NATIONAL

200 extra officers will fight spiraling crime in San Pedro Sula

Reinforcements arrive on the eve of the kidnapping of Ricardo Maduro, Jr.

San Pedro Sula, long known as "the Industrial Capital of Honduras" is at risk of acquiring a new epithet, say many Sampedranos. In order to keep the North Coast city from becoming "the Crime Capital of Honduras", Honduran authorities on Monday (April 21) sent an additional 200 police officers to combat the rising tide of crime that has taken hold there.

The forces didn't have to wait long to flex their muscle. On Wednesday evening in an affluent San Pedro Sula neighborhood, four armed men showered the vehicle of 25-year-old Ricardo Maduro Jr. with gunfire, seriously wounding his bodyguard and forcing him into an awaiting vehicle.

Just minutes after the authorities received news of the kidnapping, police began combing the city in what one local paper called the largest manhunt in San Pedro Sula history.

The victim's father, Ricardo Maduro, Sr., a renowned San Pedro Sula businessman and president of the Central Bank of Honduras under the Callejas administration, confirmed on Thursday that he had been contacted by the kidnappers and asked to pay a hefty ransom. Maduro is the seventh Honduran to be kidnapped for ransom since last year.

Startled by an alarming increase in crimes like armed robbery, car jacking and kidnapping, people throughout Honduras, and especially San Pedro Sula, have harshly criticized the Reina administration for failing to ensure personal and public security.

"You don't fight crime by appearing in the media; you fight it with brave and courageous men," said Col. David Abraham Mendoza of the Public Security Force in a La Prensa report Tuesday.

Included in the reinforcements sent north this week is a Cobra force, especially trained in combatting and investigating kidnappings and dangerously violent criminals.

Also on Monday, representatives of the city's business, church and social sectors met with police and military authorities to demand that an estado de excepcion -- which would give police additional rights powers to fight crime more quickly and effectively -- be called by the National Congress.

"Invoking the precepts of the Constitution of the Republic, we urge the nation's highest authorities, especially President Reina, to apply serious, concrete and effective measures to put an end to the climate of terror created by malevolent groups."

Supporting the demand are the chambers of commerce of El Progreso, Choloma, Villanueva, Puerto Cortés and La Lima, as well as a number of local Rotary Clubs and the Catholic Church.

Although authorities have yet to instate an estado de excepcion, Carlos Flores, President of the National Congress and candidate for the 1998-2001 presidency, submitted a bill to the National Congress Wednesday that would channel an additional Lps. 40 million into anti-crime efforts.

Of this Special Fund to Combat Crime and Criminality, Lps. 30 million would be used to hire, equip and train at least 2,000 new police agents; Lps. 5 million would be used to strengthen the efforts of the Department of Criminal Investigation (DIC); and the remaining Lps. 5 million would be used to fund the military reinforcement of the police force.

"In addition," said Flores in a La Prensa report Thursday, "[Congress] is reviewing various juridic instruments required to confront and combat crime and violence and we're in the process of approving and reviewing the [related] legal structures. Once we're finished, we'll be able to provide with instruments that are, if not perfect, at least better for the diligent, correct and opportune application of justice."

Flores sent the bill directly to the Commission on Defense and Public Security for final analysis formalization. The motion is expected to be sent to the full congress no later than Tuesday (April 28).

Internal bickering continues in National Party

By BLANCA MORENO

TEGUCIGAPA -- Internal hostilities within the National Party reached their boiling point this week when former presidential hopefuls Elias Asfura and Roberto Martinez Lozano, backed by a majority of members of the National Party Central Committee (CCPN), overturned CCPN president Nora de Melgar's decision to suspend the Committee's weekly meetings.

Elias Asfura

De melgar, known more commonly as simply Nora, is the official National Party candidate for this November's presidential election. Bad blood has run between Nora and Asfura since she won last year's primary amid allegations of fraud by Asfura.

