August in Honduras: One Conviction; 27 Children and Youth Murdered
Casa Alianza Reports
In what has become an ongoing litany of death, another 27 children and youth under the age of 23 were murdered during the month of August 2004 in this Central American country of less than six million people.

There was one piece of positive news though, the uniformed killer of 15-year-old Noé Alejandro Alvarez Ramírez, prison guard José Reynaldo Archaga, was finally condemned to 10 years in jail for the May 1999 crime when an Appeals Court overturned a lower court’s sentence which absolved Archaga.

Noe was being escorted from the Juvenile Judge’s chambers back to the juvenile detention center just outside Tegucigalpa that fateful afternoon. He was angry because the judge had not shown up for the audience in which he was going to be released to his mother. Driven by frustration, when the bus slowed, Noe decided to jump out of the window and run. Despite the boy being handcuffed – in clear violation of Honduran law – he ran along a dried up riverbed, which passed by what was then Honduras’ principal jail.

Archaga, who had been absolved of any criminal responsibility for the boy’s murder by the 1st Criminal Court of Tegucigalpa on April 22nd, 2002, was working as a prison guard when he saw the boy run down the riverbed. He thought there was an escape from the prison he was guarding and screamed for the boy to stop. According to witnesses, the scared boy did stop and lifted his handcuffed arms up in front of his face as a sign of surrender. But the guard opened fire anyway…

The single bullet from the powerful rifle hit Noe in the abdomen. He collapsed and died in the riverbed.

Since Noe’s extra-judicial execution by an agent of the State in 1999, more than 1,800 more children and youth under the age of 23 have been slaughtered. Few of the cases have been investigated. The number of convictions can be counted on your fingers.

Of the 27 murders in August 2004, 41% (11) were children (under the age of 18) and 85% (23) of the victims were male. This month, San Pedro Sula, the second largest city in the poorest country in the western hemisphere after Haiti, had more murders (13 – 48%) than Tegucigalpa (8 – 29%). A massacre of four young children (13, 11, 9 and 7 years old) and their mother in Corquin, Department (State) of Copan, placed that town as the third most violent in Honduras for the month.

In a country with little, if any, gun control, firearms committed a full 93% of the murders of children and youth. None of those responsible for the bloodshed has been brought to justice although gang members are suspect in one of the murders and the “infamous” grey car – understood to be death squads by human rights groups – are suspect in five murders (18%).

Honduras was named to the UN Commission on Human Rights this year, a post it will hold until 2006.

Annan: Latin America needs more democracy
here exists in some Latin American countries the temptation of going back to authoritarianism and the region "needs more democracy", UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Wednesday.

When inaugurating in Mexico City a seminar on strengthening Latin American democracy, Annan said, "The difficulties faced by Latin America cannot be dealt with by going back to failed strategies of yesteryear."

He said the social confrontations that have occurred in some countries of the region in recent years "from Venezuela to Bolivia" have been solved within the institutional framework.

Most of the Latin American nations left dictatorships in the 1980s and replaced them with democratic regimes that have continued over the past two decades, he said.

The combat against growing inflation has been successful; their economy has grown; exports have increased; foreign investment has been attracted, and social expenditure has been augmented, yet welfare has not benefited all people, Annan added.

He recognized that over the past years many people left poverty in Latin America, most people in urban areas have access to potable water, the infant mortality rate has been nearly reduced by half in 25 years, and elementary education became almost universal while secondary schooling reached a coverage of almost 60 percent.

He stressed that "it is not impressive that these achievements had been attained in a moment when democracy has advanced and the rule of law became strengthened."

Annan said, "Latin America has embodied an excellent democratic tradition, but democracy has not managed yet to really respond to the aspirations of the region's poor."

The seminar "Democracy, Politics and the State," organized by the Mexican Foreign Ministry and the United Nations Development Program, gathers 300 politicians, academicians and representatives of civil organizations, including four ex-presidents.

Mercosur states discuss military cooperation
The commanders of the armed forces from the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) member states met Wednesday in the Argentine city of Bariloche to discuss military cooperation inside the regional bloc.

Commanders from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay will analyze the possibility of joint military maneuvers and the exchange of soldiers among the countries to develop a greater military integration.

During the meeting, to be concluded Friday, they will also evaluate the participation of the South American troops in the peace missions ordered by the United Nations in different parts of the world.

Argentina's Roberto Bendini, Bolivia's Cesar Lopez, Brazil's Francisco de Albuquerque, Chile's Juan Cheyre, Paraguay's Luis Bareiro and Uruguay's Santiago Pomoli participated in the meeting.

Argentine Defense Minister Jose Pampuro also attended the discussions taking place at the Military Mountain School at Bariloche, 1,600 kilometers south of Buenos Aires, in the province of Rio Negro.

"All of the projects that could be taken on with the neighboring countries will allow extending measures of mutual confidence as part of the concept of cooperative security, and as a valuable tool for regional integration," a statement released by the Argentine army said.

"The realization of combined drills between the armies of the region, the incorporation of military personnel from sister nations in the UN peace-keeping contingents ... are tangible tokens of the common intention existing in the armed forces of our countries," the statement said.

In recent years, the armed forces in the region have developed joint projects on science and technology.

Argentina and Brazil have jointly developed a light airborne vehicle while Chile and Argentina developed a combat-simulator for peace-keeping troops.