Guardians of the Homeland: Militarizing Values in 'High-Risk' Neighborhoods in Tegucigalpa

Carmen's 6-year old daughter just started classes in a public elementary school in the Henry Merriam neighborhood in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The majority of the students and teachers that attend the school live in the adjacent neighborhood Flor del Campo and walk the short distance to school every day.

When arriving to school this year, Carmen was given a one-page letter requesting permission for her daughter to participate in a program for three months called Guardianas de la Patria or Guardians of the Homeland, held every Saturday from 7 am to 3 pm for children between six and nine years old at the First Infantry Battalion. She was told that the purpose of the program is to "teach children values" but not given any more details about the scope of the program.

Photo caption: The letter that Carmen was given at her daughter's school about the Guardians of the Homeland program

When describing the general reaction of other parents and the kids in the school, Carmen told me that parents seemed enthusiastic to enroll their children in the program, noting that its an opportunity for children to play outside - something that is limited in the Flor del Campo since communal spaces have been privatized - as well as act as a daycare for parents that work on Saturdays. She told me that the kids of the school all seemed to want to attend including her daughter who kept insisting she wanted to participate.

Roughly a week later and after the program had started, Carmen told me that approximately 30 children that attended the first day, did not want to return the following Saturday. To encourage their parents to keep sending them, parents were invited to attend the following week to see what the program is all about.

Carmen refuses to allow her child to participate. She has heard that the program has been widely criticized by various Honduran human rights organizations including the Committee of the Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared (COFADEH) and Casa Alianza. According to Casa Alianza, "the militarization of children and youth is not the best way to foster and promote human, civil, and moral values to educate citizens of our country." Some see the program as drawing children in 'high risk' neighborhoods into the armed forces and teaching them respect for the military - something that the military has not earned given their well-documented involvement in corruption, organized crime, and human rights violations.

The selection of the school where Carmen's daughter is studying for the Guardians of the Homeland program seems strategic rather than coincidental. Given that Flor del Campo is currently the site of a Military Police base that was built inside the grounds of a recently privatized community soccer field, the program may go hand-in-hand with the government's militarization strategy in the neighborhood. It is also a key location for various programs that claim to help reduce violence and insecurity and stop gang activity in this high risk neighborhood, most of which are coordinated with and through local National Party representatives. These programs include Pintando mi Barrio, Recreovias, Centros de Alcance, funded by the Juan Orlando Hernandez government, the U.S. Embassy, USAID, and Honduran groups including the evangelical organization Alliance for a More Just Society (ASJ).

Photo caption: A young child carrying an imitation rifle as he marches with his classmates in the Independence Day celebration parade in Tegucigalpa, September 15, 2014.

Evidence the DEA Attempted to Alter Testimony on Massacre in Honduras

Photo caption: Clara Woods, June 2012

Clara Wood survived a shooting carried out during a joint Honduras-U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) drug interdiction operation in the Moskitia region in eastern Honduras on May 11, 2012. Her 14-year old son, Hasked Brooks Wood, was killed during shooting.

To date, no Honduran or U.S. agents have been held accountable for the death of four Miskitu indigenous people who were assassinated and three who were gravely injured during the attack Between February and March 2013, three Honduran agents were acquitted for their involvement in the May 2012 incident. Honduran authorities say that the U.S. Embassy refuses to hand over the names of the U.S. agents involved in the massacre, thus obstructing investigation of the case.

New Developments

Beginning in mid-2013, Clara Wood and a family member of a woman killed during the operation began receiving phone calls from a Honduran man that identified himself as ‘Eddie’. Eddie offered to help them, including insisting that they drop their current legal representation and allow him to find them – the survivors and family members – a ‘better’ lawyer to take on their case. He told Clara he had friends in the U.S. Embassy that could help her. He suggested the other survivor, who he was also trying to convince to change legal representation, travel to San Pedro Sula with a woman rumored in Ahuas to traffic sex workers.

On two occasions in February 2014, Mrs. Wood traveled with Eddie to Tegucigalpa for questioning conducted by individuals that she was told were Americans and/or worked for the Drug Enforcement Administration. On the first trip, two U.S. men attempted to convince Mrs. Wood to alter her testimony regarding the series of events that led up to the May 2012 massacre.