Asfura says it was not in Nora's power to suspend the meetings because they are called for the National Party bylaws. With the support of more than half of the CCPN members -- who have been dubbed in the local press as the Group of Eight -- he motioned that Martinez Lozano become the new Committee president and he the vice president.

Facing persistent accusations by Asfura that during last year's primaries her supporters filled the voting urns with additional ballots bearing her name, Nora has accused Asfura of being a "traitor" to the National Party.

Alleging that her defeated opponent has been encouraging Nationalists to vote for the Liberal Party candidate rather than backing Nora, she said this week that, "this is the information I have, that a former candidate went to Valle department...and instructed people to vote for the Liberal Party. I believe this is a betrayal of the National Party and immature."

Nora de Melgar

She has also accused Asfura and the Group of Eight of committing acts aimed at foiling a National Party victory this November.

But Asfura says if Nationalists begin to vote Liberal it is not at his urging but because they no longer want to belong to a party whose image has become "nasty and fraudulent." He added that he, himself, would never vote for anyone outside his party.

"We all know what is really bothering [Nora]," he said. "First they asked for an advance of a million and a half lempiras [to cover campaign costs], and it was approved, though fraudulently.... I don't want to be unfair, but if what I have been told is true, this million and a half has been used for other things. Only Lps. 800,000 have been used [for their original purpose]."

Asfura also denies allegations by Nora that he's trying to overturn the National Party. Those who are doing the real damage, he said, are Nora and her supporters, with their attitudes.

Indians grieve the loss of a leader, continue fight for land

By WENDY GRIFFIN

Honduras' indigenous groups have planned a march and hunger strike for the end of April to protest the failure of the Honduran government to comply with promises mad after previous Indian marches, promises like providing ethnic communities with land titles and implementing bilingual education programs.

If the protest takes place, it will be paled by the recent death of Chorti-Maya Indian leader Candido Amador Recinos. Known to the Chortis as Sandy, Candido represented his people at the National Confederation of Autochthonous Peoples of Honduras (CONPAH) in Tegucigalpa, where he held the post of secretary. Previously he served as the Chorti representative to the Ministry of Education's Indian bilingual eduction program.

Candido was not raised in the Chorti area. His father took him to Yoro. He went to junior high school and graduated from the 9th grade, the only Chorti to do so. Most of the schools in the Chorti area only offer education through the third grade. More than half a dozen villages have no schools at all, according to a study by students at Comayagua campus of the National Teaching University (UPN).

Because of his education and his ability to live in cities, Candido was a logical choice to go to Tegucigalpa after the National Council of Chorti Indians of Honduras (CONICH) was formed and became part of CONPAH in 1994. Most of the Chortis have been peasants in the Copan area since 900 B.C. and are uncomfortable even in the quiet town of Copan Ruínas. The name Chorti means milpero, a Spanish word used to describe people who raise and eat milpa corn.

SINGING LOST LANGUAGE

Candido, like most Chortis, did not speak the Chorti language. But he learned a song in Chorti about a woman who got up early in the morning to grind corn for tortillas and the little birds who sang for some ground corn. Few Chorti meetings were held without Candido being present to sing this song, accompanied by his guitar. Although his Chorti listeners spoke no Chorti, they knew this song was their song, a song of the Chorti people.

Candido's main job was to collect the documents needed by the Chortis to petition the National Agrarian Institute (INA) to remeasure tribal lands. But the agrarian reform process is full of tension and least one regional INA director of the Honduran has lost his job for promising to send out surveyors to measure the Chorti land.

A number of legal historical documents exist defining the land that belongs to the Chortis. One states that all land within 15 miles of the Guatemalan border belong to the indigenous people of Copan. Today most of this land is occupied by Ladino cattle ranchers, tobacco farmers, coffee growers and corn farmers.

