ending fatally at our doorstep. This couldn't be tolerated anywhere, and it certainly couldn't be permitted so close to home.

The Honduran oligarchy could see the rise of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the emergence of the FMLN guerrillas in El Salvador, and they could easily anticipate the spread of those ideas and movements to Honduras. Indeed, Honduras had a history of communist organizations, going back to the 1920s. To secure the country, the government would need to take drastic measures.

So, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it refashioned itself as the bastion of authoritarian rule in Central America. Military governments banished all concept of civilian influence and the US and Argentina were invited to set up training centers to assist the Contra efforts in Nicaragua and the El Salvadoran military. In return for such faithful service to the cause, the Honduran government was largely given carte blanche to maintain order. As such, political and intellectual critics were brutally silenced, many through the tactic employed so effectively in southern South America - the desaparecido. Dissidents of all variety disappeared overnight, to be killed and buried in unmarked graves, or dumped from Honduran military helicopters. The human rights record of Honduras in the 1980s is appalling, but largely ignored in the US, despite an increase in military aid during this time period from $4 million to over $77 million. "It was a secret, dirty war, the military attacking unarmed civilians," notes Andres. The US ambassador, John Negroponte, was apparently well aware of the abuses and - this seems to be quite reliably documented - eagerly encouraged it. Andres looks me square in the eyes: "We have never forgotten Negroponte." Negroponte served as the US Director of National Intelligence from 2005-2007.

Andres paints a bleak picture of human rights in Honduras. Despite a period of civil reform from 1990-95 eliminating the military government, a Commission on Human Rights to examine the abuses of the 1980s, and a string of liberal-minded presidents, a culture of impunity exists in the country. Almost nobody is punished for their crimes, past or present. A staggering 93% of murders committed in 2008 remain unsolved, up from 91% in 2007. What deterrence exists in a state that cannot offer the most minimal measure of protection to its citizens?

And it's not as if those murders are limited in number. In 2008, Honduras has a documented 42.9 homicides per 100,000 people. Perhaps that doesn't sound like much, but the Panamerican Health Organization (OPS) has determined that any state in which more than 10 homicides per 100,000 people take place has a "criminal epidemic." Honduras's total places it just behind Colombia and South Africa on the list of national homicide rates (depending on which list you consult; there is a significant amount of variability between reports). Certainly, places like Somalia and the Congo, in which the state has collapsed entirely, must exceed these totals. Regardless, the degree of killing is overwhelming and the complete impunity afforded to those responsible even more so.

Who are the targets? Whereas in the 1980s political dissidents were the desaparecidos, in the 2000s they have been replaced by children and young adults. Roughly 60% of those murdered fall between the ages of 11 and 30. Many are never found. The influence of drug traffickers is visible here, as is gang recruitment in general. This trend represents one of the greatest threats to Honduras in the mind of CODEH and Andres - what hope exists for the future if each new generation is relentlessly assaulted by the violent elements around them?

CODEH recently mourned the death of Ivan Guardado, who had led a campaign against deforestation. Previously, another member was killed prior to his testifying against a narcotics trafficking organization. Neither case has made any progress; as Andres asks, what confidence can you have in a system that is infiltrated and influenced by its most brutal members, in a country where nearly half of its 200,000 guns are unregistered?

It would be unfair to label Andres a pessimist; he works passionately for the cause and merely is willing to see it for what it is. I ask him if he is scared, when he sees the fate of many others campaigning for human rights in Honduras. He leans back, cracks a smile, and says "We are soldiers in the war." Moving his hands in the universal symbol of 'man firing a bazooka,' he makes it clear that his work is both explosive and dangerous, and he continues well aware of the reality.

Bertha Oliva of COFADEH echoes many of the same sentiments. Her group laments the recent murder of three young boys, one of whom is the son of the former Commissioner of Human Rights. "We are not here to cry," she says. "We are here to persist, to struggle, to overcome."

In support of this, she holds up the Decreto, issued by the Honduran government in December 2008, calling for the creation of a National Program for Reconciliation and Reparation. In it, the government accepts responsibility for the sins of the past, and commits to a program of redressing those wrongs committed. If nothing more, it is a powerful symbolic step.

But, Honduras is not a country lacking in symbolic steps. What it needs are literal ones. Until the whole truth comes out, until the problem of perpetual impunity is resolved, high-minded initiatives will be little more than window dressing. "We need to close the cycle," concludes Bertha.

In the meantime, though, the violence will persist in Honduras. Roughly three decades later, one has to wonder if this should be a case of Same Theory, Different Dominoes. If we were so concerned about the spread of communism in Central America to commit billions of dollars to its defense, why do we ignore it to the extent that we do today? If one examines the homicide rates throughout Central America, it is clear that they have soared in many countries over the last decade. Mexico is nearing chaos. That will spread. It has spread.

