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<div id="reader-header" class="header" style="display: block;"> <font
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href="https://theintercept.com/2017/12/03/the-president-of-honduras-is-deploying-u-s-trained-forces-against-election-protesters/">https://theintercept.com/2017/12/03/the-president-of-honduras-is-deploying-u-s-trained-forces-against-election-protesters/</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">The President of Honduras Is Deploying
U.S.-Trained Forces Against Election Protesters</h1>
<div class="PostByline-names" data-reactid="157"><a
class="PostByline-link" rel="author"
href="https://theintercept.com/staff/leefang/"
data-reactid="158"><span itemprop="name" data-reactid="159">Lee
Fang</span></a>, <a class="PostByline-link" rel="author"
href="https://theintercept.com/staff/danielle-marie-mackey/"
data-reactid="161"><span itemprop="name" data-reactid="162">Danielle
Marie Mackey</span></a><span class="PostByline-date"
data-reactid="164"> - December 3 2017</span></div>
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<div class="PostContent" data-reactid="178">
<div data-reactid="179">
<p><u>Honduran President Juan</u> Orlando Hernández,
using the specter of rampant crime and the drug trade,
won extensive support from the American government to
build up highly trained state security forces. Now,
those same forces are repressing democracy.</p>
<p>The post-election situation in Honduras continues to
deteriorate as Hernández, a conservative leader and
stalwart U.S. ally in Central America, has disputed
the result of last week’s vote while working to crack
down on protests sweeping the nation.</p>
<p>Initial results showed Salvador Nasralla, an
ex-sportscaster chosen by an alliance of left-wing
political parties as their candidate, leading the <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/world/americas/honduras-election-salvador-nasralla-juan-orlando-hernandez.html">vote
count</a> after the November 26 presidential
election. The lead was substantial enough that <span
class="s1">a magistrate on </span>the Supreme
Electoral Tribunal estimated victory by Nasralla,
characterizing his lead as “irreversible.”</p>
<p>The next day the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE by
its Spanish initials) <span class="s1">announced that
Hernandez was closing the gap. Then it </span>suddenly
stopped publicizing the tally, <span class="s1">alleging
that its electronic system went down, </span>prompting <a
href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/european-observers-worried-silence-honduran-election-51437137">criticism</a>
from European Union election observers. Police and
military flooded the streets in the hours of silence
that followed. On Wednesday, the announcement that
Hernández had overtaken Nasralla in the vote count was
met with disbelief. In the <a
href="https://twitter.com/CarlosDada/status/936359570150129665">words</a>
of Salvadoran journalist Carlos Dada, “There are only
two possibilities: Either the TSE is of Olympic
incompetence or it’s committing fraud.”</p>
<p>The turn of events led to chaos on the streets, and
Hernández instituted a military-imposed curfew across
the nation on Friday. At least one protester has been
killed and scores of others have been injured and
arrested in violent clashes with police.</p>
<p>For human rights observers, the curfew and delay
of an official recount are steps to produce an
inevitable Hernández victory, regardless of the vote
tally.</p>
<p>“The delay has only served to fuel claims of mass
fraud, confusion, and deep suspicion,” said Karen
Spring, a human rights activist with the Honduran
Solidarity Network. The demonstrators “went into the
street because they know that being calm means
allowing a cover-up to happen and what many call a
dictator to illegally stay in power,” she added.</p>
<p>Several observers on the ground told The Intercept
that they have seen elite military police from the
TIGRES and Cobras units alongside the Honduran
National Police involved in <a
href="http://www.sinembargo.mx/30-11-2017/3357570">clashes</a>
with protesters in the capital, Tegucigalpa, and
around the country. The three forces are increasingly
coordinated as the violence soars, they say.</p>
<p>On the evening of Wednesday November 29, the three
forces launched tear gas against an estimated 1,000
people who were gathered to wait for results outside
the building where the TSE tabulated. Among the
demonstrators was former police commissioner Maria
Luisa Borjas, who wrote in an email statement to a
group of journalists that the people gathered included
many children and the elderly, along with opposition
candidate Nasralla and his pregnant wife.</p>
<p>An American human rights observer also present said
that when the coalition of police forces attacked the
crowd the gathering was peaceful. “People were singing
and had a giant Honduran flag, they were running up
and down the street. It was beautiful actually. People
