Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 1995 - Honduras, 1 January 1995, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a9fe24.html [accessed 17 September 2023]
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Several people were killed in the context of land disputes who appeared to be victims of extrajudicial execution. Two men allegedly abducted by the security forces were found dead. Human rights defenders seeking to clarify past human rights violations received death threats. Several minors were reportedly ill-treated. In January President Carlos Roberto Reina took office, following the Liberal Party's victory in elections in November 1993. A former president of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, President Reina identified human rights as a priority for his administration, pledging to undertake a "moral revolution" and to put an end to impunity. The ongoing process of human rights reform gained momentum. An Attorney General was appointed to head the Public Ministry, which was reformed in 1993 on the recommendation of the Ad Hoc Commission (see Amnesty International Report 1994). The Public Ministry became responsible for investigating all allegations of human rights violations. It was also responsible for the new Departamento de Investigación Criminal (DIC), Department of Criminal Investigations, which replaced the Dirección Nacional de Investigaciones (DNI), National Directorate of Investigations, which was controlled by the military. The DNI, implicated in numerous cases of killing, torture and "disappearance" in the past, was formally disbanded in June. But delays in creating the DIC left a vacuum, which fuelled popular anxiety about the state's capacity to respond to rising crime. The Attorney General's office was set up in June and contained special offices dealing with human rights, corruption, drug-trafficking, and the protection of children, the disabled, indigenous people and the environment. A constitutional reform in May abolishing forced conscription reaffirmed civilian control over the military. Other human rights related reforms included measures to improve the administration of justice. A proposal was made to Congress to grant constitutional status to the office of the Comisionado Nacional de Protección de los Derechos Humanos, National Commissioner for the Protection of Human Rights, to allow it to play a supervisory role complementary to the investigative role of the Attorney General. The new government pledged to follow up the recommendations made by the Commissioner, Dr Leo Valladares, in his preliminary report on "disappearances" under previous governments, published in December 1993 (see Amnesty International Report 1994). The Attorney General's office also said it would seek to ensure that those responsible for the human rights violations documented were brought to trial. In December judicial investigations were opened into one of the 184 "disappearances" documented in the report. This followed the exhumation and identification of the remains of Nelson Mackay Chavarría, a lawyer who "disappeared" in the custody of the DNI in February 1982. The exhumation was carried out in Los Amates, Valle department, by an international team of forensic anthropologists at the request of the Attorney General's office. Relatives, witnesses and members of the military were called to give evidence, including a colonel who in 1982 had publicly claimed to have information pertaining to the "disappearance" of Nelson Mackay and others. The investigation, hailed by the Human Rights Commissioner as "the beginning of the end to impunity", was ongoing at the end of the year. Land conflicts, strikes and social unrest were reported in the context of deteriorating economic conditions. In May the government ratified the International Labour Organisation's Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, which specifies standards for the protection of indigenous rights. Several indigenous people and peasant activists involved in land disputes appeared to be victims of extrajudicial execution. Rutilio Matute, a member of the Xicaque indigenous community in Olanchito, department of Yoro, was found dead on 31 May on waste land near his house. Circumstances suggested his killing may have been ordered by local landowners in conflict with the Federation of Xicaque Tribes of Yoro (FETRIXY), and carried out with the complicity of security force members. According to FETRIXY, Rutilio Matute was the 20th indigenous activist to have been killed since 1989 in the context of land disputes. In 1991 he had witnessed the killing of his uncle, former FETRIXY president Vicente Matute Cruz, who was shot dead after publicly accusing the government and military of unlawfully seizing land belonging to indigenous communities (see Amnesty International Report 1992). Another witness to the killing, indigenous activist Dionisio Martínez, was killed in February 1994 in suspicious circumstances. Other indigenous activists received anonymous death threats, including former FETRIXY president, Mauricia Castro Garmendia. Little progress had been made by the end of the year in ascertaining responsibility for the killings and death threats. Evidence emerged about the apparent extrajudicial execution of a peasant activist in November 1993. Cleofes