FIGHT FOR LAND

The Chortis have based their fight for land on Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization's (OIT) document on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which Honduras ratified in May 1994. This convention states that Indians have the right to the possession of the lands where they live and, in cases where the land they inhabit is insufficient, to possess new lands.

Maria de Jesus Interiano of the Chorti community known as Carrizalon pointed out that the community has been able to secure a land title for some 90 acres. But there are 300 people living in the community. "The Chortis will have to live in skyscrapers in order to have room to live and farm," she says.

Many Chortis are sharecroppers and would have the right to land under the Agrarian Reform Law's provisions regarding land subject to indirect use.

At the time of his death, Candido was not working on land reform. The Chortis had submitted a request to the Honduran Social Development Fund (FHIS) for funding for a sewing training course for Chorti women. Even though writing grant proposals can be a difficult task even for university graduates, FHIS requires that the Chortis, most of whom have not studied past the third grade, write proposals on their own with no outside help. At the time of his death, Candido was in the Copan area meeting with the head of CONICH's Women's Affairs Council to discuss rewriting the rejected proposal for the coming workshop.

INDIAN HAIR

The INA argues that the Chortis do not have rights to the land they occupy because they are not Indians. Candido wore his hair long as part of a statement that he was, indeed, Indian. He clearly had the thick, straight, black hair known in Honduran Spanish as pelo indio, or "Indian hair." After killing him with a bullet, his attackers cut his hair short with a machete.

Although some authorities have said robbery was the motive for the murder, Candido was found on the path to his home in Corralito with his watch and bus fare to Tegucigalpa.

Another argument against giving the Chortis land is that they are not Hondurans. Most Chortis in Honduras today were born in Honduras of Guatemalan parents. But their grandparents, they say, were Hondurans. The confusion arose when an international decision shifted the Honduran-Guatemala border in 1933, affecting the nationality of the people living in the zone.

UPN sociology professor Adalid Martinez points out that the current political border has never been the cultural border of the Chortis. The problem of Indian tribes being split by international borders is not unique to the Chortis. The Lencas live on both sides of the Honduran-Salvadoran border, the Miskitos live on both sides of Honduran-Nicaraguan border and the Garifuna extend into Belize and Nicaragua.

The fight for Chorti land is based on international human rights agreements, Honduran Agrarian Reform Law and the Honduran Constitution, which requires that the government protect, promote and develop Honduras' autochthonous cultures. To do this, the Chortis say they need land to grow plants for food, medicine and crafts and clear access to water.

Candido died believing that the Reina administration would provide Honduran Indians with what, by right, is theirs. Perhaps they will be. But many lament the fact that Sandy's voice was silenced before he could see it happen.

Reina praises Fujimori attack

By BLANCA MORENO

TEGUCIGALPA -- "They've solved the problem and let's hope it never happens again," said President Reina of Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori's armed mission to free 72 hostages from the hands of guerrilla rebels.

After 126 days of fruitless negotiations with rebels from the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), Fujimori believed that an armed rescue was his final option. After the gunsmoke settled at the residence of the Japanese Ambassador in Lima, where rebels had been holding the hostages since invading a celebration of the Japanese Emperor's birthday on December 17, all of the rebels had been killed and all but one of the hostages had escaped with their lives. Internationally the mission was called a success.

"It was a tremendous challenge for the president of Peru, facing such a dramatic situation," said President Reina. "Such an act of terrorist had no precedent in the history of Latin America."

Although he recognized that if Fujimori had failed he would have been "universally condemned," Reina praised the South American leader for refusing "to negotiate with the lives of the hostages."

When the MRTA first took the ambassador's residence the hostage count reached 600, including Eduardo Martell, the Honduran Ambassador to Peru. Martell was released, however, along with hundreds of other hostages early in the crisis.

Indians plan protest to condemn murder of Chorti leader

By SUYAPA CARIAS

TEGUCIGALPA -- Thousands of Chorti Indians in the department of Copán have planned a massive protest May 4 to demand justice in the recent murder of Chorti rights activist Candido Amador. They will also call for real solutions to the conflict over land ownership they are facing in the area with Ladinos.