were angry – it was loud – but it was peaceful,” the
observer, who asked for anonymity given the
increasingly dangerous situation, told The Intercept
in a phone interview.</p>
<p>On Friday evening, as police cleared demonstrators
from the streets of the La Kennedy neighborhood of
Tegucigalpa, officers adorned with visible TIGRES
insignia were spotted by Spring. The TIGRES were
accompanied by Cobras and Honduran National Police
(PNH), according to another human rights observer from
the U.S., who also asked not to be named out of fear
for her safety.</p>
<p><span class="">On Saturday night, Borjas received
multiple emergency calls from the Cabañas
neighborhood of San Pedro Sula, a city in Northern
Honduras. People were being forced out of their
houses and into the streets when Honduran law
enforcement, including the PNH, launched tear gas
canisters into their homes. Police attacked because
the neighbors had begun a “cacerolazo,” a common
form of protest in Latin America</span><span
class="">, banging pots and pans when state
repression makes anything else impossible. Upon
forcing people out of their homes, the PNH arrested
them, Borjas said. “This is happening as we speak,”
she told </span>The Intercept<span class=""> in a
phone interview on Saturday night,</span><span
class=""> adding that the TIGRES and Cobras maintain
a strong presence on the streets especially around
the building where the votes are being tallied.</span></p>
<u>The PNH and</u>
<p style="display: inline;" class="readability-styled">
elite military police units are among the
beneficiaries of generous security-related foreign
aid earmarked for Honduras by the U.S. government.
Figures compiled by the Security Assistance Monitor
show that Honduras has received nearly </p>
<a
href="https://securityassistance.org/data/program/military/Honduras/2009/2018/all/Global/">$114
million</a>
<p style="display: inline;" class="readability-styled"> in
security support since 2009.</p>
<p>The PNH receives extensive training by various
branches of the U.S. government. The exact substance
of U.S. training for foreign security forces is
notoriously difficult to ascertain, but some light has
been shed by new data provided by the Departments of
State, Defense, Justice and Homeland Security at the
request of Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., and shared with
The Intercept by John Lindsey Poland, a Latin America
expert who participated in making the request.</p>
<p><span class="">In 2015, for instance, the data shows
that members of the PNH received courses titled
“Advanced Close Quarter Combat,” “Tactical Safety
and Survival,” “Communication and Electronic
Intelligence,” among others,</span><span> and
received donations including</span><span> Toyota
trucks and computers. “Multiple Honduran Military
and Law Enforcement Units” also received trainings
on “Special Forces Advanced Military Operations in
Urban Terrain,” “Reconnaissance and Surveillance”
and other themes. “This will support [U.S. Southern
Command] Theater Engagement strategy and will
improve partner national [counternarcotics] units’
abilities to conduct unilateral and combined
[counternarcotics] missions,” reads the text
describing the purpose and objective of those
courses, as reported by the Defense Department and
U.S. Southern Command.</span></p>
<p>Courses listed for the year 2016 were similar. The
instructors of the courses both years included federal
agencies like the DEA, FBI and the State Department’s
Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement
Affairs (INL), along with other agencies such as the
Chicago police force. The data does not include
additional detail about curriculum of the courses or
identifying information of trainers or trainees.</p>
<p>Since the elections, the Honduran government has made
no effort to conceal the role of the two elite
military police units. In the run up to the
election, Secretary of Security Julián Pacheco Tinoco <a
href="http://www.laprensa.hn/honduras/elecciones2017/1125131-410/honduras-elecciones-polic%C3%ADas-seguridad-">announced</a> that
TIGRES and Cobra forces would be among the 16,000
police officers deployed to monitor the election.</p>
<p>The Comando de Operaciones Especiales, or Cobras, are
riot police trained by U.S. SWAT teams. The Tropa de
Inteligencia de Respuesta Especial de Seguridad, or
TIGRES, were formed to fight urban violence and
organized crime in 2014 by Hernández as he took office
promising to bring down the world’s highest peacetime
murder rate.</p>
<p>The TIGRES are paid a higher salary than traditional
Honduran police, and they have also benefited from
close coordination with multiple U.S. military bases
in Honduras. A video <a
href="http://www.wsj.com/video/green-berets-train-elite-police-units-in-honduras/D80E3F64-F857-4439-892B-068B85445BBC.html">obtained</a> by
the Wall Street Journal shows Green Beret units
training with the TIGRES in the mountains of Honduras.</p>
<p>The militarized units, known to operate at night with
