Honduras Government Blamed for 14
Deaths
Tegucigalpa – Fourteen politically motivated
killings have taken place in Honduras since
the June 28 escorted departure of former
president Mel Zelaya, a human rights group
founded when death squads stalked the
Central American country in the 1980s said
Wednesday.
“We have 14 people who have been murdered
since the coup d’état,” the coordinator of
the Committee of Relatives of Disappeared
Detainees, or Cofadeh, told Efe.
The killings took place in Tegucigalpa and
San Pedro Sula – the country’s two largest
cities – and other locations, Bertha Oliva
said, adding that police and soldiers were
also “torturing people.”
Some people arrested for their opposition to
the coup have been burned by their jailers
with cigarettes, while others have been
sodomized with police batons, she said.
Oliva said some of the torturers were from
the army’s 3-16 Intelligence Battalion,
blamed for 184 deaths during the early
1980s.
A veteran of that unit, former Capt. Billy
Joya, is security adviser to Roberto
Micheletti, former head of Congress who was
elected head of government after Zelaya’s
ouster.
Oliva joined members of two anti-coup
resistance groups outside the Honduran
Supreme Court on Wednesday to protest the
judiciary’s unwillingness to investigate
allegations against the security forces.
Since Zelaya's departure, the organizations
said in a statement, the high court has
failed to respond to 52 motions filed in
opposition to actions of the government, an
attitude that “contrasts with the celerity
with which the judiciary acts when the
charges are against members of the
resistance.”
Claudia Hermannsdorfer, an attorney with the
Women’s Rights Center in Tegucigalpa, said
the International Criminal Court has been
informed of the human rights violations
committed by the Micheletti government.
“We are speaking even of murders,” she said.
“The people responsible for the coup d’etat
– the armed forces and Roberto Micheletti –
will have to face the International Criminal
Court, which already has the cases
absolutely documented and will act at any
moment.”
Police and soldiers used force Wednesday to
remove 57 Zelaya followers from a government
building they occupied shortly after the
events that ousted the elected head of
state.
The security forces acted in accord with the
state of siege imposed by the Micheletti
government days after Zelaya slipped back
into the country and took up residence at
the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.
“This action forms part of what the decree
is,” police spokesman Orlin Cerrato told
reporters, adding that authorities are
trying to determine whether any other state
property is under occupation.
“There are people detained, they will be
questioned to see what (criminal)
responsibility they have,” he said.
The operation to remove the Zelaya partisans
from the National Agrarian Institute began
at 5:30 a.m.
Cerrato said authorities did not plan any
further evictions Wednesday, though
supporters of the deposed president have
spent the last few nights on university
campuses in and around Tegucigalpa.
“We were waiting: so it’s now that they
pounced on us. They clubbed me when I tried
to get my suitcase,” one of the peasants
rousted from institute, 52-year-old Pedro
Serrano, told Efe.
Rural leader Rafael Alegria, a coordinator
of the National Resistance Front , rushed to
the institute when he learned of the police
action.
“It’s a dictatorship and anything can
happen,” he said. “They are desperate; they
are applying a decree that is illegal, that
has not been approved by Congress. This is a
fascist act.”
The speaker of the Honduran Congress said
Monday that the Micheletti government should
revoke the decree suspending constitutional
guarantees.
Jose Alfredo Saavedra made the request hours
after the government invoked the state of
siege as justification for shutting down two
media outlets sympathetic to Zelaya.
Micheletti, who was named “interim”
president by a plurality of lawmakers after
Zelaya's departure, said he was open to the
idea of scrapping the state of siege, which
has sparked harsh international criticism.
The measure was also criticized by the
hopefuls competing in the Nov. 29
presidential election, who pointed out that
the 45-day duration of the emergency
measures would effectively reduce the time
for campaigning to two weeks.
And late Wednesday, the country’s Supreme
Electoral Tribunal formally asked Micheletti
to revoke the decree.
Micheletti argues that Zelaya’s ouster was
not a coup, and that the soldiers were
enforcing a Supreme Court ban on the
president’s planned non-binding plebiscite
on the idea of revising the constitution.
The Organization of American States, the
United States and the European Union have
been pressing Micheletti to accept the San
Jose Accord, a proposal put forward by Costa
Rican President Oscar Arias.
The plan calls for Zelaya to return and lead
a national unity government for the few
months left in his term, and for a political
amnesty that would protect both sides in the
dispute.
While Zelaya has accepted the plan, the
Honduras government flatly rejects the
reinstatement of Zelaya, who stands accused
of violating the country's Constitution.
Both the EU and Washington say they will not
recognize the winner of the Nov. 29
presidential election unless Zelaya is
restored to office prior to the balloting. |
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