IRTF News

A Colombian paramilitary commander best known as “Macaco,” was responsible for the massacre of hundreds of people between the late 1980s and 2005. In 2008, the U.S. requested the extradition of Macaco and several dozen paramilitary leaders. The US had in fact enabled the interdependence of the Colombian state and the paramilitaries with billions of dollars in security assistance. (Macaco himself had benefited from U.S. support even more directly, as a palm oil company he owned had received funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development.) Macaco was convicted on drug trafficking charges, sentenced, released after 11 years and deported back to Colombia in 2019. While he continues to face murder and conspiracy charges in Colombia, he has not yet been found criminally responsible for any of the hundreds of murders he oversaw. But things started to change in the fall of 2021 when a Florida US federal judge ruled against Macaco in a civil case filed on behalf of the family of one of his victims. Eduardo Estrada was a popular community leader and founder of an independent radio station whom paramilitary leaders ordered executed in the town of San Pablo in 2001. The court awarded $12 million in damages to Estrada’s family. Although it is unlikely that they will collect the money, the ruling is significant nonetheless. It marked the first time a court in any country held Macaco responsible for one of the hundreds of murders carried out under his command. It was also the first judgment for murder and torture against a Colombian paramilitary leader in a case of its kind in the United States. Perhaps most significantly, the ruling recognized a “symbiotic relationship” between the paramilitaries and the Colombian state. While such a relationship is hardly a secret in Colombia, it was the first time a U.S. court recognized it. “A U.S. court has found that these violent, murderous, paramilitary regimes were basically the same as the Colombian government,” Daniel McLaughlin, another attorney who litigated the case, told The Intercept. “Which is the Colombian government that the U.S. was supporting at the time.” The case could set a precedent for more civil litigation against paramilitaries and other nonstate actors to be filed in the United States. Roxanna Altholz is a human rights attorney who fought for years to have the testimonies of the families of victims included in U.S. criminal proceedings against paramilitary leaders. “What happened in Colombia is certainly the responsibility of Colombian leaders and society,” said Altholz. “But also of the United States. Anywhere you look, you’ll see the United States.”

Early in the morning of November 22, representatives of the Attorney General of El Salvador, accompanied by police, raided seven human rights organizations, ostensibly on the grounds of investigating “corruption.” The Salvadoran popular movement describes the raids as the latest in an escalating campaign of political persecution by President Bukele against voices critical of the regime. Among the organizations targeted were Las Mélidas, a historic feminist organization that works to defend women’s rights, and PRO-VIDA, a humanitarian association that works in areas of healthcare, climate change, and strengthening of democratic institutions. Also targeted were PROCOMES, FUNDASPAD, Fundación Una Mano Amiga, Asociación de Mujeres Tecleñas, Fundación Ambientalista de Santa Ana (FUNDASAN). In a statement following the raid, a representative of Las Mélidas condemned the attacks as “unjustified” and meant to “criminalize their initiatives” which include literacy, violence prevention, and sexual health campaigns.

Our country has been in crisis ever since the 2009 coup, which overthrew the democratically-elected government of Manuel Zelaya Rosales. The co-mingling of oligarchs and drug traffickers with state actors has deepened. Human security has deteriorated, and critical problems like drought, gang violence and extreme poverty have gone unaddressed. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has reported that journalists face targeted killings, arbitrary detentions, the destruction of equipment and other obstacles that have impeded their ability to operate independently....Despite the difficult situation in Honduras, I am optimistic. For the first time there is broad opposition to the current regime. We even have the support of some in the private sector who are fed up and want to create more opportunities for economic growth. This unprecedented level of organizing and unity in Honduras echoes the momentum that eventually led to the downfall of the brutal Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. - Gustavo Irías, CESPAD, Honduras.

On November 28, more than 5 million Hondurans will be asked to elect the President of the Republic, 128 deputies to the National Congress, 20 to the Central American Parliament, 298 mayors and more than 2 thousand municipal councillors. As the election date approaches, the political atmosphere has become polarized, conflict has intensified and social tension grown.