During questioning, the two Americans – one identified as ‘Mr. Andres’ – insisted that two men in the passenger boat in which Wood was traveling opened fired at the U.S. State Department helicopter, thus justifying the helicopter shooting and killing four innocent civilians.

On this trip, Eddie told Wood that she would receive 100,000 Lempiras [$5,000 USD] if she said that two men in the passenger boat fired first at the helicopter. Later that day, after proposing she return to Tegucigalpa to speak with colleagues of his coming from Washington, Mr. Andres asked Wood to bring her bank account number, apparently confirming Eddie’s offer.

On the second trip, as Eddie escorted her to the meeting, he stopped at a pharmacy and asked for a pill to calm nerves, which he gave to Clara and she took. She was then taken to a building that she understood to be the U.S. Embassy and hooked up to a polygraph machine.

She recounts that an American man who identified himself as working with the DEA began administering the polygraph test and soon asked her if she had taken any kind of medication. He then left the room and she heard him speaking in the hall with Mr. Andres who came in, asked her who had given her a pill, and said they would no longer administer the test because she did not want to tell the truth. Throughout both trips, Wood refused to alter her testimony and stood by her original account of the events of the 2012 massacre.

It is possible that the February 2014 contact with Clara Wood is linked to an internal investigation being conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice and the State Department or an internal investigation that the DEA announced it was conducting in May 2012. When a U.S. human rights observation delegation questioned the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa about contact with Mrs. Wood in November 2014, they were told that the Embassy had limited knowledge of the contact, but that they had been contacted first by someone claiming to have information about the May 2012 incident.

The following is Wood’s testimony of her initial contact with Eddie, her two trips to Tegucigalpa and the questioning she endured without legal representation:

‘Eddie’ Makes Contact with Massacre Survivor, Clara Wood.

Eddie first contacted Clara Wood in December of 2013. “He told me he is from San Pedro Sula, the first time he called me from San Pedro and he told me that he saw me on the internet and he pitied me because I’m poor. He said that he knows people who help poor people . . . He was going to take me to those people who can help me.”

Eddie told Clara that he had gotten her phone number from Clara’s cousin who lives in Puerto Lempira, Gracias a Dios. Repeatedly over the next few months, Eddie called Clara, asking how she was doing. During these conversations, he made references to the killing of her son Hasked Brooks Wood in the DEA-Honduran government massacre in Ahuas on May 11, 2012.

“He always called me on my cell phone, asking how I’m doing, sometimes sending me phone credit to my phone. [We spoke] in the months of December [2013], January, and February.”

In February 2014, Eddie phoned Clara and invited her to come to Tegucigalpa. He told her that he had people in Tegucigalpa who would help her because of the loss of her son.

“[Eddie] called me one day before he went to Roatan. The day he arrived, he called me, ‘Listen, where are you? I’m in Roatan’ he told me.”

The next day, Eddie went to Wood’s house. Wood describes him as “dark- skinned, I don’t know how old – he was heavy set, muscular, not young, he’s a grown man. He spoke Spanish and English.”

Eddie picked Mrs. Wood up at her house, and the two of them went by ferry to the mainland and then by public bus to Tegucigalpa. Upon arriving in Tegucigalpa, Eddie took Clara to the Hotel Guanacaste. For the rest of the day, Clara stayed in her room. Eddie reserved a room for himself adjacent to Clara’s room.

Questioning and Interrogation in ‘US Embassy’ in Tegucigalpa

Early the following morning, Eddie took Clara by taxi to a building that Clara believed to be the U.S. Embassy “I don’t remember the color of the house, it had flowers outside and an entrance.It’s a low-rise building, one level.”

Outside what Clara was told was a U.S. Embassy building, stood a Honduran guard and “the guard inside [the building] was American – I saw his [skin] color, his hat and his clothes were khakis. He spoke Spanish but because of his clothes, I knew he was American.”

Once inside the building, she was asked for her identification. A man named Mr. Andres met Wood and Eddie at the door. “Mr. Andres said ‘Hi Eddie.’ They hugged.”

Wood describes Mr. Andres as “an older man . . . he had the physical build of an American and he told me he was American.” Mr. Andres also spoke Spanish.

