HUMAN RIGHTS-HONDURAS: Military Impunity Verdict Imminent

By Thelma Mejía Reprint | | Print |

Thelma Mejia

TEGUCIGALPA, Jan 4 1996 (IPS) - The murky human rights situation in Honduras is unlikely to clear up until the armed forces stop playing with the government, hiding in impunity, and blocking the path of justice, according to Honduran Human Rights Commissioner, Leo Valladares this week.

Valladares said the military had showed “little interest” in clearing up the cases of those who disappeared under the military dictatorship of the eighties, adding that they appeared to be playing with the government.

“In all this time, they have wanted to postpone dealing with the issue of the forced disappearances, they refuse to present those accused in the trials and that alone shows they are hand in glove with impunity,” he said.

The most obvious sign of impunity is that the military authorities are concealing the whereabouts of three army officials, two retired, accused of the temporary disappearance of six political opponents in 1982.

Honduran army chief of staff, General Luis Alonso Discua, said he did not know where the officers were.

Discua said they would only reappear when the Court of Justice passes its verdict on the legality of the amnesty granted by the government at the end of the month.

If verdict favours the military, the human rights groups will have to appeal to the international courts as they have firm cases against many offending officers.

Ramon Custodio, of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights in Honduras (CODEH), a non-government organisation, stressed that the amnesty is unconstitutional and should be withdrawn.

“This is what the Court should be looking at, because otherwise Honduras will be exposed to an international lawsuit which we will undoubtedly win, but with a great loss of prestige for the nation,” he said.

The Human Rights Commission said that the army tactics were deliberate attempts to evade responsibility, “invoking a respect for human rights when they were the worst offenders in the past.”

The Commission claimed that if the government accepts impunity it will be playing a dangerous game, which could lead to “burying the truth once and for all, absolutely condoning impunity.”

“It is painful to admit, but true. We are living within the structures of impunity and society cannot allow the truth to disappear in order to benefit a pack of human rights violators,” said the Commission.

Honduras suffered a period of systematic human rights violations during the last decade, with 184 people disappearing at the hands of the military.

An official report states that the army had accomplices from both the civil society and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Even though the government has made some efforts to discover the truth, the human rights groups are not happy with the official action.

According to the Commission, the official report accusing the military of disappearances, “is not taken into account by Congress when the time comes for promoting and decorating officers known to be human rights violators.”

The Armed Forces’ new year message insinuated that democracy would not be firmly rooted in Honduras while the intolerance and “obsessive persecution” of “those human rights leftists” is not brought to an end.

HUMAN RIGHTS-HONDURAS: Military Impunity Verdict Imminent

By Thelma Mejía Reprint | | Print |

Thelma Mejia

TEGUCIGALPA, Jan 4 1996 (IPS) - The murky human rights situation in Honduras is unlikely to clear up until the armed forces stop playing with the government, hiding in impunity, and blocking the path of justice, according to Honduran Human Rights Commissioner, Leo Valladares this week.
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