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HONDURAS
Rights Situation Deteriorates
By Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON, Jul 29, 2010 (IPS) - Six months after the inauguration of President Porfirio Lobo,
the human rights situation in Honduras continues to
deteriorate, according to two major New York-based groups.
"Threats and attacks against journalists and the political
opposition have fostered a climate of intimidation, while
impunity for abuses remains the norm," according to a short
report released by Human Rights Watch Thursday.
Such attacks "have had a profound chilling effect on basic
freedoms in Honduras," said HRW's Americas director, Jose
Miguel Vivanco.
"When journalists stop reporting, citizens abandon political
activities, and judges fear being fired for their rulings,
the building blocks of democratic society are at grave
risk," he added.
HRW's assessment came two days after the Committee to
Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued a 13-page report detailing
the murders of seven journalists so far this year.
The report, "Journalist Murders Spotlight Honduran
Government Failures", accused the Lobo government of
"fostering a climate of lawlessness that is allowing
criminals to kill journalists with impunity".
The two reports were published on the eve of the release of
an assessment by a special commission of the Organisation of
American States (OAS) regarding the possible end of
Honduras's suspension from the hemispheric group.
The OAS suspended Honduras immediately after the Jun. 28,
2009 military coup d'etat against then-President Manuel
Zelaya.
Knowledgeable sources told IPS the report, while commending
a number of steps taken by the Lobo administration,
including the establishment in May of a Truth Commission to
investigate the events surrounding the coup, would not
recommend Honduras's full re-instatement at this time
The coup, which set off a protracted political crisis that
many had hoped would end with Lobo's inauguration last
January, resulted, among other things, in a sharp decline in
aid from Honduras's major donors, including the United
States, the European Union (EU), multilateral financial
institutions, and Venezuela, which provided the country with
heavily subsidised supplies of oil.
Much of that assistance has since been restored, but the
Honduran economy remains in dire straits, according to
experts here. The country's Labour Ministry reported earlier
this week that more than 50,000 people had lost their jobs
during the first of 2010. Altogether, about four million of
the country's working-age population are either unemployed
or earn their living in the informal sector.
"The country is on the verge of an economic collapse,
largely as a result of the coup's repercussions, but also
due to pervasive corruption," according to Vicki Gass, a
Honduras specialist at the Washington Office on Latin
America (WOLA), who noted that recent storms have also
created significant damage.
As a result, Lobo has focused much of his efforts as
president on restoring aid flows and normalising Honduras'
international position, particularly in the OAS.
The hemispheric body, however, has been divided on
Honduras's continued suspension.
Led by the United States, some countries, notably most of
Honduras's Central American neighbours, Colombia, and Peru,
have argued since Lobo's election last November that the
suspension should be ended.
Led by Brazil, other members refused to recognise the
election as legitimate because Zelaya had not been restored
to office before the vote, as had been demanded by the OAS
after the coup consistent with the body's Democratic
Charter.
The latest human rights reports, which also include an
assessment by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
(IACHR) issued Jul. 7, are likely to bolster the case for
those countries that oppose Honduras' quick re-instatement.
HRW said at least eight journalists and 10 members of the
National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), a coalition that
opposed the coup and demanded Zelaya's re-instatement, have
been killed since Lobo's inauguration.
It also reported what it called "a significant increase in
threats against journalists and opposition members" during
the same six-month period.
It noted that the IACHR had issued 26 "precautionary
measures" that urged the government to take to ensure the
protection of specific individuals and their families.
Efforts to comply with the Commission's appeals, however,
have been "few, late in coming, and in some cases non-
existent", the IACHR itself reported last month.
In one case, Nahun Palacios, a television station director
in Tocoa whose protection the IACHR had sought after he had
received numerous death threats, was killed by unidentified
assailants as he drove home Mar. 14.
HRW stressed that not all of the attacks were necessarily
politically motivated. Some victims, especially among the
journalists, had spoken out against corruption and the
activities of drug cartels or other mafia whose power and
operations were on the rise even before the coup.
"The political crisis has created a vacuum and uncertainty
in the government, and that's been good for the mafias,"
said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American
Dialogue, a Washington-based hemispheric think tank.
"It's a mistake to see the current human rights situation as
the result of an anti-democratic regime," he added. "It's
the result of a long-term deterioration in the government's
capacity to cope with lots of stresses."
Shifter said he favoured Honduras's re-instatement in the
OAS for precisely that reason. "Its harder to bring them
back in with a serious and deteriorating human rights
situation, but keeping them marginalised can make things
worse. They obviously need a lot of help."
The climate of intimidation that prevails in Honduras has
been compounded by the lack of accountability for abuses
committed after the coup, according to HRW, which noted that
there has not yet been a single conviction of those
responsible for well-documented violations. Moreover, a Jan.
27 amnesty decree could make any prosecutions more
difficult, it added.
HRW also objected to the dismissals by the Supreme Court in
May of four lower-court judges who had challenged the
legality of the 2009 coup. That action, it said, will likely
intimidate other judges.
The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, which
initially denounced the coup but then unilaterally decided
to back the November elections without insisting on Zelaya's
re-instatement, has publicly condemned abuses in Honduras
since Lobo took power.
"President Obama expressed his concern to President Lobo
regarding the human rights situation in Honduras...," a
State Department spokesman told IPS Thursday.
Undersecretary of State for Global Issues, Maria Otero, and
the deputy assistant secretary of state for Central America
and the Dominican Republic, Julissa Reynoso, are due to
travel to Honduras Aug. 3-4. They are scheduled to meet,
among others, with members of the Resistance Front and human
rights groups.
"Human rights will be high on the agenda," the spokesman
added. It will be the highest-level U.S. delegation to
travel to Honduras since the coup. The Bolivian-born Otero
lived for a number of years in Honduras.
Lobo's adviser for human rights, Ana Pineda, and the
government's special human rights prosecutor, Sandra Ponce,
spent three days meeting with U.S. officials here last week,
according to the State Department.
*Jim Lobe's blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at
http://www.lobelog.com.
(END)
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