Honduras: News & Updates

Discussions about the possible installation of an International Commission Against Corruption and Impunity (CICIH) —president Xiomara Castro's campaign promise— has stirred up lobbying to control the Judiciary and the Public Ministry.  There are intense movements in the National Congress to adjust the election processes of the Attorney General and the 15 new magistrates of the CSJ in 2023. To analyze this situation, the experiences of the CICIG in Guatemala and of the CICIES in El Salvador are useful, as they are similar commissions despite being in different contexts. 

For many years, the jungle region known as La Mosquitia in northeast Honduras has been an ideal corridor for international drug trafficking. However, another criminal economy has emerged at the same time: illegal cattle ranching. As a result, the region has been plunged into a state of terror, where criminals threaten the land and the Indigenous communities that inhabit it. The Rio Plátano Biosphere Reserve is the largest protected reserve in Honduras. It’s located in a region known as La Mosquitia, covering the departments of Gracias a Dios, Colón and Olancho in the far northeast reaches of the country along the border with Nicaragua. The majority of this area is covered by jungle and ancestral territory for a number of Indigenous communities. According to the reserve's Indigenous communities, settlers come to La Mosquitia to find land to raise bovine cattle, which are primarily used for their meat. The settlers ride around openly through the jungle in jeeps, cutting down trees with chainsaws, setting fire to the land and planting pastures to feed thousands of cattle, despite this being a protected area. These individuals also come heavily armed, and have other reasons for cattle ranching: facilitating cocaine trafficking and laundering the illicit proceeds it generates.

The Associated Press reports: “A plan to create special self-governing zones for foreign investors in Honduras has been thrown into limbo with the new government’s repeal of a law many criticized as surrendering sovereignty. [The zones for employment and economic development known as ZEDEs are] free from import and export taxes, but could set up their own internal forms of government, as well as courts, security forces, schools and even social security systems." The article refers to the zones already being developed, including Prospera (a 58-acre development on the island of Roatan) and Orquidea (an agro-industrial park near the city of Choluteca that produces peppers and tomatoes for export).

Since their initial arrest in 2018, IRTF followed the trial of activists Raúl Álvarez and Edwin Espinal with great concern. While being detained in a maximum-security prison on false charges for about 20 months, they had to endure inhumane conditions and received death threats from other inmates, lacking any support or security by prison authorities. Raúl Álvarezfinally received his official letter of release on May 12, 2022. 

"Ten years ago today a joint counter-narcotics team of Honduran security agents and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officers opened fire on a water taxi as it approached Ahuas, a small town located in the remote Mosquitia region of northeastern Honduras. While the Honduran police announced that a “successful” drug interdiction mission had taken place, journalists and human rights advocates reported the victims were unarmed and had no known links to drug trafficking.  Instead of taking responsibility, assessing their mistakes, and examining their methods and partnerships with Honduran security forces, DEA and State Department officials obstructed U.S. and Honduran investigations of the incident and falsely reported to Members of Congress, including my staff, that the boat’s passengers had fired on security forces." -- Read Senator Leahy's statement on the ten-year anniversary of the massacre of Ahuas, Honduras.

“This marks a sad anniversary. The injuries suffered by the victims and their families are compounded by an utter lack of accountability and total absence of any effort to make the victims whole. There is no viable route to justice open to them,” said Annie Bird, a human rights advocate and coauthor, with CEPR international policy director Alex Main, of the 2012 report “Collateral Damage of a Drug War: The May 11 Killings in Ahuas and the Impact of the US War on Drugs on La Moskitia, Honduras.” Ten years after a notorious DEA-led operation resulted in the deaths of four villagers from the Indigenous Miskitu community of Ahuas in northeastern Honduras, and the shooting of several others, survivors and family members are still awaiting recompense. And while five years ago this month the Offices of the Inspectors General (OIG) of the US Department of Justice and of the US Department State issued a report concluding the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA’s) responsibility for leading the operation, none of the individuals responsible have been held accountable.

The origin of the dispute over land in Bajo Aguán dates back to the 1970s, when the Agrarian Reform Law handed over most of the rich land in that valley to collective organizations managed by peasants. It was a victory for poverty-stricken farmers, drawing waves of immigrants to the fertile Bajo Aguán region. Bajo Aguán has historically been characterized as one of the main regions of the country where agrarian capitalism has firmly established itself, until it completely dominates the economic model of the region. Within the framework of the ascension of the government of Xiomara Castro, and in response to one of the main demands of the peasant sector, the table for the resolution of the agrarian conflict in Bajo Aguán was installed in February, which seeks to manage and respond to the historic agrarian conflict. The table was installed in a context marked by critical economic and political interests, which is why it represents, geographically, the Bajo Aguán region for big capital and the regional political elite. The protagonists in the area maintain an open dispute, in a context of institutional openness and political will of the Government, to advance in the democratic management of the agrarian conflict in Bajo Aguán. In short, the dialogue of the Government in the conflict is an important element to consider to identify the dynamics of the blocks and the actors, in their struggle for access to and control of the territory.

With deep concern, IRTF has been following reports of violence against and the murders of many LGBTQ rights defenders and members of the community in Honduras for many years. In 2009, well-known activist Vicky Hernández was killed, and since then, many more people have died or have had to flee Honduras because of serious safety threats.  Impunity and injustice in cases of violence against LGBTQ people has been an ongoing pattern.