uniforms that disguise the officers’ faces, have <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKB445FC5sk">featured</a> widely
in Hernández’s political campaigns as the president
has championed his war on crime.</p>
<p>But the TIGRES, Cobras and PNH have all been <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2017/12/03/the-president-of-honduras-is-deploying-u-s-trained-forces-against-election-protesters/Both%20have%20been%20denounced%20for%20human%20rights%20violations.">denounced</a> for
human rights <a
href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/02/honduras-the-thugocracy-ext-door-103883">violations</a>.</p>
<p>The TIGRES in particular are said to have been used
to harass political opponents and simply rob the
cartels they are designed to rein in. Shortly after
the formation of the unit, TIGRES officers assigned to
work with the U.S. Embassy on counternarcotics
operations stole <a
href="https://www.insightcrime.org/news/brief/police-theft-of-1-3-mn-is-latest-mark-of-honduras-corruption/">$1.3
million</a> from cocaine traffickers targeted in a
raid.</p>
<p>Most controversically, there have
been allegations that TIGRES were involved in the
harassment of Berta Cáceres, an internationally-known
and respected human rights and environmental activist
who was <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2016/03/11/drugs-dams-and-power-the-murder-of-honduran-activist-berta-caceres/">assassinated
last year</a>.</p>
<p>Before her death, Cáceres, an outspoken critic of the
Hernández administration, warned that commandos from
the TIGRES had occupied her rural community,
where Cáceres had led a protest movement against a
planned hydroelectric dam. In a recording made just
one month before her killing, she explicitly named the
TIGRES, <a
href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/suspicions-mount-in-murder-of-noted-honduran-environmentalist/2016/03/17/cbac766c-ea2d-11e5-a9ce-681055c7a05f_story.html">calling</a> commandos
from the force a “hostile and aggressive presence.”</p>
<p>There have been attempts to stem U.S. aid to Honduras
since the environmentalist’s killing, either through
enforcing existing statutes, such as the so-called
Leahy Law, barring foreign aid to regimes with
repeated human rights violations, or passing new
legislation. In the House of Representatives, 68
Democrats have sponsored HR 1299, the Berta Cáceres
Human Rights in Honduras Act, to make Honduran foreign
aid contingent on anti-corruption measures and a halt
to the killing of journalists and activists in the
country.</p>
<blockquote class="stylized pull-center"
data-shortcode-type="pullquote" data-pull="center">“The
Honduran security forces are using our tax payer
dollars to repress peaceful demonstrations against
stolen elections.”</blockquote>
<p>The Republican majority in Congress has not <a
href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1299/actions">scheduled</a>
a hearing for the bill, making its prospects unlikely.
Now, Cáceres’ nephew Silvio Carillo, who lives in the
United States, tells The Intercept, “The Honduran
security forces are using our tax payer dollars to
repress peaceful demonstrations against stolen
elections. We are giving Juan Orlando Hernández money
so he can get away with murder.”</p>
<p>The build-up of military police forces, ostensibly to
combat the drug trade, comes as the Hernández
administration faces increasing attention for its own
role in drug cartels.</p>
<p>In March, Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga, the former
leader of the Cachiros cartel, told a federal
courtroom in New York that he had met with Hernández’s
brother to steer government contracts to a company
used to launder cartel money.</p>
<p>The revelation was made during the case of Fabio
Lobo, who plead guilty for attempting to smuggle
several tons of cocaine from Honduras to the United
States. Lobo is the politically connected son of
President Porfirio Lobo Sosa, Hernández’s predecessor
and ally in the right-wing National Party. Lobo was
elected in <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2017/08/29/honduras-coup-us-defense-departmetnt-center-hemispheric-defense-studies-chds/">2009
following the coup d’etat</a> that swept the
left-wing President Manuel Zelaya out of office.</p>
<p>A separate and equally stunning revelation was made
last year in a courtroom in South Florida, during a
case involving two nephews of Venezuelan President
Nicolás Maduro prosecuted for drug trafficking, as
researcher Jake Johnston <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2017/11/26/honduras-election-pacheco-security-minister-is-running-drugs-according-to-court-testimony/">recently
reported</a> for The Intercept.</p>
<p>During the trial, José Santos Peña, a Mexican drug
trafficker-turned-informant, confided that he had met
with Julián Pacheco, Hernández’s chief of security and
the head of the TIGRES forces, to <a
href="https://hondurasculturepolitics.blogspot.com/2016/12/honduran-security-minister-implicated.html">discuss
