Honduras prison blaze kills at least 358

By FREDDY CUEVAS and MARCOS ALEMAN | Associated Press – Feb. 15, 2012

COMAYAGUA, Honduras — A fire started by an inmate tore through an
overcrowded prison in Honduras, burning and suffocating screaming men in
their locked cells as rescuers desperately searched for keys. Officials
confirmed 358 dead Wednesday, making it the world's deadliest prison fire
in a century.

The local governor, who was once a prison employee, told reporters that an
inmate called her moments before the blaze broke out and screamed: "I will
set this place on fire and we are all going to die!"

Comayagua Gov. Paola Castro said she called the Red Cross and fire brigade
immediately after receiving the call late Tuesday night. But firefighters
said they were kept outside for half an hour by guards who fired their
guns in the air, thinking they had a riot or a breakout on their hands.

Officials have long had little control over conditions inside many
Honduran prisons, where inmates have largely unfettered access to cell
phones and other contraband.

Survivors told investigators the unidentified inmate set fire to his
bedding in the farm prison in the central town of Comayagua, 53 miles (86
kilometers) north of Tegucigalpa. The lockup housed people convicted of
serious crimes such as homicide and armed robbery, but also those who had
yet to be tried.

The blaze spread within minutes, killing inmates in their locked barracks.

"We couldn't get them out because we didn't have the keys and couldn't
find the guards who had them," Comayagua fire department spokesman Josue
Garcia said.

With 856 prisoners packed into barracks, the prison was at double
capacity, said Supreme Court Justice Richard Ordonez, who is leading the
investigation. There were only 12 guards on duty when the fire broke out,
said state prosecutor German Enamorado.

Ordonez told The Associated Press the fire started in a barracks where 105
prisoners were bunked, and only four of them survived. Some 115 bodies had
been sent on Wednesday to the morgue in the capital of Tegucigalpa.

Other prisoners were set free by guards but died from the flames or smoke
as they tried to flee into the fields surrounding the facility, where
prisoners grew corn and beans on a state-run farm.

Survivors told grim tales of climbing walls to break the sheet metal
roofing and escape, only to see prisoners in other cell blocks being
burned alive.

"I only saw flames, and when we got out, they were being burned, up
against the bars, they were stuck to them," said Eladio Chicas, 40, who
was in his 15th year of a 39-year sentence.

"It was something horrible," he said as he was led away by police,
handcuffed, to testify before a local court about what he saw. "This is a
nightmare."

Ordonez said the inmates' bodies were found piled up in the prison's
bathrooms, where they apparently fled to turn on the showers and hope the
water would save them from the blistering flames.

Instead, their bodies were found stacked like cordwood, burnt to cinders.

Prisoners perished clutching each other in bathtubs and curled up in
laundry sinks

Ordonez said other were found stuck to the metal roofing, their burned
bodies fused to the metal.

"We were awoken by the flames and screams," said homicide suspect Selbim
Adonay, 18, one of the prison's many inmates awaiting trial. He wore a
dust mask and handcuffs, his jeans torn. "We couldn't do anything because
we were locked up."

Comayagua was built in the 1940s for 400 inmates.

Inside the prison, charred walls and debris showed the path of the fire,
which burned through half of the prison, six barracks crammed with 70 to
105 inmates each in four levels of bunk beds.

Unlike U.S. prisons, where locks can be released automatically in an
emergency, Honduran prisons are infamous for being old, overcrowded
hotbeds of conflict and crime.

Outside the prison family members gathered late into the afternoon, some
crying and some demanding justice,

"We want to see the body," shouted Juan Martinez, whose son was reported
dead. "We'll be here until we get to do that."

A prisoner identified as Silverio Aguilar told HRN Radio that he first
knew something was wrong when he heard a scream of "Fire! Fire!"

"For a while, nobody listened. But after a few minutes, which seemed like
an eternity, a guard appeared with keys and let us out," he said.

He said there were 60 prisoners packed into his cell.

National prison system director Danilo Orellana defended the guards'
decision to keep firefighters out as flames lit up the night sky.

"The guards first thought they had a prison break, so they followed the
law saying no one could enter to prevent unnecessary deaths," he said.

Honduran President Porfirio Lobo said on national television that he had
suspended the country's top penal officials, including Orellana, and would
request international assistance in carrying out a thorough investigation.

"This is a day of profound sadness," Lobo said.

