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CENTRAL AMERICA |
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Rights Groups Denounce Murder of
Anti-Coup Protester in Honduras
TEGUCIGALPA – A teacher who was actively
involved in the resistance to the coup in
Honduras was killed in this capital, human
rights groups said.
“The murder of teacher Mario Fidel Contreras
in Tegucigalpa has been confirmed,” said
Bertha Oliva, coordinator of the Committee
of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees, or
Cofadeh, a human rights group founded when
death squads stalked the Central American
country in the 1980s.
She added that, according to the information
she has received, the murder occurred 100
meters (yards) from Contreras’ home on the
eastern outskirts of the capital, although
she said she could not confirm if the
killing was related to his involvement in
the protest movement.
Contreras, 50, died of two gunshots to the
face fired by two men who passed by him on a
motorcycle, according to Cofadeh’s
preliminary report.
That organization said earlier this week
that 14 politically motivated killings have
occurred since President Mel Zelaya was
ousted in a June 28 coup.
Separately, the Center for the Prevention,
Treatment and Rehabilitation of the Victims
of Torture and their Families, or CPTRT,
also denounced the murder of Contreras.
In a statement, the CPTRT, a private
organization, said Contreras was killed
“while preparing to run some personal
errands, at a spot one block from his home
in the San Angel district.”
“According to testimony provided by family
members to CPTRT, it is presumed that the
killing was carried out by hit men, since no
personal belongings were taken from the
victim,” suggesting he was not killed as
part of a robbery, the statement read.
Oliva and the CPTRT both said that Contreras
was a member of the National Resistance
Front against the Coup that is demanding the
reinstatement of Zelaya, who made a surprise
return to the country on Sept. 21 and is
currently holed up at the Brazilian Embassy
in Tegucigalpa.
Contreras also was affiliated with the
Copemh teachers’ union and worked as a
high-school teacher and a professor at the
National Pedagogical University in
Tegucigalpa.
All of the people killed in politically
motivated violence have been slain in
Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, according to
Cofadeh, which earlier this week accused
police and soldiers of acts of torture.
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, Oliva told Efe
Wednesday.
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, head of the regime that took
power 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 the putsch, the organizations said in
a statement, the high court has failed to
respond to 52 motions filed in opposition to
actions of the coup regime, 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 violation
committed by the coup regime.
“We are speaking even of murders,” she said.
“The people responsible for the coup d’état
– 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.”
Micheletti contends Zelaya’s ouster was not
a coup, insisting that the soldiers who
dragged him from the presidential palace
were simply enforcing a Supreme Court ban on
the president’s planned non-binding
plebiscite on the idea of revising the
constitution.
While the coup leaders accuse Zelaya of
seeking to extend his stay in office, any
potential constitutional change to allow
presidential re-election would not have
taken place until well after the incumbent
stepped down.
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 the coup
plotters and the ousted head of state, who
stands accused of various offenses by the de
facto regime.
Micheletti has thus far flatly rejected the
reinstatement of the elected head of state,
although he has shown some signs in recent
days of backing down.
Under pressure from the international
community and members of the Honduran elite
that have backed him since the coup,
Micheletti said that he will end the state
of siege his regime had imposed after Zelaya
slipped back into the country
The decree curbing civil liberties and
banning protests was to have lasted 45 days,
but Micheletti said earlier this week that
it will end sooner.
He also has extended a deadline for Brazil
to decide on Zelaya’s status, although the
Brazilian government has said the ousted
head of state can stay at the embassy as
long as he wants and that it does not accept
ultimatums from coup-mongers.
On Friday, Micheletti said he met earlier in
the week at a military base with
Organization of American States
Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza, whom
the de facto regime had previously
criticized for being biased in favor of
Zelaya.
Micheletti said the two talked about
“absolutely everything,” although he told a
reporter the agenda did not include the
possibility of Zelaya returning to power.
An OAS delegation arrived in Honduras Friday
to pave the way for the arrival next week of
foreign ministers from across the region.
Insulza’s adviser, John Biehl, told
reporters that “approximately 10 foreign
ministers” will be arriving in Tegucigalpa
on Wednesday and that “I think we’re at a
phase in which things are going to begin to
improve in every sense.”
Time is running out before presidential
elections scheduled for Nov. 29, with both
the European Union and Washington saying
they will not recognize the winner of that
balloting unless Zelaya is restored to
office beforehand.
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