Today's Stories: US bids final farewell to former president Ronald Reagan The Honduran Intifada… Colombian Air Force Commander Says Improved Radar Pinching Flow Of Aerial Drug Smuggling

Colombia's government has offered to halt offensive operations against the country's second-largest rebel group, if it calls a ceasefire.  The National Liberation Army (ELN) has opened channels for dialogue with the government of President Alvaro Uribe. But the government's ceasefire offer is surprising: it had earlier said it would force the rebels to the negotiate by weakening them militarily.

Following a 21-gun salute, Reagan's flag-draped casket, which had laid in state at the Rotunda of the Capital Hill for public viewing in the past two days, was transferred to a motorcade.

The motorcade carried the casket to the Washington National Cathedral, the venue for the state funeral, in light drizzle.

About 4,000 guests, including many incumbent and former world leaders, were invited to attend the service.

Reagan, who served as US president from 1981 to 1989, died Saturday at his home in California at the age of 93 after a long struggle with Alzheimer's disease.
 

The Honduran Intifada…
By Bruce Harris and Esteban Castro*

From the Gaza Strip, the television news shows a 15-year old Palestinian boy defiantly throwing a stone at a group of Israeli soldiers armed to the teeth. The boy wears a checkered tunic over his head and, in the distance, the viewer sees a soda billboard in unintelligible letters for the average westerner.

In Honduras, at the same time, a local newspaper illustrates another child – this time lying on the ground, mouth open, dressed in jeans and tennis shoes, with a bullet in his head.

In the Middle East, the first Intifada (religious uprising) began in 1987 as a movement of the Palestinians against what they considered to be an Israeli occupation. The second Intifada began at the end of 2000 for the same reason.

But in Honduras, the violence does not have an exact beginning date. Nor does it have a name or religious motivation, yet it has cost more children’s lives than in all the Gaza Strip conflicts between September 29th, 2000 and April 30th, 2004. There is nothing Holy about the war against poor Honduran children…

In the Holy Land where Jesus Christ walked, there were 654 children under 18 murdered in this 43 month period; 548 of them Palestinian and 106 Israeli. On the other side of the world, in Honduras, its history is written with the blood of 716 murdered children in the same time period.

All of the world’s TV channels and other news outlets feature daily reports on the tragedy of the war between Arabs and Jews. But almost nobody covers the continuing Honduran urban war, where often uniformed cowards with hidden faces launch bloody attacks against boys and girls, leaving them lying in the street, abandoned by one of the first States in the world to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child…

During the first four months of 2004, 48 children were killed in the midst of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In the exact same period, the exact same number of murdered children also ended up in Honduran cemeteries. Thousands of miles away, violence plays with a painful coincidence: Our children are dying.

On the other side of the world, the United Nations is permanently worried about the victims of the holy war, but in Honduras the same violence goes unnoticed for many - except for the families of the young victims, who nurse their pain in the uncertainty of knowing when the massacres will end.

In Gaza, there are tanks, armed helicopters and soldiers on the Israeli side, confronting boys with rocks who are considered by some as terrorists and by others as heroes. Their families carry the victims’ pictures through the streets and call them martyrs. In Honduras, the dead rarely appear on the TV screen and their families do not even find out who shot their child. Those in uniform cover themselves well.

Casa Alianza Honduras, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the defense of children’s Human Rights, has documented the murder of more than 2,200 children and youth under the age of 23 between January 1998 and April 2004. In May 2004, a further 37 young victims were recorded as killed.

Like the majority of the cases hidden under the blanket of impunity due to the reticence of government to conduct investigations, it is logical to think that these are extrajudicial executions. In fact these executions count on the State’s consent when they are neither investigated nor punished and, therefore, tolerated. The children have a right to a dignified life and the State has the obligation to comply with this Right. But our children are killed and the Presidents merely focus on balancing the budget and inaugurating bridges.