Colindres Canales, local leader of the Central Nacional de Trabajadores del Campo (CNTC), National Rural Workers' Union, in San Pedro Sula department, was found dead the day after he went to a meeting with members of the local military brigade. Members of the cooperative to which he belonged had been forcibly evicted four months earlier from land they occupied by the military brigade and Cleofes Colindres Canales had been actively involved in the continuing dispute. Witnesses and CNTC lawyers and activists cited clear indications of the military brigade's responsibility for the killing and claimed that official investigations had been suppressed by military pressure on the local judiciary. A Nicaraguan citizen who was arrested in December 1993 by Honduran police was found dead in January (see Amnesty International Report 1994). Investigations by the non-governmental human rights organization Comité para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos en Honduras (CODEH), Committee for the Defence of Human Rights in Honduras, indicated that Juan Pablo Laguna Cruz had been unlawfully killed by Honduran police. In June the dead man's sister, together with CODEH, brought formal charges against 18 security force officials, including the head of the Fuerzas de Seguridad Pública (FUSEP), Public Security Forces, for their role in carrying out or covering up the illegal detention and killing. However, proceedings against them had not advanced significantly by the end of the year. Orlando Jiménez Antúnez, a bar manager from Elixir, department of Colón, was abducted from his home on 17 September by men in civilian clothing carrying weapons used only by the army. His whereabouts were not clarified until November, when his mutilated body was exhumed and identified in La Ceiba. After presenting a formal complaint in November against the army and civilian officials allegedly responsible, CODEH's regional president in La Ceiba, Andrés Pavón, was threatened by a gunman and his home placed under surveillance. Human rights defenders seeking to clarify cases of "disappearance" in previous years also received death threats. On 2 March Berta Oliva de Nativí, coordinator of the Comité de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos de Honduras (COFADEH), Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared, was threatened with "disappearance" by a man identifying himself as a colonel. The previous day the Human Rights Commissioner had received an anonymous telephone death threat. Repeated incidents of threats and harassment were reported by other members of COFADEH, CODEH and the Commissioner's office, apparently linked to their campaigns against impunity for "disappearances" and other human rights violations. Several minors were illegally arrested and ill-treated. On 9 April Martha María Saire, an 11-year-old street girl with behavioural problems, was raped by two uniformed members of a local military battalion guarding the Juvenile Guidance Centre in Támara, department of Francisco Morazán, where she lived. She was threatened with further violence if she complained about what had happened. Forensic examinations confirmed that she had been sexually assaulted. The case was presented to the courts in April, following a complaint by the children's organization Casa Alianza. Although one of the soldiers was reportedly in detention, proceedings had apparently stalled since May. Sixteen-year-old Mario René Enamorado Lara was illegally detained by FUSEP in July near the Casa Alianza home in Tegucigalpa, the capital, where he lived. Accused of having stolen a watch, he was held for several hours in a cell with adults. A medical examination on his release supported his claims that he had been severely punched and kicked by police and beaten by male detainees in the cell. To Amnesty International's knowledge, the FUSEP members responsible had not been brought to justice by the end of the year. This and similar cases highlighted broader deficiencies in the judicial treatment of juvenile offenders. Detained minors were often held with adults and were not always taken before minors' judges, who were frequently unavailable at weekends. In February a draft bill was presented to Congress to lower the age at which an individual can be held criminally responsible and admitted to the adult penitentiary system, from 18 to 16 years of age. There was concern that this would leave detained minors even more vulnerable to ill-treatment. At the end of the year the bill was still being studied by a special congressional commission. Amnesty International appealed to the new government to ensure full investigations into the cases of possible extrajudicial execution, "disappearance" and ill-treatment, and to honour its commitment to end impunity for "disappearances" and other violations under past administrations. An Amnesty International delegation visited Honduras in May and June and met the new authorities to discuss their human rights commitments. The delegates also assessed the progress of institutional reforms and of investigations into past "disappearances" and recent abuses. While encouraged by the government's manifest commitment to human rights reform, Amnesty International urged the administration to fulfil its obligations by making a historic break with impunity.
