Honduras Crisis Claims More Lives
TEGUCIGALPA - A spate of abductions and
murders has prompted concern that the
political crisis in Honduras is still
claiming victims despite the election of a
new government.
Gunmen have killed two young activists in
recent separate attacks amid a continued
crackdown against supporters of the ousted
president, Manuel Zelaya.
Walter Trochez, 27, a gay rights activist
and pro-Zelaya campaigner, was gunned down
on Sunday night in the capital, Tegucigalpa,
by unidentified men in a passing car.
Human rights groups said he had been
repeatedly harassed by police and soldiers
and was briefly kidnapped and beaten on 4
December by four masked men.
The National Resistance Front, a group
opposed to the coup which toppled Zelaya,
accused security forces of the murder.
Police denied responsibility and said they
would investigate.
In a separate incident yesterday the victim
was associated with the pro-coup side:
Catherine Nicolle Rodríguez, 16, was shot
dead by two men on a motorbike.
The teenager was travelling in a car owned
by her mother, Carol Cabrera, a TV presenter
and outspoken supporter of the de facto
government. Cabrera was not in the vehicle.
Two others travelling with her daughter were
injured. The teenager, who was eight months
pregnant, was pronounced dead at a hospital
but doctors saved her baby boy.
Human rights groups said a pattern of
disappearances and violence was continuing
despite an election last month which raised
hopes of an end to central America's worst
political crisis in 20 years.
"We are very concerned that the recent
election in Honduras appears to have done
nothing to protect political activists,"
said Jasmine Huggins, Latin America policy
officer for the UK advocacy group Christian
Aid. "Serious human rights abuses are still
occurring. Most dramatically, two young
activists have been killed [since Sunday]."
The crisis began in June when soldiers
seized Zelaya and bundled him into exile.
The leftist president had angered congress,
the supreme court and the army by allying
the impoverished coffee exporting country
with Venezuela's socialist president, Hugo
Chávez.
The de facto government, headed by Roberto
Micheletti, snuffed out pro-Zelaya protests
with a crackdown that left thousands
detained, hundreds beaten and an unknown
number dead. Before this week's murders
human rights activists had documented 26
killings.
Authorities said only a handful of cases
were linked to the crisis and that most were
victims of the country's violent crime
epidemic, adding that the crackdown was a
legitimate response to street disturbances
and small bombs set off by pro-Zelaya
"terrorists".
The de facto government, which has defied
near-universal demands for Zelaya's
reinstatement, remained bullish today when
it asked congress to withdraw Honduras from
the Alba, a Venezuela-led leftist bloc which
includes Cuba and Nicaragua. The
organisation had not been "respectful", said
Rafael Pineda, minister of the presidency.
Earlier this week Micheletti rebuffed calls
from Brazil and the US to step down before
the newly elected president, Porfirio Lobo,
is inaugurated on 27 January.
Micheletti also ignored international
appeals to grant Zelaya, who is holed in
Brazil's embassy in Tegucigalpa and
surrounded by troops, safe passage out of
Honduras.
The authorities said the deposed leftist
could leave only if he renounced the
presidency, a condition he rejected. Lobo, a
conservative rancher from the country's
traditional ruling class, has signalled that
after taking power he may offer an amnesty
to Zelaya and coup leaders.
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