‘Deeply alarming corruption’: US bill would sanction Honduran president
A group of influential Democratic senators are introducing legislation which would sanction the president of Honduras – an alleged drug trafficker and key US ally – and cut off financial aid and ammunition sales to the country’s security forces which are implicated in widespread human rights abuses and criminal activities.
The Honduras Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Act, co-sponsored by Senators Jeff Merkley, Bernie Sanders, Patrick Leahy, Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, Dick Durbin, Sheldon Whitehouse and Chris Van Hollen, would suspend certain US assistance to the Central American country until corruption and human rights violations are no longer systemic, and the perpetrators of these crimes start facing justice.
Joe Biden has vowed to tackle the root causes of migration from Central America’s northern triangle – Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador – the most violent region in the world outside an official war zone, which accounts for most migrants and refugees seeking safety and economic opportunities in the US.
This bill makes clear that tackling migration from Honduras will be impossible if the US continues to prop up the president, Juan Orlando Hernández, and the security forces.
It lays bare the violence and abuses perpetrated since the 2009 military-backed coup, as a result of widespread collusion between government officials, state and private security forces, organized crime and business leaders.
It also catalogues the systematic use of force against civilians, a clampdown on the freedom of speech and protest, and targeted attacks such as arbitrary arrests, assassinations, forced disappearances and fabricated criminal charges against human rights and environmental defenders, political opponents and journalists.
In the past year alone, at least 34,000 citizens have been detained for violating curfew and lockdown restrictions including nurse Kelya Martinez, who earlier this month was killed in police custody.
“The United States cannot remain silent in the face of deeply alarming corruption and human rights abuses being committed at the highest levels of the Honduran government,” said Merkley, who serves on the Senate foreign relations committee. “A failure to hold President Hernández, national officials and the police and military accountable for these crimes will fuel widespread poverty and violence and force more families to flee their communities in search of safety.”
This is the first time the Senate has proposed legislation which could genuinely threaten the post-coup regime, which has used drug money, stolen public funds and fraud to maintain its grip on power with few consequences from the international community.
Hernández, who has been identified as a co-conspirator in three major drug trafficking and corruption cases brought by New York prosecutors, would be investigated under the Kingpin Act to determine whether he is a designated narcotics trafficker – a criminal status given to drug bosses like Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
By Nina Lakhani, The Guardian, 23 February 2021
Read more at The Guardian
Source: riskscreen.com