Mr. Andres led Wood into a room He said, “‘Let’s go inside’ and we left Eddie outside with the guard [at the entrance]. He [Eddie] did not go into the room with me. Don Andres and another man, yes”

Mr. Andres and a “tall” American man took Wood into a “small room with no windows.” They began asking her questions about the sequence of events of the incident that took place May 11, 2012 in Ahuas when she was in a boat that was fired on by helicopters as part of a joint DEA-Honduran drug interdiction operation.

Wood reiterated her entire testimony, including when the boat was fired on, and her arrest upon getting to the shore of the Patuca River. She said that she cried as she described how she found her son Hasked’s dead body. The two men got her a glass of water. Wood says at this point she was not scared.

“One [man] was standing behind me, the other was asking me things. The older [tall] American man told me, ‘I’m sorry, that was an accident, it was not our intention to kill anyone.’”

Photo caption: The 'Landin' in Ahuas on the Patuca River close to where the May 2012 massacre occurred.

Both men questioned Wood about what had happened that night, specifically whether any passengers on the boat had guns.

“Mr. Andres asked me to tell the truth–that Mr. Melanio and Emerson [the pilot and his assistant on the boat the night of May 11, 2012] provoked the helicopter [to fire]. And I told him ‘no’, I told him no, I did not see that’, but he told me that Emerson was a military soldier, that he had a gun under his shirt and that people say that Emerson walked around with a shotgun all the time, and that he had it [that night], but I told him that it was night time, I didn’t see anything because the boat left at 7 [at night] and I didn’t see anything.”

“I told him that I could not lie, because I saw shots fired, but from the helicopter. I heard shots, but I did not know where they came from, I heard four shots that came from above – that’s what I told them.” She said that it was impossible for Melanio to fire a gun because he would have lost control of the boat.

During the questioning, Clara reports that Mr. Andres asked her for a bank account number. She responded that she did not have one.

Mr. Andres also asked Clara about Eddie. “He asked me if Eddie gave me anything. I said that he had not given me anything [money]. He gave me food, drink, he brings me from the hotel. He has not given me anything, I told them”

Mr. Andres said that he gave Eddie $500 dollars to give to Wood and then wrote a Honduran phone number down on a piece of paper. Mr. Andres then gave Wood the piece of paper, telling her to call him if she needed anything.

“I gave $500 to Eddie for the expenses. Did he give it to you?’” Asked Mr. Andres. “’He never gave me anything’ I said, ‘I haven’t received anything in my hand’ I told them.”

When the questioning was over, Wood was taken back to the hotel. Upon arriving, Eddie asked her for the piece of paper that Mr. Andres had given her. She gave it to him and he did not give it back to her. Back at the hotel, Eddie told Wood that they would deposit 100,000 Lps [$5000] in her account if she “told the truth.”

“How much are you going to give me when they give you the money?’ Eddie asked Clara. ‘I don’t know,’ Clara told him. “You’ll give me 70,000 … how much will you give me?’ said Eddie. ‘They’re going to give it to you,” Eddie told Clara.

“No, I don’t think they will give me anything, I said.”

The following morning, Wood, accompanied by Eddie, traveled back to the island of Roatan. Eddie went with Wood to Siguatepeque where he got off the bus, while Wood continued on to Roatan

Lie Detector Test and Clara’s Second Trip to Tegucigalpa with Eddie

Wood relates, “In the same month of February, two weeks later, he brought me back again. Eddie went to Roatan, Eddie went to my house to take me [to Tegucigalpa].”

Upon arriving, she was told that she would wait for a man from the DEA who was coming from the United States. She waited for two days in Tegucigalpa in the hotel. Eddie brought her food and she did not leave the hotel much. When Clara and Eddie did leave the hotel, Eddie gave Clara sunglasses to put on so that people would not recognize her.

“I was waiting for two days in the hotel in the Guanacaste [neighborhood] waiting with him [Eddie] and they came specifically to put a polygraph on my body. They came for that.”

