Honduras: Supporting Human Rights and Democracy

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 TEGUCIGALPA 000315

SIPDIS

STATE FOR DRL/PHD, DRL/IL, INL/LP, AND G/TIP
STATE FOR WHA/PPC AND WHA/CEN
DOL FOR ILAB
STATE PASS AID FOR LAC/CEN
GUATEMALA FOR AID/G-CAP

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PHUM ELAB PGOV PREL SMIG EAID KDEM KJUS HO
SUBJECT: Honduras: Supporting Human Rights and Democracy

REF: 03 STATE 333935


1. The following is Post's submission for the "Supporting
Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2003-4" for
Honduras.


2. Begin Text

Honduras' constitutional government is headed by President
Ricardo Maduro, elected in November 2001 in elections that
domestic and international observers judged to be free and
fair. Since its inauguration in 2002, the Government
generally respected the human rights of its citizens;
however, there are serious problems in some areas. Members
of the police were accused of committing extrajudicial
killings. Organized private and vigilante security forces
were believed to have committed a number of arbitrary and
summary executions. Human rights groups accused former
security force officials and the business community of
colluding to organize "death squads" to commit extrajudicial,
summary, and arbitrary executions, particularly of youth.
Prison conditions remained harsh, and detainees often did not
receive due process. The administration of justice was
problematic due to inefficient, understaffed, and underfunded
police, Public Ministry (prosecutors),and judiciary, all of
which were subject to corruption and political influence.
There was considerable impunity for members of the economic,
military, and official elite. Other human rights problems
included violence and discrimination against women and
discrimination against indigenous people. The Government did
not effectively enforce all labor laws and child labor
remained a serious problem. Honduras is a source and transit
country for trafficking in persons, including commercial
sexual exploitation.

U.S. officials highlight publicly the need for improvements
in human rights conditions, particularly the rule of law and
administration of justice. The Mission uses speaker programs
to bolster this effort. The Ambassador and other officers of
the U.S. Mission also work privately with Honduran government
officials, NGOs, labor unions, and other organizations to
discuss areas of particular concern and to encourage reforms.
The Secretary of State discussed human rights and democracy
issues in Honduras during November 4, 2003, meetings with
senior Honduran government officials in Tegucigalpa. The
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy,
Human Rights, and Labor discussed the problems of
extrajudicial killings and trafficking in persons during
November 19-20, 2003, meetings with senior Honduran
government officials in Tegucigalpa.

The Embassy, using INL counternarcotics assistance, is
spending $100,000 in 2003-2004 for "Si Se Puede", a
government program coordinated by the Vice President's office
that seeks to prevent drug use and gang membership among
vulnerable sectors, such as youth at risk. Many of these
youth are at risk of being victims of violence, including
extrajudicial killings, if they join gangs. The projects are
carried out with the assistance of NGOs, police, community
leaders, and teachers to allow wide participation.

The Embassy focused most of its human rights and democracy
promotion effort on the rule of law and administration of
justice. To foster more professional police and reduce human
rights abuses, the Embassy is spending $200,000 in 2003-2005
in INL Police Assistance Funds for the Police Internal
Affairs Office to investigate complaints, including those
from private citizens, and make recommendations for
substantiated complaints, ranging from administrative
disciplinary action to criminal charges.

USAID is spending $3,100,000 in Fiscal Year 2003 funds on
administration of justice measures. Significant USAID
assistance over the last several years has been spent in the
development and implementation of a new Criminal Procedure
Code, which introduced oral, adversarial trials, more
effective and transparent procedures, and greater protections
for individual rights. USAID funded the training and
distribution of materials for judges, prosecutors, public
defenders, and forensics experts. The USAID-designated pilot
courts in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula concluded an
impressive total of 373 trials and another 4,905 cases were
closed through non-trial procedures. The Supreme Court
created a USAID-funded "purging unit" to clear backlogged
cases from prior to the implementation of the new code.
There are only approximately 49,000 pending cases now out of
over 125,000 cases originally. The Honduran Federation of
NGOs (FOPRIDEH),with USAID assistance, has been dynamic in
promoting broader and more effective civil society
participation in justice sector reforms and monitoring, and
in exercising oversight of the public policy process.

