RIGHTS-HONDURAS: Debate Rages Over Reach of Amnesty

By Thelma Mejía Reprint | | Print |

Thelma Mejia

TEGUCIGALPA, Sep 16 1998 (IPS) - Debate is raging in Honduras over whether an amnesty issued for leftist guerrillas in Honduras in 1990 should be applied to members of the military who committed human rights violations in the 1980s.

While the government and its supporters argue that the amnesty should be extended to the military, human rights activists insist that a state cannot pardon itself for crimes it commits.

An official report issued by the governmental Human Rights Commission in 1994 recognised that security forces were responsible for the forced disappearance of 184 people in the 1980s.

The president of Congress, Rafael Pineda, a strong contender for the governing National Party’s presidential nomination, said Wednesday that “the spirit of the (1990) amnesty is broad and unconditional, and while its application must be considered on a case-by-case basis, I believe it should cover the military in order to bury a history of pain and suffering once and for all.”

Pineda argued that the amnesty “was approved for those who engaged in criminal activity in protest against the government as well as for members of the military who committed crimes in defence of the established system.”

Presidential adviser Jorge Arturo Reina, former president Carlos Reina’s (1994-98) brother and one-time leftist leader, also said Wednesday that the country should focus on creating a climate of reconciliation, in which the spirit of the amnesty approved in 1990 “was very broad.”

“I believe it is time for a fair interpretation,” he added, referring to an expansion of the amnesty to members of the military who committed rights violations.

The executive branch is interested in seeing justice administered, and if the courts decide that the amnesty is to be applied to members of the military who violated human rights, “they should present themselves before the courts without fear, because it will be the law which will have the last word,” said Reina.

But the government’s position has drawn a storm of criticism from activists, who accuse it of attempting to protect officers who have committed human rights abuses and are currently fugitive from justice.

One of them, former captain Billy Joya, who is living in Spain, is about to be extradited to Honduras to be tried for his role in the abduction and torture of six university students in 1982, who were released due to the fast action of human rights groups.

Joya, who confessed to having participated in the kidnapping, told a Honduran TV station last week that an amnesty and an “impartial” trial were conditions for his return, rousing the ire of human rights groups, the attorney-general’s office and several judges.

Honduran Attorney-General Edmundo Orellana called the conditions set by Joya an “insult” to democracy. “When he arrives, you had better be sure that he will not enjoy any privileges, because he is a confessed criminal and everyone is equal before the law,” he stressed.

But the possibility of an amnesty to “close” the chapter of forced disappearances in Honduras is gaining strength, as is the increasingly widespread view that the government is intent on releasing the military from its appointment with justice.

Bertha Oliva, with the Committee of Family members of the Detained-Disappeared in Honduras, told IPS that announcements that the amnesty could be applied to the military demonstrated that “political pacts weigh more than the facts and the thirst for justice.”

“We are opposed to the broadened application of the decree, which clearly states that it was drawn up to benefit armed leftist groups that committed political crimes,” she underlined. “The crimes committed by the military were common crimes, which cannot be amnestied.”

Oliva said that if the amnesty were stretched to cover the military, the country would be brought before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights based in San Jose, Costa Rica, because “a State cannot pardon itself for the crimes it commits…and the military acted in the name of the State.”

Until recently, the government maintained that it was up to the judges to interpret whether the 1990 amnesty was to be applied to the military.

But when the courts began to find officers guilty of human rights violations, the armed forces complained that they had become the victims of “injustice and partiality,” and many officers fled the country. Thirteen remain at large, including Joya.