During the time they waited in the hotel, Eddie made reference to money that Clara would receive if she “told the truth.” Clara was told that “They are going to give you money if you tell the truth. ‘I will tell the truth’, I told him, I’m going to speak about the same thing that I saw, I cannot say lies’ I told him. ‘No, you were going to say that Melanio and Emerson fired,’ he told me. ‘But I cannot lie’ I told him.

Eddie told Wood that he received a call asking him to make sure that Wood slept well, ate well, and did not take any medications before going to what Wood believes was the U.S. Embassy again.

On the third day, early in the morning Eddie took Wood again by taxi to the same house that she assumed to be the U.S. Embassy. On their way to the Embassy, they stopped at a pharmacy.

“Eddie came with me and close to the Embassy, he bought a pill to calm nerves.” Eddie told Wood that the pill would help her with her nerves. She took the pill even though she had not asked for it nor did she feel like she needed it.

Eddie and Wood walked from the pharmacy to the building. Wood was taken inside and led into a room alone with a man who told her he had come from the United States specifically to give her the polygraph test and worked with the DEA. He began asking Clara questions about the series of events that occurred on May 11, 2012. Shortly after, he asked Clara if she had taken any medication.

“Then he asked me what I had taken. He [then] left the room and went outside where they were waiting. Mr. Andres was outside with the other American . . . and then Mr. Andres came into the room. Mr. Andres said – ‘You don’t want to tell the truth on the machine’. Eddie told me that you were going to speak the truth but you don’t want to speak’. The man from the DEA [giving the lie detector test] asked me what pill I had taken. I told him that Eddie had bought me a pill. ‘But I told him not to give you anything,’ he said, that he told Eddie to make sure I ate dinner, and went to bed early and to not take anything. I don’t know,’ I told him, he stopped at a pharmacy and bought a pill. He asked me what pill I had taken, a pill for nerves?’ I said ‘Yes, he bought it for me”

Upset and crying Clara was taken off the lie detector test. Eddie then took Clara back to the hotel telling her that “for a little thing, we lost everything.”

Eddie gave her food for dinner, but she did not eat it. She went to her room. The following morning, Clara traveled back to Roatan by herself. Eddie gave her 1,200 Lempiras [60 USD] for her travel costs, but it was not enough for her to get back to Roatan.

* * *

Mrs. Wood’s testimony was taken over a series of interviews – in person and by phone – from July to December 2014. The purpose of the contact and polygraph test administered to Mrs. Wood is unknown, however human rights organizations that are accompanying Mrs. Wood and other survivors of the Ahuas incident are concerned for her safety. The manner in which Mrs. Wood was contacted is alarming, as is the form in which she was questioned by individuals associated with the DEA, without any legal representative, in an attempt to alter her testimony of the incident.

The survivors and family members continue to be hopeful in seeking justice for the murder and injury of their loved ones despite the impunity rampant in the Honduran justice system, the failure of an adequate, complete, and public U.S. investigation into the incident, and the unwillingness of the U.S. Embassy to provide the names of the agents involved.

This May will mark the third year anniversary of the Drug War massacre in Ahuas, and the complete impunity in which U.S. and Honduran forces militarize, injury, and kill in the name of the ‘War on Drugs’.

Video: Infiltration of a Demonstration Organized by the Political Opposition in Honduras

This is a video created by Honduran journalist Cesar Silva that was circulated a few months ago. I'm reposting it because it characterizes not just the gathering or march where the video footage was taken, but the infiltration and counterinsurgency tactics used in demonstrations by state security forces and/or unknown individuals in Honduras. Its also a tactic used in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere.

In the Honduran context where being identified with a particular movement can lead to political assassinations, death threats, death squad killings, and criminalization, infiltration as depicted in this video, is quite frightening. It contributes to collective paranoia, fear, and terror whenever anyone decides to join a protest and/or publicly declare their support for the political opposition.

Quick note: At Least 22 U.S.-Vetted TIGRE Agents Suspended After Dividing up Drug Money During Raid

At least 22 agents of the TIGRES, a SWAT-style elite police unit were allegedly suspended after it was discovered that a team of TIGRES divided $1.3 million dollars amongst themselves. The money was found during a raid on property owned by the Valle Valle family in Copan. The United States is requesting the extradition of the Valle family who are facing drug trafficking charges in US courts.


