Did the US Cover Up Its Role in a Deadly Honduran Counter-Narcotics Operation?

[Judi Lynn]

Did the US Cover Up Its Role in a Deadly Honduran Counter-Narcotics Operation?
Saturday, 27 April 2013 00:00 By Lauren Carasik, Truthout | Op-Ed

On May 11, 2012, four Hondurans were killed, including two women, a young man and a 14-year-old boy, and three more were gravely injured in a drug interdiction operation conducted by a joint US-Honduran mission. In the outcry that followed, the US relied on a widely criticized investigation conducted by Honduran authorities to exonerate its agents for any culpability for the fatalities that occurred that day. According to a follow-up report issued by US-based NGOs the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Rights Action earlier this month, US deference to the flawed Honduran investigation raises suspicions about its commitment to uncovering the truth about what really transpired.

The Honduran investigation into eyewitness and forensic evidence was faulty and incomplete. Numerous inconsistencies between the reports of the Honduran officers and the victims seemed to all be resolved in favor of the testimony of the officers. In a decision that defies explanation if uncovering the truth was the real goal, the US declined to make Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agents available to be questioned by the Honduran investigators.

In citing the forensic evidence gathered, the Honduran report notes that the National Police turned over their firearms for ballistic and other testing. In a striking omission, the report fails to mention that no investigation was conducted on DEA firearms, which would seem to be important evidence to support the conclusion that DEA agents did not discharge their weapons. In fact, the Honduran report noted that "the members of the counternarcotics team are unable to say whether the FAST (Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Team) team member used his firearm or not in the midst of the cross-fire fray." The Honduran investigation noted with specificity the weaponry mounted on the US helicopters, but again failed to mention that these guns were not subjected to ballistics testing, despite testimony from witnesses that a helicopter fired on them.

The forensic evidence regarding the trajectory of the shots in the boat did not support the conclusion that all shots were necessarily fired from a lateral position. Moreover, the report takes pains to describe the facts preceding the shootings, but devotes far less attention to clarifying the critical elements of the operation. Instead of presenting a comprehensive review of evidence supporting an objective conclusion, the report seems calculated to exonerate US agents.

More:
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/16014-did-the-us-cover-up-its-role-in-a-deadly-honduran-counter-narcotics-operation

[Charlie Primero]

1. Sounds like a Conspiracy Theory.

I'm not buying.

[Coyotl]

3. Why do you write this?

[Peace Patriot]

5. If ever there was a conspiracy, it IS the U.S. "war on drugs"!

Conspiracy to imprison millions of poor people for the benefit of the "prison-industrial complex."

Conspiracy to militarize and brutalize this society, and every society where the U.S. "war on drugs" can get its boots on the ground, for the benefit of war profiteers of every kind, including private police/military 'contractors' and fear-mongering, war-mongering politicians.

Conspiracy to penetrate Latin American police and military forces, and infiltrate them with U.S. operatives, as one of the preps for fascist coups, to benefit transglobal corporations and banksters.

Conspiracy to spend TRILLIONS of U.S. taxpayer dollars on nothing--NOTHING!--no end to the "war," no abatement of hard drugs and big criminal operations. In fact, big criminal operations--and traffic in addictive and health-damaging drugs--prosper in this atmosphere, as the DEA, the FBI, the DIA, the AFT, the USAID, the CIA, et al, and the Pentagon, eliminate all the small players in favor of the big players.

Conspiracy to brutally displace FIVE MILLION peasant farmers from their lands, in Colombia alone, to murder thousands of peasant farmers, to spray toxic pesticides (Big Chem) on their food crops, their animals, their children and into their soils and water tables, for the benefit of Chiquita, Monsanto, Exxon Mobil, Occidental Petroleum and other land thieves.

Conspiracy to murder thousands of labor leaders and other advocates of the poor, using U.S. "war on drugs" militarization money and training, to benefit the rich and the transglobal.

Conspiracy to deny citizens the right to use herbal medicines (marijuana, coca leaf), thus benefiting Big Pharma.

Conspiracy to deny citizens the right to use the marijuana PLANT for the numerous products that this miraculous plant can produce. (Initial ban, here, was to suppress hemp paper and cut down California's redwood forest instead, to benefit huge logging interests.)

Conspiracy--as with the British Opium Wars--to addict subject populations to hard drugs.

Conspiracy to control societies by controlling the underground economy that banned substances creates.

Conspiracy to launder trillions of illicit dollars through U.S. banksters and to funnel this money to powerful beneficiaries, including the Bush Cartel and fascist causes here and in Latin America. Conspiracy to fund the CIA's black budgets by this means.

Conspiracy to COVER UP the training of death squads by Blackwater and other Bush Junta privateers, IN COLOMBIA, "for use in Iraq and Afghanistan," and testing out USAID/Pentagon "pacification" programs, the use of drones, and other abominations, IN COLOMBIA for other "theaters of war," under cover of the WAR ON DRUGS.

And you think that the DEA shooting up peasants in Honduras "sounds like a Conspiracy Theory" (by which you mean untrue)?

Well, I'll tell you what: I damn well think it IS a conspiracy to cover up the DEA and the U.S. State Department helicopter using their guns to murder innocent peasants. But even if they did NOT shoot these poor people--only their "trainees" did--WHAT WERE THEY DOING THERE?

Hm? You don't think it's a conspiracy that they were there? That the U.S. "war on drugs" is everywhere where the bodies are piling up into mountains of bodies--in Colombia, in Mexico, and now in Honduras?

Bloody hell! Where have you been? On Mars?

[Peace Patriot]

6. Here's another country going down the fascist, murderous "war on drugs" road to Hell...

"In the Wake of Last Year’s 'Soft Coup' against Paraguay’s President, Will a New Narco-Dictatorship Emerge?"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/110815280

[ocpagu]

2. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

US role in supporting the "war on poors" throughout Latin America grants legitimacy to suspicion. I don't think anyone would be surprised if that was true.

"Observers have noted the unprecedented cooperation between US and Honduran agents in drug interdiction efforts, amid growing discontent with the incalculable costs of the expanding war on drugs and increasing misgivings about its effectiveness."

We can only hope a really independent investigation will take place.

[newfie11]

4. I wouldn't hold my breath

Maybe 10 years or more before the truth comes out, if ever.