here<\/a>, beginning at 17:40).<\/p>\nQ:\u00a0 On various occasions you\u2019ve said that what you\u2019re seeing today in Honduras is reminiscent of the difficult times you experienced in the \u201880s and I\u2019d like you to elaborate on that.<\/i><\/p>\n
In the \u201880s we had armed forces that were excessively empowered. Today Honduras is extremely similar, with military officers exercising control over many of the country\u2019s institutions.\u00a0 The military is now in the streets playing a security role \u2013 often substituting for the work of the police forces of the country.<\/p>\n
In the \u201880s we also witnessed the practice of forced disappearances and assassinations. In that era it was clear that they were killing social leaders, political opponents, but they also assassinated people who had no ties to dissident groups in order to generate confusion in public opinion and try to disqualify our denunciations of the killings of family members who were political opponents.<\/p>\n
Today they assassinate young people in a more atrocious fashion than in the \u201880s and we\u2019re seeing a marked pattern of assassinations of women and youth.\u00a0 And within this mass of people that are assassinated there are political opponents.\u00a0 We refuse to dismiss these assassinations as simply a result of the extreme violence that we\u2019re experiencing, as they try to tell the country.\u00a0 We say that it is a product of impunity and Honduras\u2019 historical debt for failing to resolve cases perpetrated by state agents\u2026<\/p>\n
In the \u201880s the presence of the U.S. in the country was extremely significant.\u00a0 Today it\u2019s the same.\u00a0 New bases have opened as a result of an anti-drug cooperation agreement signed between Honduras and the U.S.<\/p>\n
In the \u201880s it was clear that political opponents were being eliminated.\u00a0 Today they\u2019re also eliminating those who claim land rights, as exemplified in the Bajo Agu\u00e1n.\u00a0 More than 98 land rights activists have been assassinated.\u00a0 The campesino sector in the Bajo Agu\u00e1n has been psychologically and emotionally tortured on top of the physical torture that certain campesino leaders have been subjected to.<\/p>\n
Q:\u00a0 Today in the hearing on human rights in Honduras at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights you discussed death squads. Death squads were active in the \u201880s and now you believe that this sinister phenomenon is coming back.<\/i><\/p>\n
It\u2019s certain that death squads are a product of the impunity that we\u2019ve seen in Honduras. The death squads of the past were never really dismantled.\u00a0 What we\u2019re witnessing is a reactivation of these death squads.\u00a0 And we\u2019re seeing it quite clearly.\u00a0 We\u2019ve seen videos of incidents in the street where masked men with military training and unmarked vehicles assassinate young people. There is the recent case of the journalist Julio Ernesto Alvarado who gave up his news program from 10pm to midnight on Radio Globo because members of a death squad came to kill him, and to save his own life he had to stop doing his program.<\/p>\n
In Honduras we had a military coup d\u2019Etat and this resulted in persecution, an implosion of the state\u2019s institutions which has left us with a dysfunctional judicial system and this has provided cover to those who wish to break the law.<\/p>\n
And, what\u2019s worse, state agents seem to have no political interest in improving and changing the situation.\u00a0 What we\u2019re witnessing is a growing professionalization of the capacity to justify illegal acts: authorities\u2019 assertion that they intend to investigate these acts, when that\u2019s simply not true.\u00a0 In reality it seems the intention is to continue terrorizing the Honduran people, to make them submissive so as to undermine citizen action.<\/p>\n
What we\u2019d like to see in Honduras is real action to try to prevent crime rather than continued justification of the lack of progress of investigations into crimes.<\/p>\n
Q:\u00a0 COFADEH is providing legal counsel to the victims and the families of the victims of the emblematic case that took place in May of last year in Ahuas, in which there was a police operation that involved U.S. agents and Honduran security agents that killed four people and injured a few others.\u00a0 Can you discuss the status of that case, over ten months after the killings took place?<\/i><\/p>\n
Yes, we are the legal representatives of the victims in this case and, on the one hand, we are filing a complaint with Honduras\u2019 judicial authorities to show or verify the responsibility of Honduran agents and DEA agents that participated in this incident.<\/p>\n
But we\u2019re also trying to reach out to the general public so that the case is better known and debated as this is the only real recourse we human rights defenders have: publicly denouncing the incident to see whether this will allow for some protection of the victims and of ourselves.\u00a0 But legally we see this as a very difficult case to move forward and this is where we can see that the authorities aren\u2019t interested in investigating, let alone sanctioning, those responsible.\u00a0 The crime of the tragic attack against this indigenous community has been compounded by the crime of violating due process in the investigation.<\/p>\n
We the legal representatives of the victims should have access to the case file. The Public Ministry [equivalent to the Attorney General\u2019s Office in the U.S. \u2013 ed.]<\/em> shouldn\u2019t allow any obstacle to come in the way of our access to the file.\u00a0 They can\u2019t legally prevent us from learning about the actions that have been taken in the course of the investigation because we are part of the defense.\u00a0 It is prohibited for either of the parties to be denied access to the case file.\u00a0 The file can be classified with regard to the general public, but not with regard to the parties representing the victims and the accused.<\/p>\nWe haven\u2019t seen all the files in this case.\u00a0 They haven\u2019t been inserted in a binder [as is normally the case] in order to allow them to remove information when we ask for the file.\u00a0 How can we participate effectively in a trial when we can\u2019t see all of the case file?<\/p>\n
Q: And what evidence do you have of their having removed parts of the case file before sharing it with you?<\/i><\/p>\n