Former US Ambassador Lisa Kubiske in Lepaterique, Francisco Morazan, Honduras where TIGRES unit completed training provided by Columbian and US forces. Source and photo credit: La Tribuna

The TIGRES are vetted and trained by the United States. This is just another example of how 'vetting' units - a strategy promoted by the US - is a deeply flawed concept that will never work. Another example of the failure of 'vetting' is the Honduran vetted unit that accompanied the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) during a drug interdiction operation in La Moskitia where four innocent indigenous Miskitu people were killed and three badly injured.

The Honduran press reports that two TIGRES captains permitted the team to divide the money up and describe the way they avoided disclosing the amount of money that was found during the raid. La Prensa is also reporting how some spent the money including buying sports cars, houses, and prostitution.

Although this is another case describing corruption in Honduran police units, its suspicious (in my opinion) that the press is reporting it in such detail. The Honduran government and those in favour of further militarizing Honduran society will likely try anything possible to make police units look terrible in the next few months. Having said that, I'm also not promoting the Honduran police and do agree that the level of corruption and impunity in which they operate is a huge problem.

The Future of Honduran Public Insecurity: Violations of the Military Police of Public Order

The militarization of Honduran streets shows no signs of stopping. On November 11th, the Honduran press announced that one thousand additional Military Police – a new, elite, hybrid military-police force – would be trained and sent to the streets. Four days later, the National Defense and Security Council headed by Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez asked the National Congress to take the necessary measures to approve the Military Police as a permanent security force under the Honduran Constitution.

The recent push to consolidate the Military Police contributed to a minor police scandal that erupted last week when the National Director of the Police, Ramon Sabillon refused to step down after being illegally fired from his position. The scandal was partially caused by fears amongst the National Police and some sectors of Honduran society that the permanent and growing status of the Military Police will render the National Police force obsolete.

With more soldiers in the streets, Honduras is becoming more and more militarized by the day. To date, there have been limited results in generating security and safer streets for it’s citizens.

Creation of Military Police Linked to Canada and US Regional Security Strategies

The Honduran Congress approved a temporary decree that created the Military Police for Public Order (PMOP) on August 22, 2013. Beginning early October of the same year, the hybrid military-police force was sent to the streets under the command of the Honduran Armed Forces. Known as the special security unit of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, its biggest promoter, the Military Police are military soldiers with military training funded by a Security Tax or the Tasa de Seguridad. Approved in June 2011, the Honduran Security Tax is believed to have been created to fund the security initiatives proposed under the Central American Security Strategy (CASS) of the Central American Integration System (SICA). Interestingly, the Tasa de Seguridad was approved by the Honduran Congress in the same month that SICA countries adopted the Central American Security Strategy. The Security Tax is used to fund Honduran security institutions and strategy of the Hernandez government, supported by the U.S. and Canada.

SICA-CASS is an umbrella, multilateral security initiative formed under the leadership of former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. Two major North American security initiatives in Central America are aligned with CASS: the US Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI) and the Canadian Initiative for Security in Central America (CISCA). Both Canada and the US are joined by other countries committed to SICA-CASS including Japan, Columbia, and Germany, as well as International Financial Institutions like the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.

Juan Orlando Hernandez argues that the Military Police will ensure citizen security and safer streets particularly as the National Police are undergoing a purging or depuración process. According to the President, Hondurans no longer trust the police, and the Military Police can stop the violence and insecurity rampant in what some now call Honduras, the “murder capital of the world”.

(Publicly Known) Abuses Committed by the Military Police Since Their Creation

The Military Police are anything but a solution to the corrupt National Police force. Since being sent to the streets in October of last year, Military Police have been involved in various human rights violations, some against members of the political opposition. The following is a short list of these publicly known abuses:

* Raided the house of union leader and LIBRE member Marco Antonio Rodriguez, October 10, 2013.
In a Special Operation and within one week of being on the street, the Military Police (MP) raided the house of the Vice President of the National Child Welfare Union (SITRAPANI), Marco Antonio Rodriguez. MP pointing weapons at Rodriguez and his family members and forcing them to lie face down on the street. When asked to see the search warrant, the MP responded, “What search warrant, here we can do what we want.”