In compliance with the Leahy amendment, the U.S. Military
Group worked closely with the Ministry of Defense to vet
military units for U.S. training.
To improve the country's fight against corruption, the
mission is investing $600,000 of USAID money from September
2003 - September 2004, on Transparency and Anti-Corruption
efforts. Activities under these programs include: improving
the capacity of the Government's Superior Audit Institution,
developing and implementing a Transparency and Anti-
Corruption Public Awareness Campaign, strengthening
independent national and local anti-corruption institutions,
and supporting civil society social auditing efforts to
provide oversight and monitoring of the use of public funds.
The mission has encouraged the government and the Attorney
General's office to vigorously pursue cases that involve
corruption, particularly cases involving government
officials.

The Department of Treasury, using State/INL funding, is
executing a $227,000 project beginning in 2003 to assist the
government in addressing financial crimes and money
laundering in the country. The project includes technical
assistance in the establishment and operation of a newly-
created Financial Information Unit, technical assistance to
the investigative and prosecutorial agencies that have
responsibility for the cases of money laundering and
financial crimes, and training of judges, bank officials, and
other entities involved in the fight against financial
crimes.

With national and municipal elections set for 2005, U.S.
government efforts in promoting democracy through the
development of transparent and accountable democratic
institutions continued to be quite strong. USAID is spending
$3,000,000 in Fiscal Year 2003 funds on municipal development
to increase the capacity for basic service delivery by
municipalities and promote decentralization, including
technical assistance to the Honduran Association of
Municipalities (AMHON). USAID supported its partner, the
Foundation for Municipal Development (FUNDEMUN),in the
capacity building of 46 municipal governments. In many
cases, these projects demonstrated a positive correlation
between the transparency and accountability with which
municipal governments are being administered and the growing
confidence that citizens have for the work being performed by
their local governments, and thereby faith in their
democratic governance.

Particularly important given the recently signed U.S-Central
America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA),U.S. officials
repeatedly engaged government, private sector, and labor
union officials on the importance of enforcing labor law and
ensuring that core labor rights are protected. The U.S.
Department of Labor (DOL) funded the following projects:
Strengthening Labor Systems in Central America (Cumple y
Gana) from 2003-2007 for $6,750,000; Freedom of Association,
Collective Bargaining and Industrial Relations in Central
America Project (RELACENTRO) from 2001-2004 for $1,870,000;
and a Regional Occupational Safety and Health Project
(CERSSO) from August 2000 - March 2004 for $6,600,000.
USAID's $6,300,000 PROALCA II regional Labor Component from
2002-2007 supports efforts to improve the functioning of
regional labor markets while strengthening the protection of
core labor standards through the Secretariat for Central
American Economic Integration (SIECA).

Child labor is a significant problem in Honduras. From 1995
to 2003, DOL grants provided more than $37 million in Central
America and the Dominican Republic to the International Labor
Organization's International Program for the Eradication of
Child Labor (ILO/IPEC) and other organizations for projects
aimed at combating and gathering information on the worst
forms of child labor, including in melon and coffee
production and the commercial sexual exploitation of
children.

Honduras is a source and transit country for trafficking in
persons (TIP) for sexual and labor exploitation. Most
victims are young women and girls, who are trafficked to
Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Mexico, the United States,
and Canada. Women and children are also trafficked
internally, most often from rural to urban settings. The
Embassy brought in first a U.S. NGO expert and then a State
Department official to be keynote speakers at seminars
organized by the Honduran government on the prevention and
eradication of the commercial sexual exploitation of children
and trafficking in women and children in Tegucigalpa and La
Ceiba in 2003, and in San Pedro Sula and Santa Rosa de Copan
in January 2004. The Embassy is spending $350,000 in 2003-
2005 in INL Police Assistance Funds to support the Frontier
Police to, among other goals, prevent and interdict the
transportation of illegal immigrants, including TIP. The
State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat TIP is
spending $29,400 to fund Department of Justice Office of
Prosecutorial Development and Training (OPDAT) classes in
2004 for Honduran police and prosecutors on investigating and
prosecuting TIP.

The mission is also sending various civil society leaders and
government officials on international visitor programs in
2003-2004, on topics such as the administration of justice
and the rule of law, anti-corruption, civil society and
democracy, and journalism.


3. End Text.


4. Post will send to DRL/PHD by e-mail the following: an
addendum of USG-funded human rights and democracy programs of
USD 100,000 or more, success stories, and photographs.

Palmer