By Thelma Mejía
TEGUCIGALPA, Sep 2 1998 (IPS)

The non-governmental Committee for the Defence of Human Rights in Honduras (CODEH) reported Wednesday that although the systematic practice of torture had been uprooted in the past eight years, 190 extrajudicial executions were committed in that period.

On Wednesday, CODEH president Ramon Custodio released a new survey of human rights committed from 1990 to June 1998, which highlights a rise in summary executions, especially during the presidency of Carlos Reina (1994-January 1998).

The country’s chief accomplishment in terms of cleaning up its human rights record was the elimination of the systematic practice of torture by security forces, according to the report. Torture “can now be considered to occur occasionally, but not as an expression of an institutional policy,” said Custodio.

Nevertheless, extrajudicial executions still occur at the hands of some police authorities, he added, maintaining that Reina “was tolerant of these practices, because he never did anything, even though he was informed.”

The report was the first survey of human rights in Honduras in the wake of the Cold War and the application of the national security doctrine in the 1980s, when according to an official report security forces ‘disappeared’ 184 people for political reasons.

CODEH said the extrajudicial executions were committed by police bodies which still fell under army jurisdiction at the time. Six months ago they were put under the control of a committee of notables, which is to purge them and turn them over to the civilian Ministry of Security in December.

The rights group mentioned Colonel David Mendoza as one of the main perpetrators of extrajudicial executions. Mendoza is currently fugitive from justice. Two warrants for his arrest have been issued on charges of involvement in several crimes, including car theft.

Custodio alluded to other police officers linked to the top police brass, and said “impunity persists, with the lack of will to launch in-depth investigations.

“But we have heard that other police, afraid of being investigated by the Attorney-General’s Office, have fled the country,” he added.

The release of the report came after President Carlos Flores launched a new strategy designed to beef up public security Monday. In a message to the nation, the president declared that “no criminal will bring the state to its knees.”

Flores said the people were in need of legal and social guarantees for their safety. The president recently felt the phenomenon of rising crime all too closely, when his niece was kidnapped and released last month. The kidnappers were later captured.

One of the detainees, Luis Lopez, posed as a medical doctor and was found to have ties with the armed forces, which he served as security adviser and as a link to leaders of the opposition National Party. The Medical Association of Honduras said Lopez had never studied medicine in Honduras and had forged his medical degree.

CODEH described the first six months of Flores’ government as “one of the worst crises in terms of insecurity, with a rise in theft, armed robbery, and kidnappings.”

Custodio welcomed, however, the government’s “initiative in coming up with a strategic plan against crime and violence including an announcement of increased supplies of equipment and funding for the police.”

Assessing the state of “social” and human rights in Honduras, CODEH said the political repression of the 1980s seemed to have been replaced by the “economic repression” that has characterised the 1990s as part and parcel of economic structural adjustment programmes.

In the first six months of the year the country lost 38 million dollars in national savings, while the foreign debt rose 90 million dollars, which CODEH blamed on privileges granted by the government to large exporters.

The organisation said human rights remained a pending matter for the current government, which should resolve the question of the ‘disappearances’ committed last decade and foster trials of military personnel and civilians responsible for that practice.

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