Many regret the US involvement in Central America during the Cold War and there is good reason to question this. The legacies remain explicit and very much alive throughout these countries. But, we ignore them at our own peril - and theirs.

	Honduras Report
Home	January 30: Report from Tegucigalpa: Where 93% of Murders Go Unpunished The journey into Honduras and towards Tegucigalpa has the ability to kindle homesickness. The sun-drenched hills, speckled with pine trees and lava rock, call to mind the Sierra Nevadas. The dilapidated highways, wiped out in places by earthquake or rain, place one firmly back on Highway 1, balanced precariously between mountain peak and craggy coast. And the final descent into Tegu, on which one passes McDonald's, 2 Pizza Huts, 2 Wendy's, Dominos, 2 Popeyes, Little Caesar's, 2 Dunkin' Donuts, Chili's, 2 Burger Huts, and surely others I missed, recalls ... well, it recalls most every American town and city. Once in the heart of Tegu, however, all memories of other places are set aside. They have to be. The city is too congested already, and forced to make room for more migrants - and the occasional tourist - every day. The falconer can be found in a local internet cafe, trying to Skype the falcon, but it's very dubious if the connection can hold. Tegu has clearly outgrown its infrastructural britches. The downtown is a tangled network of single-lane, one-way roads, perennially lined with exhaust-belching vehicles. Above each road hangs several dozen cables. This does evoke one more memory - the back of my television in high school, with cable, NES, Sega, and VCR all somehow strung together. The scales - TV table vs all of downtown Tegu - are a little different, though. Despite all of those things - the congestion, the pollution, the real threat that, should those cables slip, I would be facing Indiana Jones's ordeal with the asps, with the added treat that the asps would be shooting electrical current from their forked tongues - despite that, Tegu is a surprisingly charming place. Rarely can a capital city be called homey, but that is the case here. In the Central Plaza, every bit of sittable space is claimed, friends stroll with ice cream from McDonald's or Dunkin' Donuts, kids play soccer in the seconds enough space is clear. Surrounding mountains flit by like coquettes, offering brief glimpses through the narrow lanes but never a full profile. And, periodically, historic architecture jumps around the corner, anachronistic yet more accentuating than disjointing. Given this, I feel an almost paternal urge to thrash the guidebook authors who steer people away from Tegu, harping on the danger involved. All cities have their dangers; the most limited of common sense should get one through. But, then again, Tegu is a little different. Everything is locked and/or staffed with armed security, and sometimes both. And Subway restaurant falls in the latter category. National police are a fixture in the downtown area and tourists are strongly, forcefully advised to not be out after dark in the downtown area. In preparation for my meetings with CODEH (Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras) and COFADEH (Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras), I read how each had experienced personal loss over the last year. CODEH in particular has seen two of its members assassinated. Fighting for human rights in Honduras is a dangerous business. So, how safe can the individual feel when those fighting for individual safety are constantly imperiled? --------------------------------------------------------- Andres Murillo is the son of a banana plantation worker who moved to Tegu at the age of 6. For 8 years he has worked as the Director of CODEH. Their headquarters is small, consisting of a main room, stuffed to the gills with all manner of print archives, and several smaller offices. I am relieved to hear his clear Spanish and to see a full range of facial expressions. Comprehension is a wonderful thing. In order to outline Honduras's troubled '80s and the present struggle, Andres first goes back to the 1920s. In the historical narrative that follows, his key point is that Honduras was at the center of the Cold War conflicts in Central America in the 1980s, even if it never hosted a full-fledged war. As was the case in so many Latin American states, the second half of the 20th century found Honduras with the majority of its land in the hands of a few, the legacy of colonial rule. As such, it was, for all intents and purposes, an oligarchy; only the military could offer any counter-balance to the elites and, for the most part, they saw eye to eye. Indeed, the military protected the wealthy's property, while the wealthy ensured the military was properly funded. A whole lot of back-scratching going on... For Honduras to experience any meaningful economic development, or for any beyond the lucky few to have any hope of advancement, agrarian reform was essential. This was a challenging concept at the time, though, if for no other reason than it sounded a little Marxist. And, as the US had already made clear in Chile, we didn't take too kindly to the spread of communist, or even socialist, tendencies in our hemisphere. The US fully subscribed to the Domino Theory, which argued that should one state fall to communism, it would set off a chain reaction, ending fatally at our doorstep. This couldn't be tolerated anywhere, and it certainly couldn't be permitted so close to home. The Honduran oligarchy could see the rise of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the emergence of the FMLN guerrillas in El Salvador, and they could easily anticipate the spread of those ideas and movements to Honduras. Indeed, Honduras had a history of communist organizations, going back to the 1920s. To secure the country, the government would need to take