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Honduras Police Chief Sacked

This latest scandal to envelope Honduran authorities is only the tip of the iceberg when looking at police corruption in the country, where some 40 percent of officers are suspected of organized crime ties. The removal of Mr. Ramírez will therefore do little to combat the endemic nature of the problem.

By Edward Fox
President Porfirio Lobo yesterday removed Honduras' National Police chief, General Ricardo Ramírez del Cid on May 21 and appointed Juan Carlos Bonilla in his place. Gen. Ramírez became the second police chief to fall in seven months, having replaced José Luis Muñoz Licona just last October. Muñoz was fired following accusations that policemen murdered two university students. Like Mr. Muñoz, Mr. Ramírez had become engulfed in a high-profile police scandal, this time surrounding the kidnapping and murder of journalist Alfredo Villatoro. The radio journalist for HRN was taken hostage on May 9 and found dead a week later, with an ex-police officer arrested before the discovery of the body on suspicion of involvement in Mr. Villatoro's disappearance. He was later released without charge.

TSC Audit Shows Zelayas Misused Public Funds

Honduras Weekly
The Superior Tribunal for Accounts (TSC) -- Honduras' equivalent to the United States' Government Accountability Office (GAO) -- has completed an audit (No. 009-2009-DASSJ) of spending under the government of President Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009). The TSC audit determined that Mr. Zelaya and his wife, Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, improperly spent a total of Lps 643,728 (US$33,880) in public funds on cigars, horses, and jewelry -- items considered to be of a personal nature. Approximately Lps 172,262 (US$9,066) was spent to build stables for three of Mr. Zelaya's horses -- Café, Fantasma, and Ostentosa -- and care for them, as well as purchase saddles for them and tires for a horse trailer. One Spanish saddle was purchased for Lps 10,600 (US$558). A total of Lps 50,993 (US$2,684) was spent on horse transportation costs during a visit to Nicaragua. The expense was justified as a "special mission".

War on Drugs Hits Miskito Coast

So, the dominant “official” US narrative during the aftermath of the attack combined the anonymous line, that the dead were guilty of drug smuggling, and the attributable line, that the DEA did not fire its weapons and that the operation was under investigation by Honduran and US authorities.

By Larry Birns/Frederick Mills
On May 11th, a joint US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)-Honduran anti-narcotics unit based at Forward Operating Base Mocorón launched an early morning operation against alleged drug smugglers in the Miskito Coast region. In the pre-dawn darkness, helicopter gunners and soldiers on the ground reportedly fired upon a boat on the banks of the Patuca River, killing four of the passengers aboard. It was later discovered that the boat was simply a passenger vessel, and there is mounting credible evidence and a Honduran military investigation that indicates the passengers were not involved in drug smuggling. The rush to judgment, however, and the manner in which early press reports used anonymous, “official” sources that characterized the Miskito people in general terms as criminals, points to another casualty of the 30-year-old War on Drugs: the truth.

Murder of Villatoro "Sends a Terrible Message"

The government's stance on media killings has worsened the situation. Authorities have minimized crimes against journalists and been slow and negligent in pursuing the culprits.
-Committee to Protect Journalists

By Thelma Mejia
A few short hours after President Porfirio Lobo said he had seen evidence that Alfredo Villatoro, a radio reporter kidnapped May 9, was alive, the journalist’s body was found in a residential neighborhood on the south side of the capital. The prominent reporter’s kidnapping and death have shocked Honduras, one of the most violent countries in the world, where journalists are frequently among the victims of attacks. The body of Villatoro, who was news manager at HRN, the country’s most influential radio station, was found by the roadside with two gunshot wounds to the head. He was dressed in the uniform of the Cobras, an elite police force, and was blindfolded with a red scarf. The initial forensic reports indicate that he was killed shortly before the president announced at noon on Tuesday that Villatoro "is alive; we have seen videos that the kidnappers sent the family."

Over 680,000 Worldwide Petition Congress Against Criminalizing Contraception

This proposal is regressive and alarming; in no other country in the world are members of Congress considering jailing a young girl for preventing pregnancy after sexual violence, or slamming a women in prison for accessing basic health care. An average of 25 girls a day between 10 and 14 are raped in Honduras -- these children need to protected, not criminalized.