On the night of April 12, police found Amador's murdered body on the path to his home in Corralito, one kilometer from Copán Ruinas and six kilometers from the Guatemalan border. Amador had allegedly been receiving death threats from local farmers angered by Indian claims to their land.

National and foreign indigenous organizations call Amador's death a "political assassination" and blame the crime on "the groups of power" -- the Associations of Cattle Ranchers and Landowners of Copan and Ocotepeque departments. They also blame the National Agrarian Institute (INA) and say Amador wouldn't have been killed if the Institute had done it's job to provide the Indians with legal title over lands they claim are theirs.

Several Indian rights groups, under the coordination of the Central American Indigenous Council, issued a public condemnation of the murder last week.

"We want to tell our enemies that this death has only made us stronger in our struggle to get our lands back," said one Chorti representative, who also criticized the Department of Ethnic Groups and Cultural Heritage for failing to protect Indian rights.

The nation's Indian groups are demanding that Amador's murder not remain unsolved, as have many similar cases in the past.

Eduardo Villanueva, Director of the Department of Ethnic Groups and Cultural Heritage says the Department of Criminal Investigation (DIC) has launched a full investigation of the case. After receiving news of the murder, he said, he himself travelled immediately to Copan to begin questioning more than 70 potential witnesses.

"I can assure you that this crime will be solved," he told Honduras This Week. "We're not looking for a culprit simply to make someone pay for the crime; we're looking for the truth."

Villanueva said Indian criticisms of his department's performance are based on the misbelief that it is the job of the department to resolve all matters affecting the nation's ethnic groups. "The department is a specialized agency whose function is specifically to take penal action before the courts when the rights of ethnic groups are violated," he said. "We are independent of the government."

Nevertheless, Villanueva believes the Indians have the right to the land they are claiming, based not only on history, but also on the constitution and on an international agreement concerning Indian rights that have been ratified by Honduras. Such agreement is the International Labor Organization's Convention 169, which guarantees Indians the right to lands they have traditionally occupied and the right to use lands not exclusively occupied by them, but used traditionally to survive.

For several centuries Honduran land ownership laws have ignored indigenous rights in favor of the Mestizo population, say the country's Indian groups. Villanueva agrees.

"At the INA there is no conviction on the indigenous issue. They believe Indians are the same as campesinos. They don't understand that these groups are different from the rest of the population," he said.

The eight indigenous groups of Honduras -- the Chortis, the Lencas, the Pech, the Tawahkas, the Miskitos, the Garifuna, the English-speaking Black Islanders and the Xicaques -- make up only ten percent of the nation's population. Between them they've submitted requests to the INA for 100 collective property titles. So far, only 11 have been granted.

Meanwhile, 25 Indian leaders have been killed, presumably over land disputes, in recent years.

"This time we won't accept another signed promise from the President. We want to see action," said one Indian representative preparing for the May 4 protest, which will be titled, "For our Land and Our Cultures, Brother Candido Lives On in our Fight."

WEEK IN REVIEW

Suspect in Marichal murder acquitted

Rosa Erlinda Castro Bobadilla, the prime suspect in the 1992 murder of businessman Fernando Marichal Callejas, was released from the women's correctional center at Tamara last Friday (April 18) after the Supreme Court upheld her lower court acquittal, the daily La Tribuna reported.

In February 1992, the body of Marichal -- the manager of the Metropolitan Meat Processors (PROMDECA) and a cousin of former President Callejas -- was found inside his car near the community of San Matías. The cause of death was strangulation. Although military boot prints were discovered around the victim's car, other evidence found by the police led to Castro's arrest.

In April of that year, Castro turned herself in to authorities, but later escaped from a hospital where she was receiving medical attention. She then fled to the United States. Towards the end of 1993, Castro,the sister of former Medical Examiner Dennis Castro Bobadilla, was arrested by U.S. authorities and extradited to Honduras.