Orellana said the convicts were allowed to work outdoors, unlike those
held in a maximum-security facility for the country's most dangerous
prisoners in the capital, Tegucigalpa.

Located in the middle of irrigated fields and several large ponds, the
prison was comprised of 12 buildings set close together, with an open,
dirt prison yard within a central compound. A single dirt road led into
the facility, which has a soccer field on the property.

Honduras has one of the world's highest rates of violent crime, and its
overcrowded and dilapidated prisons have been hit by a string of deadly
riots and fires in recent years. Officials have repeatedly pledged to
improve conditions, only to say they don't have sufficient funds.

Tuesday's blaze was the world's deadliest prison fire since 1930, when 322
prisoners were killed in Ohio.

Honduras has 24 prisons, 23 for men or both genders, and one exclusively
for women. In December, the total prison population was 11,846 of which
411 were women.

___

Associated Press writers Christine Armario from Comayagua, Honduras, and
Martha Mendoza from Mexico City contributed to this report

Killings of journalists go unsolved in Honduras

By FREDDY CUEVAS and MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press May 25, 2011

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – The second attack on a Honduran journalist is less
than week comes with the usual measure of doubt over whether it was a
personal attack, robbery or a way to silence a public critic in one of the
worst countries for press freedom in the hemisphere.

One thing more certain: No one has been arrested in either the May 19
killing of Honduran TV station owner Luis Mendoza or the serious wounding
Monday of newspaper owner Manuel Acosta, who managed to drive himself home
after being shot six times.

Despite the government's repeated assurances it is looking into the
killings, press groups cite "a systematic failure" of law enforcement to
solve all but two of 13 journalist killings over the past 18 months as
well as many more non-lethal attacks.

Mendoza's case is in some ways typical in a country where reporting isn't
very lucrative and many journalists have other jobs or business interests.
In addition to owning the Channel 24 TV station, he had coffee, real
estate and farming interests.

Police officials note that business owners in Honduras are often targets
for extortion or kidnapping by street gangs or drug cartels.

But the way Mendoza was killed, and his car burned in the provincial city
of Danli, didn't look like a simple robbery of a well-heeled media owner.

"The way they killed him suggest organized crime. They got out with AK-47
rifles and 9-mm pistols," said Carlos Lauria, the Americas coordinator for
the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Even in a violence-plagued country of 7.7 million people, where the
homicide rate of about 77 per 100,000 puts it among the highest in the
Western Hemisphere, many groups feel there just seems to be too many
focused, selective attacks on journalists for it to be a coincidence.

The Inter-American Press Association said in a report last month that
Honduras is one of the most dangerous countries for journalists in the
hemisphere.

"Aggression, intimidation, and threats against reporters and media
executives have continued, as a consequence of the political crisis of
June 2009 and the surge of organized crime and narco-trafficking," the
press group said, referring to a coup that deposed President Manuel Zelaya
two years ago.

The report quoted Honduras' vice minister of security, Armando Calidonio,
as saying none of the murders of journalists in 2010 was related to their
work.

Acosta, manager of the daily newspaper La Tribuna, was ambushed as he
drove home from work in Tegucigalpa. Attackers boxed him in between two
vehicles and sprayed his car with gunfire. The 70-year-old Acosta somehow
survived and drove home despite his wounds; his family took him to a
hospital.

Co-workers said Acosta didn't have other business interests, and no known
conflicts with anyone.

"Yes, the problem of common crime is shocking, but his car had 30 bullet
holes in it," noted Lauria at the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Some attacks and intimidation seem clearly linked to journalists' work.

Esther Major, the Central America researcher for Amnesty International,
points to the case of Arnulfo Aguilar, director of the opposition-oriented
Radio Uno station in the northern city of San Pedro Sula who had publicly
complained of threats before he was confronted by gunmen April 27.

At least eight armed men with ski masks covering their faces lay in wait
for Aguilar when he returned home from his station at midnight. They
shouted threats and tried to block his car, and later surrounded his
house, until police rescued him.

His station had just completed a report on purported weapons trafficking
by the military.

Many fear the tension left over from Zelaya's ouster, which divided the
nation, is responsible in part for the journalist attacks. Opposition
media outlets such as Radio Uno suffered harassment and were
intermittently closed down after the 2009 coup.

Sympathizers of Zelaya, who is scheduled to return to the country as a
private citizen Saturday, and opposition unionists, peasant leaders,
journalists and teachers are being targeted.