By Laura Rico
The Avaaz Foundation of New York and Honduran women's groups on Wednesday delivered a global petition signed by more than 680,000 people from every country in the world calling on Honduras not to pass a law that would put women and doctors in jail for simply using or prescribing emergency contraception. The petition calls the president of the Honduran National Congress, Juan Orlando Hernández, “not to criminalize contraception” and to stop Honduras becoming "the only country in the world to punish the use or sale of the morning-after pill with jail sentences of up to six years.” The law -- Decree 54 -- is before Congress and could be approved any day now. The petition is the largest global campaign ever targeting a Honduran politician in defense of human rights.

Radio Journalist Alfredo Villatoro Dead

Reporters Without Borders
Radio journalist Alfredo Villatoro, kidnapped on his way to work last week, was found dead yesterday on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, six days after his abduction. “With the death of Erick Martinez on May 5 and that of Alfredo Villatoro, journalism has lost two of its members in the space of 10 days, while at the same time threats, attacks and assaults remain an almost daily reality for journalists,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Against this background, where common crime, the activities of criminal gangs and political violence undermine national security and basic public freedoms, no attempt to combat impunity can succeed without wide-ranging reform of the judicial system involving civil society and international observers. It is a daunting challenge but one that cannot be put off any longer.”

LiDAR Imaging Survey of La Mosquitia Completed

Digital imagery produced by the survey will provide future benefits to Hondurans in the form of improved data for better management of natural and cultural resources. The LiDAR survey also provides the ability to produce more accurate and finely detailed topographic maps of remote portions of the Mosquitia region.

Marketwire
President Porfirio Lobo convened a press conference at the Presidential House in Tegucigalpa today to announce that The government of Honduras and UTL Scientific LLC of the United States have completed the first-ever airborne light detection and ranging ("LiDAR") imaging survey of previously-uncharted areas of the Mosquitia region of Honduras. The project brought to Honduras an advanced, US$1.5 million airborne laser scanning system to peer below the dense rain forest canopy. Initial analysis of the LiDAR data indicates what appears to be evidence of archaeological ruins in an area long rumored to contain the legendary lost city of Ciudad Blanca.

Botched DEA Air Attack Leaves Four Dead in Honduras

Honduras Weekly
The Honduran newspaper El Tiempo reported yesterday that four people were killed and another four injured in the municipality of Ahuas (Gracias a Dios) during a attack on a boat navigating along the Patuca River on Friday near a place called Paplaya. The deceased victims included two young men, Emerson Martínez and Chalo Brock Wood, and two women, Candelaria Tratt Nelson and Juana Banegas -- both of whom were pregnant. According to Congressman Wood Grawell Maylo of the department of Gracias a Dios and the Mayor of Ahuas, Lucio Baquedano, the attack was carried out in the early morning by a helicopter unit consisting of Honduran police and members of the United Stated Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). They said that the unit mistook the targeted boat for another boat that was being used by drug traffickers.

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Villeda Reveals FARC Plan to Assassinate Political Leaders in Honduras

Honduras Weekly
Liberal presidential pre-candidate Mauricio Villeda on Friday said that during a trip to Colombia to visit with then-President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), he was given access to a document captured from the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) revealing a plan by the FARC to destabilize Honduras by kidnapping and assassinating key political figures in the country and systematically dismantling its major political parties. Mr. Villeda, who was speaking to a group of law students at the Technological University of Central America (Unitec) in Tegucigalpa, said that he has a copy of the document which lists numerous individuals in Honduras targeted by the FARC. "There, you can read about the plan against Honduras... there, you can read the names of the persons who are to be kidnapped in Honduras, or who were to be kidnapped in Honduras," and Mr. Villeda.

HRN Journalist Alfredo Villatoro Kidnapped

The incident is yet another reminder of the dangers faced by Honduran journalists, and comes just days after the disappearance and subsequent murder of reporter Erick Alejandro Martínez. Martínez, a member of the Honduran resistance movement, went missing on May 5 and was found dead three days later.

By Geoffrey Ramsey
A journalist has been kidnapped in Honduras, and an ex-police officer with suspicious ties to the incident has been allowed to walk free, seemingly illustrating both the degree of police corruption in Honduras well as the dangers of being a journalist in the country. According to La Tribuna, HRN radio news manager Alfredo Villatoro was taken hostage by unknown abductors on his way to work in Tegucigalpa on the morning of May 9. Authorities arrested ex-police sergeant Gerson Basilio Godoy in connection with the kidnapping, but El Heraldo reports that he was released after ten hours in custody. Basillo was dismissed from the police force in September 2011 for his alleged links to a kidnapping and extortion network.