TEGUCIGALPA --- The bullet-ridden bodies of three men, the youngest 17, were discovered late in the night of March 21 on the road to Olancho. All had been shot multiple times in what appeared to be a drug deal gone bad. A witness who refused to be identified called the carnage "a well-planned execution."
In February, a 19-year-old man was shot dead as he walked home from a party. Driving a van with tinted windows, his assailants disappeared into the night. The dead youth is the twentieth victim (that month) of what is increasingly being characterized as "extrajudicial executions" carried out by elusive but well organized groups of hired killers.
According to Casa Alianza, an advocate of children's rights in Central America and Mexico, 65 youths were murdered in Honduras in the first two months of 2004. Casa Alianza, which has routinely accused Honduran security forces and the business sector of collusion, claims that 2,200 children and juveniles under the age of 23 were murdered between January 1998 and February 2004.
And as a wave of bloodletting continued to sully the reputation of Honduras, fresh accusations surfaced that remnants of the sinister Battalion 3-16 death squad were now engaged in new forms of vigilantism --- not against left-leaning teachers, unruly campesinos or activist priests but against "undesirables," among them homeless minors and youth suspected of gang membership.
Security Minister Oscar Alvarez concedes such killings have occurred. He points out that several policemen and prison guards were arrested for flagrant abuse of authority, including the murder of juveniles, but he vehemently denies the existence of a "policy" of assassination.
"We do not engage in 'extrajudicial executions.' The term itself is incongruous, melodramatic and prejudicial. We will not reclaim an honorable place among nations by taking part in wholesale killings then lying to the public about such deeds."
Alvarez, who readily attributes Honduras's intractable social ills to poverty, injustice, corruption and impunity, also accuses NGOs of distorting verifiable fact and creating misperceptions in the public eye.
"NGOs see conflict and conspiracy at every turn but they rarely focus on stark reality. Yes, kids have been killed by policemen but kids in neighborhoods infested with gangs have done their share of killing."
"Los Magnificos"
The rhetoric has left one question unanswered: Who then is killing young people deemed so irrelevant by society that their executioners are never apprehended, and whose cadavers somehow escape forensic scrutiny? Police Commissioner Maria Luisa Borjas de Jiménez says she has a pretty good idea.
"They are known as 'los magnificos' because they make sure they leave no tracks, no evidence of their misdeeds." Borjas alleges that these "shadowy and elusive hired assassins busy eliminating wayward youths are in fact ex-agents of Battalion 3-16 operating from safe houses in the capital, San Pedro Sula and Choluteca. "
According to Borjas, "these elements, among them police officers, kidnap and murder young people. Some are shot at point-blank range from moving vehicles. Others are taken to remote areas and summarily executed." Borjas calls the killings "extermination, pure and simple."
Whether the killings are the handiwork of organized death squads or freelance vigilantes guaranteed immunity, fact remains that Honduran authorities have been using increasingly repressive methods against street children and juveniles who are perfunctorily suspected of committing a panoply of crimes. Scores of children and young people have indeed died in circumstances suggesting that they had been executed.
"These avengers, be they agents of the state or private citizens, are acting no better than the presumed delinquents they purport to be hunting," said Human Rights Commissioner Ramón Custodio López in March. Equally troubling, Custodio added, is that "a growing segment of Honduran society has become habituated to the violence and views the death of children with shameful apathy. This suggests that we may be witnessing the gravest wave of human rights violations since the application of the Doctrine of National Security in the 80s."
Music and video games?
A report by the National Congress last year shows the lengths to which a government will go to rationalize the "climate of violence that has engulfed the nation." Careful not to acknowledge that rising poverty, misery, home abuse diminishing opportunities and hopelessness are likely to demoralize and subvert the nation's young, the report inspires a primal fear of sin which it expediently traces to the "corrupting influence" of television, music and video games. The report enumerates a litany of "nefarious influences" likely to subvert children, including "nudity, certain forms of speech and dress, and entertainment with strong sexual content" --- trends members of Congress believe are "apt to lead to underage drinking, drug addiction and violence."
Predictably, the document has elicited widespread ridicule for its tactless puritanism and incongruity. "The truth is sometimes so offensive or threatening to the public order" offered noted Tiempo columnist Billy Peña, "that we look for scapegoats in the most unlikely places. This inclination would be comical if the consequences weren't so tragic."
New face on old body
Honduras is experiencing a human rights crisis of unprecedented magnitude. President Ricardo Maduro's "Zero Tolerance" policy has done little to stem a tide of violence against an admittedly growing wave of hostile and disaffected youths. Nor has it served to bring to justice policemen who are known to have killed adolescents --- many who did not belong to gangs and had no criminal record --- in cold blood.
Security Minister Oscar Alvarez, has since made a commendable effort to scrub clean the sullied reputation of his nation's law enforcement apparatus. Still in the minority, a new generation of cops --- young, educated, savvy and idealistic --- is slowly emerging from a corrupt, archaic, crude and largely inept constabulary. A recently published Code of Ethics is now must reading for members of the National Police and a revitalized "Internal Affairs" department suspends negligent or felonious officers while their conduct is being investigated.
"We are not merely attempting to put a fresh face on a tarnished institution," Minister Alvarez insists. Other administrations have paid lip service to this problem but did nothing. We are trying. It will take time."
Alvarez, who believes that good police work must foster good community relations, has sponsored "Restauracion," a program dedicated to the rescue and rehabilitation of gang members. Youths are encouraged to have their elaborate and incriminating tattoos removed.
Chet Thomas, director of Proyecto Aldea Global, a multifaceted development organization that once worked with gangs, calls the program "a noble but fruitless endeavor as many 'reformed' members are swiftly murdered by their own kind for defecting."
Meanwhile, critics of Honduras' "blackjack approach" to law enforcement claim that refinements have been largely cosmetic --- calling the effort "spin doctoring for international consumption" --- and insisting that the institution remains hermetic, tightlipped and self-willed.
Despite the conciliatory rhetoric, Minister Alvarez was unable to explain why, for example, he did not enforce a 2003 court order to arrest former Police Commissioner Juan Carlos Bonilla, who had been accused of murder. It was not until Casa Alianza began to exert international pressure in the fall of that year that Bonilla appeared before a judge and was subsequently released on $1,000 bail. An internal police document obtained by this writer describes how Bonilla headed a death squad that operated with the knowledge of, and under police jurisdiction.
Nor could Alvarez offer proof that more than half of the 2,200 children and youths under the age of 23 who met a violent death had not in fact been the victims of police rubouts. Even according to official police statistics, only a fraction of the cases were ever investigated.
Under the circumstances, it will take more that improvisation to dispel deep-seated suspicion and resentment against the long and often brutal arm of the law, or to divert attention from the chaos that has Honduras in its grip.
