Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) took to Twitter on Thursday to boast about Washington’s support for forces accused of committing some of the worst human rights abuses in the Western Hemisphere.
The Senate Majority Whip posted a photo of law enforcement officials in Honduras on the social media network, with the caption: “Random checkpoint w Honduran police (w US support) looking for weapons, drugs and migrants.”
As The Sentinel has noted, Honduran police officers are routinely accused of violating civil rights in a pattern of behavior that has contributed to a sharp rise in the country’s murder rate and an exodus of migrants to the United States. They have been accused of carrying out brazen attacks on civilians and journalists since the 2009 coup d’etat that ousted the country’s then-populist president, Manuel Zelaya.
Violence against peaceful citizens allegedly committed by Honduran police in the past 20 months alone include the murder of an indigenous activist, the beating of an advocate for children, and the kidnapping of a young woman.
Just ten days ago, Ely Vallejo, a gay Honduran journalist told an English language newspaper in Costa Rica that he has been “a target of death threats, persecution and a beating, apparently at the hands of members of a newly created military police unit.”
“Three months ago, they beat me up, members of the Military Police, and I still don’t know why,” Vallejo said. “The justice system in my country doesn’t work–at least not for people or for journalists who are against government corruption.”
The newspaper that Vallejo spoke to, The Tico Times, also reported on Thursday that four Honduran Public Order Military Police officers were arrested for kidnapping the owner of a produce store–three of the officials belonged to organization’s intelligence unit.
The force, which was founded in 2013, “has come under fire from opposition politicians and some civilian groups,” The Times’ George Rodriguez noted. “They say its creation has led to increasing militarization and human rights abuses, and that it does nothing to address corruption within the national police force. Some accuse the president of seeking to create a personal security force.”
Mistrust in Honduran police is so endemic, The Christian Science Monitor pointed out, that many Hondurans are reluctant to report being victimized by criminals, in spite of the country’s murder rate being one of the highest in the world.
The President who established the force, Juan Orlando Hernandez, met with Cornyn and the partner on the congressional delegation (CODEL), Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). Cornyn tweeted a photograph of the meeting, while Kaine did not.
Hernandez, University of California at Santa Cruz history professor Dana Frank wrote earlier this month, “has a long and continuing record of subverting the rule of law himself.”
“He was the head of a congressional committee that approved the 2009 coup,” she said. “In December 2012, as President of Congress, he lead the famous ‘technical coup’ in which he deposed four members of the Supreme Court and named new ones, loyal to him, the next day–completely illegally. In the summer of 2013 he was key to the illegal naming of a new Attorney General to a five-year term. His presidential campaign and subsequent administration this past year have been built around a new, 5,000-strong military police force, in violation of the Honduran constitution, which prohibits military involvement in policing except in emergencies.”
The Tico Times noted that Honduras’ legislative branch in January rejected a proposal to give that military police force constitutional recognition, and that Hernandez subsequently called for a referendum to settle the issue—a move that is bound to give critics of the government additional trouble, with Hernandez having been accused of ascending to the presidency in 2013 through fraud and by committing violence against opponents.
By not noting it occurred, Kaine appeared to be downplaying the meeting with Hernandez. The Democrat has a history of ties to the Central American country, having volunteered with a Jesuit-run technical school there three and a half decades ago. While lacking documentation of meetings with Honduran government leaders, his Twitter feed noted a Tuesday visit to a US Agency for International Development-supported outreach center for “at-risk youth”—posts included a shot of the senator playing soccer—a meeting, alongside Sen. Cornyn, with business leaders affiliated with the American Chamber of Commerce, and a helicopter ride with Cornyn, and US Ambassador James Nealon. Amid reports of violence perpetrated by security forces against political opponents near the Nov. 2013 election, Kaine wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry, calling on the US to “press the Government of Honduras to ensure the right of all its citizens to peacefully assemble, campaign and vote.” Kaine’s press office did this week note, however, that he would be meeting with “Honduran officials” during the ongoing CODEL.
Many lawmakers who have criticized, on the grounds of human rights concerns, the Obama administration’s outreach to the Cuban government are open supporters of the junta in Honduras, as The Sentinel has detailed. In December, Cornyn criticized President Obama for “capitulation to a State Department-designated state sponsor of terrorism and a failing communist regime that abuses its own citizens.”
Many lawmakers, however–including Kaine–have long noted repression in Honduras, and have questioned US support for it. In 2014, 108 Congresspeople called on the administration to examine “US support and training for the Honduran police and military in accordance with human rights conditions placed in the 2014 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations law.”