* Raided the house of FNRP activist, Edwin Espinal, October 23, 2013.
In another Special Operation, the MP broke down the doors to Espinal’s house accusing him of possessing illegal weapons and drugs. The search warrant presented to Espinal read “Robelo [as Espinal is known in his community] belongs to the LIBRE party and is one of the leaders of that area.” Along with GPS coordinates of the location of his house, the warrant also noted that: “outside, [the house] has a LIBRE flag."

* Evicted former President Zelaya, LIBRE Congressional representatives, and supporters from Congress, May 13, 2014.
Protesting the silencing of political debate in Congress, the political opposition in Congress led by President Manual Zelaya, ousted in a military coup in June 2009, were violently evicted by the MP. The MP shot several cans of tear gas and beat protestors and some LIBRE Congressional representatives.

* Beat up, mistreated, and detained children’s rights defender, Jose Guadalupe Ruelas, Director of Casa Alianza, May 8, 2014.

Source: HonduPresa

Driving home from a human rights forum, Ruelas was beaten and detained by MP after being ordered to stop at an MP check-point in Tegucigalpa. After stopping, a police motorcycle colliding with Ruelas’ vehicle. Ruelas was violently removed from his vehicle, struck on his head, back, and legs, and detained.

* Two Military Police were arrested in western Honduras for permitting the escape of two individuals taking contraband into Guatemala, July 2014.
Two Military Police were arrested by Honduran police on charges of violation of official duties and evasion after allowing two individuals driving a truck carrying contraband to escape and cross the border into Guatemala.

*Shot at a public bus in Tegucigalpa after it failed to stop at a Military Police check-point, October 1, 2014

Source: El Heraldo

After failing to stop at a checkpoint managed by the Military Police in Tegucigalpa, the MP fired at the back window of a public bus carrying fourteen passengers. Four people were injured – two with bullet wounds, and two from broken glass.

* Gang raped a female sweatshop worker in San Pedro Sula, November 2014
A woman reported that she was picked up by the Military Police while waiting for a bus after leaving work in the northern Honduran city, San Pedro Sula. She was forced to get into the back of the truck and taken to an isolated area where she was raped by eight MP.

****

Within one year of being present in the streets, the variety and quantity of abuses committed by the Military Police are concerning, particularly as their presence is likely to increase. The promotion of the Military Police by the Honduran President and the National Defense and Security Council, is undoubtedly causing major tension between the National Police and the MP on the streets of Honduras. One example is a recent public shoot out that occurred between the military and the police, the result of a dispute over the police not permitting the military vehicle to pass. This tension has the potential to create serious security concerns for Honduran citizens on top of the already grave insecurity crisis in the country.

Transportation Strike in Tegucigalpa: Another Sign of Failure of the Honduras-US-SICA Security Strategy

Today, the Urban Transportation Union and the Taxi Driver Association of Honduras called a general transportation strike in Tegucigalpa. The transportistas are protesting the high levels of violence and insecurity, and are demanding justice for assassinations of transportation operators that have occurred in the last few weeks.

Oscar Castillo, the President of the Taxi Driver Association of Honduras told El Heraldo, a national Honduran newspaper that taxi drivers had the moral obligation to support the bus drivers, who first initiated the strike, because violence affects the entire transportation sector. Speaking about recent deaths of transportistas, Castillo told El Heraldo, “Only us taxi drivers, they have killed 44 comrades throughout 2014, the situation that the sector is living through is unsustainable and now no one wants to work with us out of fear.”

The final straw that initiating the strike was the murder of 28-year old Javier Antonio Ortega, a driver of a small bus or rapidito as they are called in Honduras. Ortega worked on the route between the National Autonomous University (UNAH) and the neighbourhood El Carrizal and was killed on the Boulevard Fuerzas Armadas, known as the “corridor of death” because of the number of individuals working in the public transportation sector that have been killed on the road.

Traveling in public buses and collective taxis (known as colectivos) is like entering a life-death lottery. One never really knows if they will reach their final destination without being robbed, killed, deeply traumatized from seeing something horrendous or all of the above. Heck, no one is safe from potential attacks of the Military Police themselves, who shot at a passenger bus in Tegucigalpa a few weeks ago, injuring four people.