drastic measures. So, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it refashioned itself as the bastion of authoritarian rule in Central America. Military governments banished all concept of civilian influence and the US and Argentina were invited to set up training centers to assist the Contra efforts in Nicaragua and the El Salvadoran military. In return for such faithful service to the cause, the Honduran government was largely given carte blanche to maintain order. As such, political and intellectual critics were brutally silenced, many through the tactic employed so effectively in southern South America - the desaparecido. Dissidents of all variety disappeared overnight, to be killed and buried in unmarked graves, or dumped from Honduran military helicopters. The human rights record of Honduras in the 1980s is appalling, but largely ignored in the US, despite an increase in military aid during this time period from $4 million to over $77 million. "It was a secret, dirty war, the military attacking unarmed civilians," notes Andres. The US ambassador, John Negroponte, was apparently well aware of the abuses and - this seems to be quite reliably documented - eagerly encouraged it. Andres looks me square in the eyes: "We have never forgotten Negroponte." Negroponte served as the US Director of National Intelligence from 2005-2007. Andres paints a bleak picture of human rights in Honduras. Despite a period of civil reform from 1990-95 eliminating the military government, a Commission on Human Rights to examine the abuses of the 1980s, and a string of liberal-minded presidents, a culture of impunity exists in the country. Almost nobody is punished for their crimes, past or present. A staggering 93% of murders committed in 2008 remain unsolved, up from 91% in 2007. What deterrence exists in a state that cannot offer the most minimal measure of protection to its citizens? And it's not as if those murders are limited in number. In 2008, Honduras has a documented 42.9 homicides per 100,000 people. Perhaps that doesn't sound like much, but the Panamerican Health Organization (OPS) has determined that any state in which more than 10 homicides per 100,000 people take place has a "criminal epidemic." Honduras's total places it just behind Colombia and South Africa on the list of national homicide rates (depending on which list you consult; there is a significant amount of variability between reports). Certainly, places like Somalia and the Congo, in which the state has collapsed entirely, must exceed these totals. Regardless, the degree of killing is overwhelming and the complete impunity afforded to those responsible even more so. Who are the targets? Whereas in the 1980s political dissidents were the desaparecidos, in the 2000s they have been replaced by children and young adults. Roughly 60% of those murdered fall between the ages of 11 and 30. Many are never found. The influence of drug traffickers is visible here, as is gang recruitment in general. This trend represents one of the greatest threats to Honduras in the mind of CODEH and Andres - what hope exists for the future if each new generation is relentlessly assaulted by the violent elements around them? CODEH recently mourned the death of Ivan Guardado, who had led a campaign against deforestation. Previously, another member was killed prior to his testifying against a narcotics trafficking organization. Neither case has made any progress; as Andres asks, what confidence can you have in a system that is infiltrated and influenced by its most brutal members, in a country where nearly half of its 200,000 guns are unregistered? It would be unfair to label Andres a pessimist; he works passionately for the cause and merely is willing to see it for what it is. I ask him if he is scared, when he sees the fate of many others campaigning for human rights in Honduras. He leans back, cracks a smile, and says "We are soldiers in the war." Moving his hands in the universal symbol of 'man firing a bazooka,' he makes it clear that his work is both explosive and dangerous, and he continues well aware of the reality. Bertha Oliva of COFADEH echoes many of the same sentiments. Her group laments the recent murder of three young boys, one of whom is the son of the former Commissioner of Human Rights. "We are not here to cry," she says. "We are here to persist, to struggle, to overcome." In support of this, she holds up the Decreto, issued by the Honduran government in December 2008, calling for the creation of a National Program for Reconciliation and Reparation. In it, the government accepts responsibility for the sins of the past, and commits to a program of redressing those wrongs committed. If nothing more, it is a powerful symbolic step. But, Honduras is not a country lacking in symbolic steps. What it needs are literal ones. Until the whole truth comes out, until the problem of perpetual impunity is resolved, high-minded initiatives will be little more than window dressing. "We need to close the cycle," concludes Bertha. In the meantime, though, the violence will persist in Honduras. Roughly three decades later, one has to wonder if this should be a case of Same Theory, Different Dominoes. If we were so concerned about the spread of communism in Central America to commit billions of dollars to its defense, why do we ignore it to the extent that we do today? If one examines the homicide rates throughout Central America, it is clear that they have soared in many countries over the last decade. Mexico is nearing chaos. That will spread. It has spread. Many regret the US involvement in Central America during the Cold War and there is good reason to question this. The legacies remain explicit and very much alive throughout these countries. But, we ignore them at our own peril - and theirs.
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