Seven Honduran broadcasters slain since March

[Judi Lynn]

Seven Honduran broadcasters slain since March
By Anne-Marie O'Connor
Saturday, April 24, 2010

Honduran television reporter Jorge Alberto "Georgino" Orellana had just left the station where he hosted his own show when a man stepped from the shadows, shot him dead and vanished.

On Tuesday, Orellana became the seventh Honduran broadcaster to be gunned down since March 1 in a country where complaints about human rights abuses have increased since a military-led coup in June.

Most of the victims had reported on organized crime in the northern coastal region of Honduras, a key transshipment point for U.S.-bound cocaine.

Reporters Without Borders recently declared Honduras "the world's deadliest country for the media."

"This is unprecedented," said Carlos Lauria of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. "Journalists are being targeted, and the state is almost absent. It's a green light for these people."

Lauria said the killings appeared to be "the work of hit men, very professional."

Jose Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch said the government of President Porfirio Lobo has shown little willingness to solve a pattern of threats, harassment and attacks on grass-roots leaders, unionists and priests since the coup.
More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/23/AR2010042304800.html?wprss=rss_world

LBN:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4355480

[Judi Lynn]

1. Reminder of the recent assassination of a Honduran teacher:

‘TEXT-BOOK’ STATE TERRORISM IN HONDURAS: DEATH-SQUADS KILL TEACHER, BROAD DAYLIGHT, IN FRONT OF STUDENTS

Rights Action
March 28, 2010

On March 23, at the same moment that a group of seven Honduran lawyers were presenting information to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission in Washington DC concerning systematic human rights abuses being committed against the pacifist Honduran National Resistance Front (FNRP), a death squad comprised of heavily armed men wearing ski masks and civilian clothes, killed a prominent FNRP member, a teacher, in front of his high school students. According to a communiqué issued by the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras (CODEH), "At 3pm an unknown person was spotted in front of the San Jose del Pedregal High School.

The unusual presence of a stranger caused concerns among students and thirty teachers who make up the staff of teachers who work at the school. Among the teachers was Professor of Social Science Jose Manuel Flores, who worked as teacher counselor. "Witnesses on the scene saw two pickups approach the rear of the school premises, apparently 2009 models, one green and white. "Professor Manuel, as his friends called him, was in the back of the facility overseeing pupils, when the assassins found him. They passed the perimeter fence and fired their guns at close range.

"The teacher was on a balcony from which he fell, and they fired on him again from above. As they fled, the ski mask of one of the attackers became entangled in the razor coil over the fence which they had cut open to look for their victim. The teacher died instantly." THIS IS STATE TERRORISM The killing of a prominent teacher in front of his students and colleagues, in the middle of the day, a man who was active in the FNRP, participating in protests and publishing articles in alternative press, is calculated act of repression designed to terrorize other Honduras and to send a silencing message.

Among many in the FNRP, the timing of the crime -- at the same time as the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights hearing held in Washington - is part of that message, reminiscent of the attack on the family lawyer Jari Dixon Herrera immediately following a CNN interview in Washington DC. While the attackers' identity is not known, it is important to note that when current Minister of Government Oscar Alvarez served as Minister of Government, under the administration of President Maduro, he instituted a practice in which police dressed in civilian clothes and wearing ski masks (of varying types) participate in raids.

Their appearance makes them indistinguishable from organized crime assassins, who operate with impunity throughout Honduras and the region. This is the same modus operandi of state terrorism and death squads that operated in U.S. backed regimes in Honduras throughout the 1970s and 1980s, during the so-called 'cold war'. During the eight months since the June 28, 2009 military coup in Honduras, dozens of FNRP activists have been killed, some during illegal detention by police forces, others in death squad type situations like the killing of Professor Manuel. There is not a credible or functional justice system operating in Honduras. Proper investigation by Honduran authorities is not possible.

More:
http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/honduras/6643.html

http://aliveinhonduras.org.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/manuel1_p.jpg http://hondurashumanrights.files.wordpress.com.nyud.net:8090/2010/03/asesinato_profesor_manuel_flores.jpg

Professor Flores
http://cache.daylife.com.nyud.net:8090/imageserve/089j4dQaPc14k/x350.jpg http://www.defensoresenlinea.com.nyud.net:8090/cms/images/stories/asesinato_profesor_manuel_flores_companero_lo_lloran.jpg http://static.guim.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/3/24/1269435839010/A-police-woman-stares-at--006.jpg