RIGHTS-HONDURAS: US Priest Allegedly Buried at Military Base

By Thelma Mejía Reprint | | Print |

Thelma Mejía

TEGUCIGALPA, Aug 13 1999 (IPS) - The body of U.S. priest Guadelupe Carney, who disappeared in Honduras in 1987, is at a military base, but his head was buried at the headquarters of the Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff, charged a rural leader.

Jorge Ulloa, of the National Peasant Farmers Union (UNC), said that some of Carney’s remains could be found at the El Aguacate military base in the northeast department of Olancho.

He commented that the results of investigations of military land will surprise many “if justice authorities get to the bottom of the case,” because he says there are several clandestine cemeteries at the site.

Ulloa, who was UNC secretary general and its co-ordinator in Olancho in the 1980s, said he has intelligence reports that prove that Carney and guerrilla fighter Jose Mata Reyes were captured by the army when they crossed into Honduras at Patuca on the Nicaraguan border.

“We learned from military personnel that both were executed at the El Aguacate base and that Father Guadalupe was tortured for several days and then thrown out of a helicopter,” so his remains should be at the base, Ulloa stated.

The activist said the soldiers wanted evidence that the dead man was a priest so “they brought his head to the headquarters of the Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff, where they later buried it in a tunnel at the entrance of the building.”

“One of the army intelligence agents confessed to the UNC leadership that Father Guadalupe’s head is in that tunnel and has only one injury, but I don’t know if it is in the upper or lower lip,” said Ulloa.

“We are sure that other parts of the body were thrown out in the Olancha mountains,” added the rural leader, who is considered a credible source in his department.

Ulloa’s claims caused a stir in Honduras Friday, and human rights organisations said that the charges provide “new clues” to add to the testimonies they have on the fate of Carney, a Jesuit priest who worked closely with peasant and women’s groups in Olancho.

Sandra Ponce, public prosecutor for human rights, believes Ulloa’s statements are “fairly strong and he appears to have valuable information in his power about a chapter on political disappearances in Honduras.”

Ponce announced Monday that excavation would begin at an El Aguacate site, where there are allegedly six clandestine cemeteries.

In the early 1980s, the base served as a refuge and a training site for the Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries, known as “contras,” who had the support of the Honduran military and were financed by the United States.

Nearly 20 years later, the mysteries of the base are surfacing, following the resolution of land-ownership disputes between peasant farmers and the military.

An investigation published Monday by the Tegucigalpa newspaper, ‘El Heraldo,’ reported the existence of torture chambers, presumed clandestine cemeteries, and tombs where weapons were buried which, according to peasants’ stories, have been unearthed to be sold illegally.

Publication of the report prompted the human rights prosecutor to inspect the area, where experts found traces of human blood in the torture cells, according to Ponce.

The claims about El Aguacate renewed attention on the fate of 187 people who the Honduran military disappeared for political and ideological reasons in the 1980s. The international community has insisted for years that the Carney case must be resolved.

According to Bertha Oliva, of the Committee of Families of the Detained-Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH), “they didn’t just train the Nicaraguan ‘contras’ at the El Aguacate base, they also trained the elite forces of the Honduran army…and both are accomplices in the events” being investigated.

Oliva said that Ulloa’s statements on the Carney’s fate must be studied with “total caution.” “We had reports that the priest had been tortured at El Aguacate, but not that his body or other remains could be there,” she explained.

“The new item is that his head could be here right under the nose of the Armed Forces. Just thinking about it makes us shudder. There is no doubt that we are going to investigate because everything indicates the repression at that damned base was terrible and macabre,” stated Oliva.

The Armed Forces denied Friday that they had participated in the alleged El Aguacate events, and stated that the Nicaraguan counter- revolutionaries were operating in the area. Honduras only “loaned” them the military installations, they said.

In a communique released Friday, military leaders denied they are moving “evidence” in the area, as prosecutor Ponce insinuated Thursday. They stated they had enclosed the area and set up security, “due to rumours that some military personnel might remove evidence.”