Honduras: Continued struggle against impunity

The continued struggle against impunity in Honduras saw important developments during 1995: the charges against military personnel for the attempted murder and unlawful detention of six students in 1982, and the exhumation of the remains of people who 'disappeared' in the 1980s. This document updates Honduras: the beginning of the end of impunity issued in June 1995. It reports on the judicial proceedings against military personnel, which moved ahead laboriously through the courts; the defendants tried to persuade the courts that amnesty laws approved between 1986 and 1991 should be applied to them. They did not succeed. It also describes the exhumations initiated by human rights organizations in cooperation with the Special Prosecutor for Human Rights, of the remains of victims of 'disappearances' in the 1980s. Between 1994 and 1995 the remains of 16 people were exhumed; in five cases experts were able to fully identify the victims, thus providing 'the facts that constitute a crime' necessary for judicial investigations to be undertaken by the authorities. Amnesty International welcomes these efforts and reiterates its call for the clarification of all past human rights violations and to bring to justice those responsible for them.