plans</a> to move cocaine through from Colombia
through Honduras to the United States. Santos said he
was introduced to Pacheco by Fabio Lobo.</p>
<p>Johnston notes that despite the disclosures, “Pacheco
remains a close US ally, whose <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2017/11/26/honduras-election-pacheco-security-minister-is-running-drugs-according-to-court-testimony/">ties
to the US military span decades</a>.” Now, Johnston
adds, “Pacheco is overseeing the same security forces
that are repressing election protesters in the
streets.”</p>
<p>Additionally, two 2017 reports, one from <a
href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-activists/honduras-deadliest-country-world-environmental-activism/">Global
Witness</a> and the other from the <a
href="http://carnegieendowment.org/2017/05/30/when-corruption-is-operating-system-case-of-honduras-pub-69999">Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace</a>, uncovered
damning evidence of systematic corruption, especially
as concerns the National Party, to which Hernández
belongs.</p>
<p>The increasing scrutiny, as well as the cascading
corruption scandal involving millions of dollars
stolen from the Honduran social security program <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/world/americas/honduras-election-juan-hernandez.html">in
part</a> to fund campaigns for the National Party,
has prompted a bonanza of D.C. lobbying by the
Honduran government.</p>
<p>Since 2014, Honduras has retained four lobbying firms
to reach out to lawmakers, members of the Trump
administration and the American media.</p>
<p>Records <a
href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4320718-6364-Supplemental-Statement-20170830-2.html">show</a> that
one lobbyist, Gus K. West, has reached out to
Florida’s Republican Senator Marco Rubio and
Democratic Rep. Ted Deutch, among others on Capitol
Hill, to tout Honduran efforts to combat crime,
and wrote to the New York Times on the assassination
of Cáceres. Another <a
href="https://keybridgecommunications.com/">lobbying
shop</a> on government retainer, Keybridge
Communications, has boosted Hernández’s reelection
effort, sending <a
href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4320719-6450-Informational-Materials-20170908-4.html">press
releases</a> to U.S. media <a
href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4320741-6450-Informational-Materials-20171126-14.html">boasting</a>
about the president’s commitment to confronting
corruption and the integrity of the presidential
election.</p>
<p>In a Dec 1 statement distributed by Keybridge, the
government of Honduras said that it is “deeply sad
that violence has erupted on the streets of Honduras
and that our nation’s democratic institutions have
come under attack ” — violence it goes on to blame on
ousted president Mel Zelaya for “inciting” Nasralla’s
supporters to engage in violence.</p>
<p>Hernández has also traveled to Washington to meet
with President Trump and Vice President Pence, both of
whom warmly welcomed the leader. He is also <a
href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/us-ally-says-he-won-honduras-presidential-election-hondurans-disagree">close</a>
to White House chief of staff John Kelly, who <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2017/08/29/honduras-coup-us-defense-departmetnt-center-hemispheric-defense-studies-chds/">referred</a> to
the president this year as a “great guy” and a “good
friend.”</p>
<p>Cultivating powerful friends in Washington has worked
so far, as Hernández has weathered criticism over his
handling of the Cáceres slaying, the social security
scandal, and his administration’s reported ties to
drug traffickers.</p>
<p>The crackdown by security forces only further
impresses the need to reconsider their U.S. funding,
experts say. “U.S.-funded police and military are
engaged in violent repression of Honduran protesters,
using munitions marked as made in the USA,” said Dana
Frank, Professor of History at the University of
California, Santa Cruz.</p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">“For years, members of
Congress have called for an immediate suspension of
police and military aid to Honduras, because of
ongoing human rights abuses like this, committed
with impunity,” said Frank. </span><span class="s2">“Now
those forces are being used to repress the basic
right of the Honduran people to protest. </span><span
class="s3">The Honduran elections offer a chance to
declare which side the US is on: democratic
processes and the rule of law, or the ongoing dance
with a dangerous dictator, further consolidating his
power.”</span></p>
<p class="caption">Top photo: Supporters of Honduran
presidential candidate for the Opposition Alliance
against the Dictatorship party Salvador Nasralla, are
affected by tear gas during a protest outside the
Electoral Supreme Court (TSE), to demand the
announcement of the election final results in
Tegucigalpa, on November 30, 2017.</p>
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