Two more banks robbed

Minutes after stealing a vehicle, five gunmen on Tuesday (April 22) robbed the BANCAHORRO branch bank in San Pedro Sula's Colonia Tara, the daily El Heraldo reported. Bank officials declined to specify the amount of money stolen. The robbery was the 19th this year.

The day before, the Atlántida branch bank next to the Yip Supermarket in Tegucigalpa's Colonia Prado was robbed by three armed gunman. According to El Heraldo, the thugs entered the bank around 5:40 p.m. and ordered employees and customers to the floor. After stuffing an estimated Lps. 175,000 into a couple of bags, the thugs then made their getaway in a vehicle that was waiting for them near the bank.

Remains of four persons found in Trujillo

Forensic experts in Tegucigalpa are currently examining the skeletal remains of four persons found in Trujillo to determine whether they belong to any of the 184 persons who were disappeared by the military for political reasons during the 1980s. According to the daily La Tribuna, the remains were discovered when Catarino Espinoza and his son Antonio began preparations to enlarge his family's home. Shortly after the digging began, the Espinozas uncovered what appeared to be human bones and immediately notified authorities. On Friday (April 18), employees of the medical examiners office unearthed three complete skeletons and the following day found the partial remains of a fourth.

Flores has big lead in latest poll

If the general elections were held today, Liberal Party presidential candidate Carlos Flores would win by a landslide, according to the latest poll conducted March 15-23 by the firm Referéndum. Poll results show Flores with 46 percent of the votes, followed by National Party presidential candidate Nora de Melgar Castro with 30 percent, Olban Valladares of the Innovation and Unity Party (PINU) with 4 percent, and Arturo Corrales of the Christian Democrat Party and Matías Fúnez of the new Democratic Unification Party with less than 1 percent each. Only 3 percent of those polled did not know who they would vote for or did not respond, while 17 percent said they would abstain from voting. In conducting the poll, Referéndum consulted persons 18 or older in 1,325 homes nationwide, with the exception of the Bay Islands and Gracias a Dios departments.

Two girls raped, brutally murdered

In unrelated incidents, two young girls were raped and brutally murdered. On Tuesday (April 22), two youths abducted the 8-year-old daughter of a prominent coffee grower in La Paz, raped and then strangled her. The police have arrested two suspects, both under 18.

Last Thursday, 21-year-old Jose Alfredo Borjas Lagos was arrested for the murder of a 6-year-old girl in the Colonia Arnulfo Cantarero López. According to La Tribuna, Borjas abducted the girl while she was buying candy at his pulpería (neighborhood store), took her into his bedroom, and raped her. He then killed her with an icepick. Neighbors heard the girl's screams, but arrived too late to save her. The police arrested Borjas just as a group of enraged residents were about to capture him.

Supreme court refuses U.S. extradition request

Justice says there is not enough evidence to send former Haitian police chief to face drug charges in the United States

By BLANCA MORENO

TEGUCIGALPA -- In a ruling that took many by surprise, the Supreme Court of Justice announced Wednesday (April 16) that Honduras will not extradite former Haitian police chief Joseph Michel Francois to the United States.

Although the Miami District Court requested the extradition in late February so that Francois could face drug trafficking charges there, Supreme Court Judge Marco Tulio Alvarado Crespo says the evidence against Francois "is not duly and legally sustained" and, therefore, not grounds for extradition.

Francois, who served as chief of police in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince under the military government of Raul Cedras, fled Haiti when its democratically-elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was reinstated with the help of the U.S. government last year. Currently in Honduras on a tourist visa, he has requested political asylum here.

Francois faces a series of charges in the United States, the most serious of which that he masterminded the trafficking of some 33 tons of cocaine and heroine from Colombia through Haiti and into the United States.