In Israel and Gaza, most of the murderers are not placed on trial under the justification, apparently logical, that they were “collateral damage” in an armed conflict, although most are careful to not call it a war. In Honduras, there is no pretext for any justification. The extrajudicial killings remain with impunity because the State is not interested in identifying those responsible. They only can justify their war by blaming their actions on juvenile gangs.

In January 2004, nine Palestinian and 19 Honduran children were killed. In February 2004, six Palestinian and six Honduran children were murder victims. The following month of March 2004, 17 Palestinian and seven Honduran children were killed. In April of this year, 16 Palestinians and 16 Honduran children were murdered. Not a single Israeli child died in these four months.

In 2003, the violence in Honduras took the lives of 229 boys and girls, 85 more than the sum of child victims in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Israel during the same period.

The size of the population provides no justification for the dimension of the slaughter. According to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the population of Honduras is estimated to be 6.6 million persons. In the conflict zone of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Israel, according to the same source, there are 9.6 million people.

Nor is the argument of underdevelopment and poverty warranted, when Honduras has a greater annual per-capita income than the Palestinians: US$2,500 compared to US$600. In Israel, the average annual income rises to US$19,500.

So no matter from which perspective we look, in terms of child victims, the conflict in Honduras is more serious than that of the Palestinians and Israelis. Perhaps the Holy Land is more dramatic. But whilst the sound of the Israeli helicopter launched missiles resound in home theaters around the world, in Honduras the silent echo only covers a higher level of murder of the innocents.

The cultures are surely different, but each time a child falls lifeless to the ground, here or there, the same thing happens. Every child’s death is an injustice that leaves each and everyone of us, wherever we may be, a little less human…


* Bruce Harris is the Regional Director for Covenant House – Latin America, a non-governmental organization that defends the Rights of Latin American children. Esteban Castro is the Coordinator of Communications for Casa Alianza Costa Rica.
www.casa-alianza.org

Colombian Air Force Commander Says Improved Radar Pinching Flow Of Aerial Drug Smuggling
BOGOTA, Colombia -- Improved radar coverage and a tough policy of forcing down planes has compelled drug traffickers to find alternate smuggling methods, the commander of the Colombian Air Force said Thursday.

In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Gen. Edgar Lesmez said 80 percent of Colombia's air space is now monitored by radar and that some 90 percent will be covered by the end of next year after two new radar systems, partially financed by the United States, are installed.

Air force pilots, guided by U.S. radar and AWACS surveillance, have forced down or destroyed on the ground 26 planes suspected of carrying drugs so far this year, Lesmez said. None has been shot out of the air so far.

Colombia is the world's largest producer of cocaine and supplies most of the heroin found in the United States.

U.S. participation in the surveillance flights, however, was suspended in 2001 after a small plane carrying American missionaries was mistakenly shot down by a Peruvian warplane guided by U.S. intelligence operatives. Investigators said procedural errors, language problems and inadequate Peruvian air control caused the mistake.

The program resumed over Colombia in August 2003 under stricter procedures: Suspicious flights must first be ordered to land, and warning shots fired before it can be shot down. Also, no plane can be shot down by the air force without a direct order from Lesmez.

A black telephone, specifically for such a call, was within Lesmez's reach during the AP interview at his office in the Ministry of Defense. It was one of seven phones on his desk.

Lesmez said the resumption of U.S. drug surveillance flights was critical for the success of the aerial interdiction program.

In the past month, radars have revealed very few unauthorized flights, indicating the tough shoot-down policy coupled with improved radar coverage is forcing traffickers to come up with other means of shipping cocaine and heroin from Colombia, Lesmez said.

"Perhaps it's no longer profitable for them (to fly the drugs out)," he remarked.

Lesmez also said the air force plans to buy some 24 fighter planes by the end of the year for about $230 million, doubling the government's combat air strike capability. He didn't specify what kind of airplanes would be bought. (AP)