Sign reads: "Mr. President and the results of the Security Tax ... when?"

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez created the Military Police and the TIGRES, yet - as the transportation sector is stating - have not improved the security situation in the country. Under the ex-President, Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo, the Honduran military were sent to the streets, and 3 years later, the homicide rate still remains one of the highest in the world.

Since the Merida Initiative was launched in 2008, and later the United States’ Central American Regional Security Strategy (CARSI) was folded into the Central American Integration System (SICA)- Central American Security Strategy (CASS), the homicide rate has skyrocketed. One of the intentions of SICA-CASS is to create safer streets and citizen security in Honduras - a goal that has not been achieved through militarizing the Honduran police, creating elite hybrid police-military units, and 'cleaning-up' the Honduran police.

Today’s strike of the transportation sector is another reminder of the failure of the Honduran security strategy that receives millions of dollars of support and training from the US and Canada governments.

No Political Will to Clean up Honduran Police Force: Paving the Way for Further Militarization of Honduran Society

Military Police in Flor del Campo, October 2013

The role of the Honduran police is shifting (once again) and it has a lot to do with the expanding presence and role of the Juan Orlando Hernandez’s hybrid military and police units, the Military Police for Public Order and the Intelligence Policing Troops or TIGRES on Honduran streets.

Honduras is on a path of increasing militarization and we should expect more TIGRES, more Military Police, and more militarization proposed as the solution to the failed police reform and insecurity.

Both elite units are supported and trained by the United States government, funded by the “Security Tax”, and in the case of the TIGRES, funded by the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB).

Some recent developments that have caught my eye:

One. The recent decision by the Honduran government to send the TIGRES into take over a major police post “La Granja” in Comayaguela. La Granja is the command post for various neighborhoods and police posts in Comayaguela.

The reason it was taken over: Police corruption. The Honduran media is citing two specific cases to justify the take-over, both cases involving active police officers kidnapping and stealing from or bribing civilians. Definitely not new corruption issues.

Two. The closure of the police post in Flor del Campo, one of the highest populated neighborhoods in Comayaguela. The Military Police have maintained a permanent post in the center of the neighborhood since October 2013. This has not necessarily eliminated the control of the Mara 18 either. Taxi and bus drivers are still paying (and being killed over) the “impuesto de guerra” (war tax), business owners are still being murdered, and on August 14, a curfew was imposed allegedly by the Mara 18 and residents of Flor del Campo were told not to leave their houses after 7 pm or they would be killed.

The possible reason for closing the police post?: Flor del Campo doesn’t need a civilian police force when the Military Police have maintained a permanent presence in the center of the community since October 2013.

Three. One of the biggest proponents of police reform in Honduras, the head of the National Autonomous University, Julieta Castellanos is back in the media discussing La Granja post and police corruption. Castellanos is saying that the police reform “has been a failure.” She tells the University Press, “There is a change in the security model of this country, where the police are being displaced by new military structures that have been created, this change of model has to do with the corruption, the failure of the police and the failed reform process that began in the year 1993.”

Why this all matters? Police corruption is not new, neither is the idea that the police reform has failed. It was doomed from the beginning because of the lack of political will to adequately investigate and prosecute police involved in criminal activities.

Its failure will now be used to further militarize Honduran streets.

The new Military Police make their debut

The new Military Police in Honduras marching in the National Stadium in Tegucigalpa on September 15th Independence Day. This picture is terrible - I took it while watching the reruns of the videos aired on Honduran TV over and over again. This is probably one of the first public appearances of the Military Police or 'Policia Militar del Orden Publico', a new force created by a new law approved by the Honduran Congress in April 2013. The new police unit, under the control of the Honduran Armed Forces, is training in Naco, Honduras, the same base where the TIGRES, another military-style police force created earlier this year is training as well. The NACO Regional base is just outside of San Pedro Sula and the location of a former (as far as I know) U.S. Forward Operating Base. Based on its public appearance on September 15, I think its far to say that these guys are scary looking. And I'm just talking about their overall physical image. As Hondurans head to the polls to vote in the 2013 General Elections in November and the Honduran military are in the streets performing police functions; the creation of the two specialized military police forces is another example of the extreme militarization of Honduran society.