Central America
Honduras under state of emergency over gang activity
| By AFP |
Police stepped up their presence on the streets of Honduras Friday after President Xiomara Castro declared a state of emergency to quash a rise in gang activity in the Central American nation.
The small country has long been plagued by poverty, gangs, and violence linked to drug trafficking. Gangs have recently been extorting ordinary citizens as they go about their business.
“To strengthen efforts to recover lawless areas in the neighborhoods, in villages, in departments, I declare a national state of emergency,” said Castro on Thursday.
An AFP photographer reported a heavy presence of special forces and other officers in the capital on Friday.
The state of emergency comes just days after hundreds of truckers protested in the capital Tegucigalpa to demand the government take steps to stop gangs from extorting a “war tax” from them.
Castro, elected the country’s first woman president in January, declared “war on extortion, just as we declared war on corruption, impunity, and drug trafficking.”
She urged the police to recover public spaces “assaulted and controlled by organized crime and its gangs.”
She asked police to identify hotspots where “the partial suspension of constitutional guarantees” would be necessary.
Police chief Gustavo Sanchez said he would dedicate more money and at least 20,000 officers to the efforts to stamp out gang activity.
Along with neighbors El Salvador and Guatemala, Honduras forms the so-called “triangle of death” plagued by the murderous gangs called “maras” that control drug trafficking and organized crime.
In 2020, there were 37.6 recorded homicides per 100 000 inhabitants.
High poverty and unemployment, mixed with gang and drug violence, forces nearly 800 Hondurans to leave the country every day, mainly headed for the United States, where more than a million already live, most of them undocumented.
Central America
Arévalo calls corruption the “fuel of inequality” and reaffirms commitment to public transparency
Guatemala’s President, Bernardo Arévalo, stated on Friday that corruption is “the food of misery” in his country and reaffirmed his government’s commitment to continuing to strengthen public spending transparency.
During the first anniversary of the National Commission Against Corruption (CNC) established by his administration, the president expressed his satisfaction with the progress made.
“The road has been difficult,” he said, “but I am greatly satisfied with the fight against corruption, which is the fuel of inequality and the food of misery,” the president declared before members of the international community and government officials.
Arévalo also mentioned that the people who elected him in 2023 for a four-year term that began on January 14, 2024, “demand that we combat corruption.”
Central America
Zúñiga hopes CIDH experts can help investigate intellectual authors of Berta Cáceres’ murder
Bertha Zúñiga, daughter of the murdered Honduran environmentalist Berta Cáceres, expressed her hope on Friday to EFE that the expert group appointed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH) will help investigate the authorship of the crime to “heal the wounds” and rebuild the social fabric in indigenous communities affected by the hydroelectric project her mother opposed.
The Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) represents an “effort to exhaust the investigations” into the responsibilities of all individuals involved in Cáceres’ murder, as well as in the “violence suffered” from the implementation of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project, led by the company Desarrollos Energéticos S.A. (DESA), emphasized Zúñiga.
“We hope that, with the collaboration of the prosecutorial entities, (the experts) will effectively collaborate to move forward on what we have proposed and demanded for many years: formally requiring the intellectual authors of this crime and analyzing the related crimes,” including corruption and other violations, as well as proposing a comprehensive reparation plan for the victims of the hydroelectric project,” Zúñiga explained.
The CIDH appointed a group of four experts from Argentina, Chile, the United States, and Guatemala on Friday to provide technical assistance to Honduras in investigating the intellectual authorship of Cáceres’ murder, which occurred on March 2, 2016, while she was sleeping in her home in La Esperanza, despite the multiple death threats she had reported due to her opposition to the Agua Zarca project.
Central America
Nicaragua’s family confinement program: 7.18% of released prisoners reoffend
Nicaraguan authorities have released a total of 48,964 common prisoners under the family confinement regime over the past ten years, with 7.18% of them reoffending by committing at least one crime, according to the country’s vice president, Rosario Murillo.
Murillo, who is also the wife of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and appointed “co-president” in a reform to the Constitution, stated through official media that “7.18% are individuals who have reoffended in criminal activity from 2015 to today, February 14, 2025.”
This means that 3,515 out of the 48,964 common prisoners with final sentences who have been granted family confinement privileges have returned to criminal activity, according to the report.
The early release of common prisoners has faced criticism, particularly from feminist organizations, who argue that these benefits have contributed to an increase in femicides and general crime in Nicaragua.
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