Instability in Honduras Narco-traffickers and state-sponsored violence is destablising this Central American nation.
<p>With a murder rate of 82.1 per 100,000, Honduras now holds the title of highest homicide rate in the world. </p>
Honduras serves as a major drug trade route, channeling cocaine shipments from Colombia to its northern neighbors, including Mexico.
Honduras' Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga tweeted his position on the cause of Honduras' high crime rates:
"the impact of narco-business subculture, unstoppable migration and of religious confusion, a result of the invasion of the sects"
— Wed, Feb 01 2012 17:24:13 The cartoon below chronicles alleged repression preceding and following the 2009 coup.
Honduran human rights group COFADEH (Committee of Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared of Honduras) reports more than 300 people have been killed by state security forces since the 2009 coup. <br><br><div>A website snapshot of COFADEH's profile of disappeared civilians, including a journalist and Resistance member:</div>
<p>The role of the Honduran police force, comprised of roughly 14,500 officers, in crime has increasingly garnered public attention. Police forces have been accused of complicity in drug-trafficking, targeted killings and corruption. </p>
In the video below, teachers provide their accounts of police repression and detention.
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Prosecution cases against police officers have been few despite receiving 1,000 complaints as of November 2011. Only 28 per cent of these cases were reviewed by prosecutors. Most were eventually dropped.
Two women carry a coffin during a protest by journalists and social groups asking for 'no-impunity in the crimes against press'.
Critics allege that prison guards are also involved in the web of corruption, even offeringleniency to prominent drug dealers. There are reports that infamous drug dealer Celin Pinot was allowed to carry a weapon and leave the jail on drug and leisure runs. Minutes after his prison release last October, Pinot was killed. The picture below, circulated after his death, shows Hernandez wearing a police uniform.
Julieta Castellano, a leading academic and university authority, brought mainstream focus to police violence when her son and his friend were killed by police officers in October 2011. Castellanos is seen below at a November protest, claiming that federal police were hindering the criminal investigation into her son's death. Although the culprits' police station was raided, the suspects were all released, of which half are now at-large.
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The Honduran government has adopted measures to address police corruption by creating a commission tasked with the 'purification' of the police and judicial system. <br><br>In the video below, Castellano comments on efforts to curb police corruption: <div><br></div><div>Translation: "The commission is not a criminal investigation, it’s not a commission to investigate crimes.. Criminal investigations can lead to cases of police that are involved."</div>
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Below, a political cartoon response to recent plans to clean up the police force.
<p>Another measure to deter crime is the controversial Operation Lightning, otherwise known as “Operacion Relámpago.” It allows the military and police to stop, search or detain civilians without a warrant. In addition, checkpoints equipped with heavy artillery in city streets have been set up as a visual deterrent.</p><p><br></p>Pictured below, a police officer searches a man as part of the 'Operacion Relampago.'
Contradicting reports surfaced regarding 'Operacion Relampago' success. Government authorities claimed gains with no murders for several consecutive days however, within a week, a government security advisor anda well known journalist were gunned down.
Forensic experts are pictured below gathering evidence at the crime scene where security advisor Alfredo Landaverde was shot dead by unidentified gunmen. Shortly before his murder, Landaverde publicly accused the government of drug-related corruption.
Homicides have also reached Aguan, the northerneastern rural region of Honduras, which is the epicenter of a longstanding land struggle between agro-fuel companies and <i>campesino </i>unions, peasant farm workers. Aguan is also a strategic trade route for drug traffickers using privately-owned property for landing narco-flights.
Miguel Facuss<em>é</em>, bio-fuel magnate and the country's wealthiest man, has been a controversial figure in the land rights debate. Following government reforms for agricultural modernization in the early 1990s, Facuss<em>é</em>'s gained control of one-third of the Aguan land. DINANT corporation, owned by Facuss<em>é</em>, is at the forefront of <i>campesino</i> grievances in the Aguan region, largely due to its private security guards' use of force against the <i>campesino </i>movement.
Between January and August 2011, 39 small-scale farmers were killed by private security guards. Activist and campesino groups like Movimiento Unificado Campesino Del Aguan have published anti-Facusse ads in an effort to raise awareness about DINANT's human rights abuses and to organize a boycott of DINANT products.
Citizen perspectives on Honduran crime are glaringly underrepresented from social media however, a few tweets did express frustration with Honduras' current crisis:
Translation: "I'm tired, Honduras doesn't have to be like this, from now on the statistics change in the name of Jesus"
Translation: "There's been another earthquake, the earth is trying to shake off all of these corrupt people, double moral that they're destroying Honduras"
The video below, created by the children of a Honduran lawyer killed last year, calls for an international intervention that will address the homicide crisis while respecting national sovereignty.
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