One is that when we\u2019ve been shown the case file it basically only contains documents that we\u2019ve produced.\u00a0 We know the Public Ministry has carried out its own investigations; it has carried out the exhumation and autopsies of the deceased victims\u2019 bodies for instance.\u00a0 As a side note, we weren\u2019t informed that they were carrying out the exhumations of the victims.\u00a0 We\u2019re left with the impression that the intention isn\u2019t to find evidence but rather to remove [borrar<\/i>] evidence\u2026 Our Public Ministry should be called a \u201cPublic Laundromat\u201d because they\u2019re engaged in destroying evidence.<\/p>\n
Q: So you didn\u2019t see the reports on the exhumations and autopsies of the victims in the Ahuas case file?<\/i><\/p>\n
We haven\u2019t seen them, just as we didn\u2019t see the report that was sent by [Honduran Attorney General equivalent] Lu\u00eds Alberto Rubi to the State Department of the United States.\u00a0 This indicates to us that they remove information and documentation from the case file that they don\u2019t want us to see.<\/p>\n
The Public Prosecutor [Attorney General equivalent] sent a report to a representative of the State Department, Maria Otero, with \u2013 for instance \u2013 the names of the Honduran police agents and military personnel that participated in the operation, though not the names of the DEA agents, with the apparent goal of barring them from any sort of responsibility.<\/p>\n
Q:\u00a0 But you did end up managing to see the Public Ministry report sent to the State Department?<\/i><\/p>\n
Yes, but not through the Public Ministry, but thanks to people outside Honduras who managed to get hold of a copy.<\/p>\n
Q:\u00a0 In this report there is information based on testimony provided to the Public Ministry by police agents that participated in the Ahuas operation.\u00a0 Have you been able to see any of this original testimony?<\/i><\/p>\n
No, we haven\u2019t seen any of the testimony of the police agents.<\/p>\n
Q:\u00a0 What is the current situation of the surviving victims of the Ahuas incident, and of the families of the victims?<\/i><\/p>\n
The situation of the families, of the survivors, of the community is really very critical.\u00a0 They are emotionally and psychologically affected.\u00a0 Being on the receiving end of an armed aerial attack is a shock for a remote community that never expected an attack of this nature.\u00a0 Some of the community members were woken up by armed agents, were physically attacked and had certain belongings stolen.<\/p>\n
I think that those that survived are no longer directly threatened but not all of them have recovered their physical abilities.\u00a0 For instance, a young man sustained a serious injury to his hand requiring an operation that cost 100,000 lempiras [over $5,000 \u2013 ed.].\u00a0 Where can this boy, who doesn\u2019t have anything, find this kind of money?<\/p>\n
COFADEH ended up having to take care of him and he\u2019s still in treatment in Tegucigalpa, far from his community.\u00a0 We are paying for his treatment and lodging him, feeding him and paying for his studies.\u00a0 This is the responsibility of the state and it has refused to assume this responsibility even though we requested urgent protective measures from the state.\u00a0 The state is good at providing technically well-designed reports before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, but it has been incapable of dealing with the needs of the survivors of this attack.<\/p>\n
This sort of thing is a clear demonstration of their lack of interest in resolving and combatting the insecurity we\u2019re experiencing, the political violence and the high level of impunity.<\/p>\n
Q:\u00a0 What about the other injured victims?<\/i><\/p>\n
We\u2019ve had to bring them to Tegucigalpa to be treated.\u00a0 In the case of one boy they left studs [clavos<\/i>] jutting out of his arm.\u00a0 He almost lost his arm because after the operation they sent him back to his community but with no medicine.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve also had to provide care for other relatives of the survivors and the deceased victims.\u00a0 It\u2019s impressive the level of neglect of these victims on the part of the state.<\/p>\n
We [the human rights defenders] return to our country with the fear that the attacks will extend to us as a result of our decision to come and denounce a state that has shown itself incapable of assuming its responsibility.<\/p>\n
Q:\u00a0 COFADEH has received threats and recently its offices were raided.\u00a0 Can you talk to me about your situation, your vulnerability, and what people in the U.S. can do to help?<\/i><\/p>\n
Our situation isn\u2019t good at all.\u00a0 I confess that we\u2019re frightened because we love life, that\u2019s why we dedicate ourselves to defending the lives of others.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t want to die or be tortured.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t want to have to confront state agents.\u00a0 But despite their machinery of hate and actions against us, they should know that they can\u2019t stop us.<\/p>\n
Fortunately we can count on support from people in the U.S. and the rest of the world, and I can reaffirm today that this support and this commitment of people abroad inspires us and makes us feel less alone.\u00a0 Because the worst that can happen for a human rights defender facing threats is to feel alone.\u00a0 That\u2019s why we call on you to continue supporting us to defend the life and liberty of the citizens that need our help.<\/p>\n
This was cross-posted from the Center for Economic and Policy Research<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bertha Oliva is the General Coordinator of COFADEH, the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared and Detained in Honduras. Bertha\u2019s husband was “disappeared” in 1981, a period when death squads were active in Honduras. She founded COFADEH together with other women who lost their loved ones, in order to seek justice and compensation for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-19111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19111"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19116,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19111\/revisions\/19116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19111"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=19111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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