Others note that anti-Zelaya journalists have also been attacked,
including Channel 8's Karol Cabrera, who fled to Canada in 2010 after
surviving two attempts on her life.

National police spokesman Kelsin Arteaga denies there is any common
denominator in the attacks.

"There is no relationship between the different cases," Arteaga said.
"Every one of the cases involves specific circumstances, and the majority
of the killings do not have anything to do with the professional work of
the journalists or any of the other (victims)."

Arteaga notes that Honduras "is suffering a generalized violence unleashed
by drug cartels" that results in violence against all walks of life.

Bertha Oliva, a leading human rights activist in Honduras, agrees on that
point.

Widespread violence "attacks journalists, media owners, common people and
even some people who have posts in the government," Oliva said. "The
guilty party is the government, which has demonstrated an inability to
investigate the crimes. That inability makes it an accomplice."

But media groups complain that in most of the attacks on journalists, no
one has been arrested or even identified. Lauria calls it "a systematic
failure by the authorities to solve these crimes."

"In these two (most recent) cases, it is going to be very difficult,
almost impossible to determine in the current circumstances whether they
were intended as messages to the media or not," he said.

Arteaga, the police spokesman, disputed that view. "All the cases of
murdered journalists have been investigated," he said. "Some of the deaths
have been caused by personal conflicts."

In the past, authorities have mentioned jealousy or business deals gone
bad as possible motives.

With Zelaya's return, the administration of elected President Porfirio
Lobo hopes to remove the last obstacle to the country's readmission to the
Organization of American States, from which Honduras was expelled after
conservatives and the military hustled the leftist Zelaya out of the
country aboard an airplane.

Respect for human rights and free expression are among the commitments the
Honduran government has made as part of a campaign for international
acceptance, but rights groups question whether it will live up to them.

"You look at some verbal commitments the government has made recently both
in front of the U.N. Human Rights Council, and various other political
forums, they're very keen to rejoin the OAS, so they're making a lot of
verbal commitments on human rights," said Major, the Amnesty International
researcher. "But they're not taking the steps necessary to give those
verbal commitments any credibility."

__

Associated Press writer Freddy Cuevas reported this story in Tegucicalpa,
Honduras, and Mark Stevenson from Mexico City.

Honduras: Director of Radio Uno Survives Assassination Attempt

Date: Thursday, April 28, 2011

(Versión original en español, haz clic aqui)

The Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras
(COFADEH by its Spanish initials), urgently denounces that at 11:30pm on
Wednesday, April 27th, 2011, around ten armed men wearing ski masks
attempted to assassinate Arnulfo Aguilar, the Director of Radio Uno in the
city of San Pedro Sula, in front of his house.

Aguilar told COFADEH that he succeeded in locking himself into his home
while the men surrounded the house trying to jump over the wall. He
reports that he called the local Police Division #1 where he was told they
would move immediately, however it was a full hour before, in a very
indifferent manner, officers of Patrol #123 did no more than escort
Aguilar to the central boulevard and left him there.

The General Coordinator of COFADEH, Bertha Oliva, attempted a series of
calls to high-ranking officials of the police, even with the very Security
Minister Oscar Alvarez, where she was told that their mobile phones were
turned off and that the minister has left orders to not call him after 10
pm.

Arnulfo Aguilar has protective measures granted by the Inter-American
Commission of Human Rights resulting from the series of attacks that he
and his team at Radio Uno have suffered. The attacks include death
threats, kidnappings, and attacks against the radio equipment itself, all
taking place since Aguilar and the entire radio collective assumed a
position of opposition to the coup d'etat of June 28th, 2009.

Aguilar denounced that in the last few months, various members of the
collective have been victims of kidnappings and attempted kidnappings.

Aguilar told COFADEH that, “tensions have risen since April 26th when we
began tackling the subject of the Armed Forces involvement in supplying
weapons to the drug cartels.”

According to a US Defense Intelligence Agency report leaked by WikiLeaks
entitled “Honduras: Military Weaponry Feeding the Black Weapon Market”,
serial numbers found on anti-tank weaponry discovered in Ciudad Juárez,
Mexico and San Andrés Island, Colombia, match the serial numbers of
weapons that had been sold to Honduras. Beyond the weapons, the US
authorities confiscated a series of M433 grenades from criminal
organizations in Mexico, which can also be traced back to the Honduran
military.