Although an extradition treaty has been in effect between Honduras and the United States since 1909, Judge Alvarado Crespo ruled that the evidence provided to him by U.S. authorities concerning Francois' alleged involvement with drug crimes "was not duly and legally proven. There is a lack of legal support that has made it impossible to substantiate the charges. Consequently, they have not convinced this court that Francois should be extradited to face charges in the Miami District Court."

He further explained that "to proceed with extradition, the crime or crimes must have been committed in the jurisdiction of one or both parties and that crime must be included in the list agreed upon by both parties in the Extradition Treaty."

When the drug trafficking crimes were allegedly committed, Francois was in Haiti, not Honduras.

The U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, which has been processing the extradition request in cooperation with the Honduran Ministry of Foreign Relations, says it will appeal the ruling.

Francois remains in custody at Tegucigalpa's Central Penitentiary. He is scheduled to be released Monday.

WEEK IN REVIEW

Honduras becoming sex tourism haven

Honduras is becoming a haven for sex tourism due to the nation's weak and ineffective laws, said Bruce Harris, director of Casa Alianza for Latin America, in a La Prensa report. Harris says his office is currently investigating several cases in which U.S. citizens are accused of sexually abusing Honduran minors. "We are observing what could be a pattern in which Honduran children are being abused by pedophiles in the United States," he said.

Harris' statements were made after the U.S. media reported the April 11 arrest of Marvin Hersh, a Florida Atlantic University business professor, for the smuggling of illegal immigrants and the falsification of documents to obtain a U.S. passport. Hersh is also being investigated for sexually abusing a Honduran minor, who he brought from La Ceiba to the United States.

Other cases mentioned by Harris include the alleged purchase of a 12-year-old Trujillo girl by a 50-year-old U.S. citizen, and a middle-aged man who reportedly took a minor to Florida for sexual purposes. In addition, the daily La Tribuna reported that U.S. citizen Daniel Gary Rounds is currently being tried for allegedly having had sexual relations with two street children in La Ceiba.

Earthquake felt in northern Honduras

The northern part of Honduras was shaken by an earthquake at 1:50 a.m. Tuesday morning, according to Geophysics professor Gonzalo Cruz of the National Autonomous University (UNAH) in a La Tribuna report. The epicenter of the earthquake, which measured 5 on the Richter Scale, was approximately 20 kilometers north of Roatan, the Bay Islands, he said.

Fonseca endorses Nora's candidacy

Col. (ret.) Hector Rene Fonseca this week became the second loser in last December's National Party primaries to endorse the presidential candidacy of Nora de Melgar Castro. In return for his support, the daily La Tribuna reported that Fonseca and his wife, U.S. citizen Deborah De Moss de Fonseca, have been appointed to head international relations for the National Party's Central Committee.

Fonseca's incorporation in to the National Party campaign process marks a major shift in his political career, given that his participation in last year's primaries was vehemently opposed by one of Melgar's chief campaign aids and allies, 1993 presidential candidate Oswaldo Ramos Soto.

Elias Asfura, who finished second in the primaries after being considered the favorite, has so far refused to support Melgar's candidacy. The other candidate, Roberto Martinez, joined Melgar soon after the elections.

Bus hijacked
to San Pedro Sula

In what police believe could be an act of vengeance, a gunman identified only as Edwin on Tuesday evening hijacked an urban Tegucigalpa bus carrying 39 persons and ordered it to San Pedro Sula.

According to the daily La Tribuna, Edwin initially tried to hijack the bus covering the Colonia Alemán-Barrio La Isla route near the bus terminal but was thwarted by Carlos Barrientos. After shooting Barrientos in the leg, Edwin got in a taxi and followed the bus to the Los Llanos neighborhood, where he boarded it. With gun in hand, he ordered the bus first to the La Esperanza district and then out of the city to avoid the police. Surprisingly, none of the police posts along the northern highway stopped the bu