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Thanks to Grassroots Pressure, US Withholds Funds to Honduran Police
Source: School of the Americas Watch and the Honduras Solidarity Network
August 24, 2012
Over the last few weeks, thousands of you around the country have sent messages to your members of Congress, urging them to ask U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to suspend U.S. assistance to the Honduran military and police, given the widespread, serious human rights violations by the U.S.-trained Honduran security forces.
Now, the U.S. government is responding to the grassroots pressure by withholding funds to Honduran law enforcement units directly supervised by Juan Carlos “El Tigre” Bonilla, the SOA graduate who became the new national police chief. Funding will be withheld until the U.S. can investigate allegations that he ran a death squad a decade ago.
The strategy of using death squads for the military’s dirty work is certainly nothing new for SOA students: Roberto D’Aubuisson established the Death Squads that were responsible for much of the violence in El Salvador in the 1980’s, and Benedicto Lucas Garcia masterminded the creation of the Civil Defense Patrols in Guatemala. Mexico’s José Ruben Rivas Peña , who took the SOA’s elite Command and Staff Course, called for the “training and support for self-defense forces or other paramilitary organizations in Chiapas,” and many of the Colombian officers cited in reports about collaboration with paramilitary groups graduated from the School of the Americas (SOA). A report, released by the State Department says that it “is aware of allegations of human rights violations related to Police Chief Juan Carlos Bonilla’s service” and that the U.S. government has established a working group to investigate.
This is a good step in the right direction that only happened because you were pushing for change. However, we need to push further. According to the Honduras Solidarity Network, 20% of U.S. aide to the National Police of Honduras will be suspended pending investigation. But graduates of the SOA, who head state security forces under the illegitimate post-coup regime of Porfirio Lobo, will continue to work in complicity with private security forces to repress small farmers and cooperatives from defending the lands that provide their sustenance. And this move by the U.S. government does not address the current political repression in Honduras which is among the worst in the hemisphere with journalists, opposition activists, and LGBT activists being murdered in complete impunity.
In a statement after the announcement, the Honduras Solidarity Network stated:
“For three years, since the coup d’e’tat of June 28, 2009, organizations in Honduras and in the United States have repeatedly called for cutting off aid to the Honduran military, national police and other entities responsible for the coup and for the ongoing and violent human rights violations. Given the efforts of our organizations and of Honduran human rights defenders and the role of the National Police in human rights abuses, violence, and impunity, the HSN welcomes the suspension of some of the aid to the National Police.
However, we recognize that this suspension is temporary and limited. While it relates to serious violent abuses ten years ago, it does not touch on the hundreds of beatings, detentions, torture, disappearances and murders committed in total impunity since June 2009.”
What You Can Do:
Call the Honduras Desk in the State Department at 202-647-3482 and let them know that while we appreciate their report, the investigation and that some of the funding is being withheld it is absolutely urgent that ALL U.S. military and police training and aid to the repressive Honduran security forces be cut immediately. Afterwards, call the Capitol Switchboard at 202- 224-3121 and talk to the office of your Member of Congress. Let them know that we need them to amplify our voices at the State Department, that we need them to also work for the end to all U.S. military and police training and aid to Honduras as well as for the closing of the notorious School of the Americas, where many of the people responsible for the coup and the ongoing repression in Honduras were trained.
US cites human rights concerns, withholds funds to Honduran National Police
By Associated Press, Published: August 11 in the Washington Post
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — The U.S. government is withholding funds to Honduran law enforcement units directly supervised by their new national police chief until the U.S. can investigate allegations that he ran a death squad a decade ago, according to a State Department report released this week.
The report says the State Department “is aware of allegations of human rights violations related to Police Chief Juan Carlos Bonilla’s service” and that the U.S. government has established a working group to investigate.
The U.S. had pledged $56 million in bilateral security and development assistance for 2012 in Honduras, where tons of drugs pass through each year on their way to the United States. Under the new guidelines, the U.S. is limiting assistance so that it only goes to special Honduran law enforcement units, staffed by Honduran personnel “who receive training, guidance, and advice directly from U.S. law enforcement and are not under Bonilla’s direct supervision,” according to the report.
Foreign operations law requires that 20 percent of assistance to Honduras be withheld until the Secretary of State certifies that Honduras is taking steps to improve human rights conditions and investigate allegations of abuses. In an unusual twist, the report certifies the Honduran government is meeting human rights requirements, but nonetheless says the U.S. government is withholding aid to agents working under Bonilla.
State Department officials reached late Friday and Saturday could not confirm how much funding was being withheld nor how they determined the conditions were met.
Honduran President Porfirio Lobo’s spokesman Miguel Bonilla, who is not related to the police chief Bonilla, said Saturday that the administration has repeatedly pledged full support for the police chief and that under his leadership “there has been a real improvement in the security situation.” Honduran officials did not comment on the funds being withheld but said the government “has an unconditional commitment to human rights.”
Earlier this year, The Associated Press reported that Bonilla, nicknamed “The Tiger,” had been widely accused of killings and human rights violations in a decade-old internal Honduran police report. The report named Bonilla in at least three killings or forced disappearances between 1998 and 2002 and said he was among several officers suspected in 11 other cases.