For COFADEH this latest attack against Arnulfo Aguilar is very worrying
and, once again, places the State of Honduras in a delicate position given
that it has done nothing to protect the lives of Aguilar or the Radio Uno
collective. We have already seen the serious consequences that come when
the state doesn't urgently implement these measures. Such as the case of
the journalist Nahum Palacios, who also received protective measures from
the IACHR and yet was assassinated by numerous masked men armed with
AK-47s, shot dead while heading to his home in Tocoa, Colon on the night
of March 14th, 2010.

For all the reasons described above, we demand immediate actions to
protect Aguilar, who succeeded in saving his life, but he has told COFADEH
that he has concerns further actions could be carried out against him,

FOR THE FACTS AND THE CULPRITS

NO FORGETTING, NO FORGIVING

Committee of the Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras

COFADEH

Tegucigalpa, April 27th, 2011

Honduran police break up protest by teachers

By FREDDY CUEVAS, Associated Press Mar 28, 2011

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Honduran police using tear gas and water cannons
dispersed a group of protesters who blocked a main avenue in the capital
to demand the return of ousted former President Manuel Zelaya from exile.

The protests led by teachers are entering their third week in Honduras,
where Zeyala was ousted in a 2009 coup. The teachers are demanding Zelaya
be allowed to return from exile in the Dominican Republic.

They are also protesting a six-month delay in salary payments and a
proposal to give local communities more control over the country's highly
centralized school system. The government says the protesters want to
destabilize the country.

Students and striking health care workers were also at the protest Monday,
said police spokesman Wilmer Suazo.

President Porfirio Lobo said the protests are aimed at undermining
Honduras' efforts to be reincorporated into the Organization of American
States, which suspended the country after Zelaya's ouster.

"They are trying to destabilize my government," Lobo said at a news
conference. "All of this is part of an ideological strategy to provoke
difficulties, especially now that there is the possibility of returning to
the OAS at the next general assembly in June."

Zelaya, who is in exile in the Dominican Republic, was ousted in June 28,
2009 in a dispute over changing the Honduran constitution. Lobo was
elected in a previously scheduled election later that year but many Zelaya
backers argue the vote was illegitimate because it occurred under an
interim government installed by the coup.

A coalition of Zelaya supporters called the National Front of Popular
Resistance has called for a general strike Wednesday, threatening to
escalate the conflict in the polarized and impoverished Central American
country.

"Porfirio Lobo is once again revealing the fascist character of his
government, which is trying to destroy popular organization and the gains
of the people to impose an economic system that only benefits the
oligarchy and multilateral companies," the front said in a statement.

About 14,000 public health care workers walked off the job for four hours
Monday to support the pro-Zelaya demonstrators and protest a proposal to
raise the retirement age for civil servants from 65 to 70 years old. Union
leader Orlando Discua said the strike ended after the president of the
Honduran Congress insisted there were no immediate plans to the proposal.

The teachers' union also filed a criminal complaint against the Lobo
government for the death of assistant principal Ilse Velasquez during a
protest last week. Protesters say she was hit by a police vehicle that was
spraying water at protesters.

1 dead, 2 injured in protests by Honduras teachers

March 18, 2011 Associated Press

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Honduras' president ordered striking school
teachers back to work Friday following clashes with police that left one
teacher dead and two others injured.

The teachers are demanding better conditions as well as the return of
ousted former President Manuel Zelaya.

Assistant principal Ilse Velasquez, 59, died from head injuries, Hospital
Escuela spokeswoman Lilia Leiva said. Velasquez worked at a school in
Tegucigalpa, the capital.

Pro-Zelaya radio station Radio Globo said Velasquez was struck in the face
by a tear gas grenade then hit by a police vehicle that was spraying water
at protesters.

Police Chief Juan Canales said the case was under investigation and
provided no other details.

Teachers, who began protesting Thursday, were given big pay raises by
Zelaya before he was ousted in a 2009 coup and the strikers are demanding
his return.

After two days of protests that blocked streets, President Porfirio Lobo's
administration issued an emergency decree Friday ordering teachers back to
work. The decree permits the government to fire those who disobey the
order and hire temporary substitutes to replace them.

Zelaya's term ran out several months after his ouster and Lobo won the
subsequent election.

Zelaya currently lives in the Dominican Republic and has said wants to
return to Honduras, but first wants arrest warrants against him dropped.
He faces charges of fraud, usurping powers and falsifying documents, which
he calls politically motivated.