New Report on Deadly Honduras Counterdrugs Operation Raises New Questions Regarding U.S. Role

[Judi Lynn]

New Report on Deadly Honduras Counterdrugs Operation Raises New Questions Regarding U.S. Role
For Immediate Release: April 9, 2013

Washington, D.C.- A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) and Rights Action raises new questions regarding a May 11, 2012 DEA-related counternarcotics operation in which four Afro-indigenous civilians were killed and others were wounded in Honduras’ Moskitia region. The report, “Still Waiting for Justice,” concludes that the Honduran Public Ministry’s report – submitted to the U.S. State Department, and now available online - has “serious flaws,” such as omissions of critical testimony of police agents that suggests that U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agents may be responsible for the fatalities and injuries that took place during the operation. The victims included two women (at least one of whom was pregnant), a man and a 14-year-old boy.

“The Honduran government’s official investigation and report into the tragic and unnecessary killing of four villagers in Ahuas raises more questions than it answers,” paper co-author and CEPR’s Senior Associate for International Policy Alexander Main said. “The Public Ministry’s report doesn’t even attempt to establish who is ultimately responsible for the killings. Instead, it appears to be focused on absolving the DEA of all responsibility in the killings, through the omission of important testimony.”

“The investigation of the killings in Ahuas was biased at best, or intentionally manipulated at worst,” Rights Action Co-Director Annie Bird said. “In either case it is disturbing that the State Department and DEA stand behind the investigation, even as a U.S. police detective working for the U.S. Embassy participated in it must have had full knowledge of its flaws."

The CEPR/Rights Action report notes that several eyewitnesses, including shooting victims and DEA personnel have reported that at least one State Department-titled helicopter fired on the passenger boat carrying the shooting victims. But the report states, “the Public Ministry fails to mention any of these reports. Instead, the Ministry’s report repeatedly seeks to validate the notion that all the shots that hit the victims and the boat occurred on the same horizontal plane, even though the forensic evidence that is cited suggests otherwise.”

More:
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/press-releases/press-releases/new-report-on-deadly-honduras-counterdrugs-operation-raises-new-questions-regarding-us-role

[Demeter]

1. US Govt. will be oblivious...but at least it will be written down for the historians

sometimes, that's the most we can expect, until a major personnel shift occurs.

Where's the Plague when you need it?