US embassy cable - 03TEGUCIGALPA1938

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 07 TEGUCIGALPA 001938 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR DRL, DRL/PHD, INL, INL/LP, INR, AND DS 
STATE FOR WHA, WHA/PPC, WHA/EPSC, AND WHA/CEN 
STATE PASS AID FOR LAC/CEN 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM, PGOV, KJUS, KCRM, PINR, SNAR, ECON, ASEC, HO 
SUBJECT: TRUTH SCARIER THAN FICTION: AN ANALYSIS OF 
INCREASINGLY HIGH HONDURAN MURDER RATES 
 
REF: A. TEGUCIGALPA 1560 
     B. TEGUCIGALPA 527 
 
1. (SBU) SUMMARY:  Assault rifles, gang-related, nine 
victims, 15 to 48 years old, early morning, all family 
members, murdered.  It is August 5 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras 
and the facts of the latest mass murder swirl as you thumb 
through the local newspapers.  You know shock should follow, 
but it does not.  Instead, you mechanically proceed to the 
next news item.  Unfortunately, in the purest sense, this 
multiple homicide is not news in Honduras; something similar 
happened the day before, and a couple of days before that, 
too.  In fact, there are so many murders in Honduras that, 
according to recent CID-Gallup polling data, the number one 
concern among voters is violent crime (ref A).  This is even 
more significant when one considers the myriad of problems 
facing the nation.  But how violent is Honduras, and is it 
really more violent than anywhere else?  There are no easy 
answers.  The lack of reliable, comprehensive, and 
transparent data, coupled with abundant speculation and 
brandishing of unsourced material, frustrates any effort to 
truly understand the problem. 
 
2. (SBU) This report examines various organizations involved 
with tracking violent deaths in Honduras, methodologies 
employed, and the limitations inherent to the available data. 
 From this analysis, several conclusions are drawn.  For one, 
while murder statistics vary between sources, underreporting 
of homicides in Honduras is endemic, and true murder rates 
are probably even higher than currently being reported by the 
Government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the 
media.  Secondly, this report finds that the murder rate in 
Honduras is high compared with its Central American neighbors 
and the U.S., and is climbing fast in 2003; and that the San 
Pedro Sula murder rate is exceptionally high (almost four 
times as high as the Washington, DC murder rate).  Finally, 
this report addresses how the Government and various NGOs in 
Honduras compile homicide statistics, and how differing uses 
of the terms "murder" and "extrajudicial killings" further 
muddle murder-related reporting. END SUMMARY 
 
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METHODOLOGY 
----------- 
 
3. (SBU) Much of the information contained in this report 
comes from an analysis of the murder-related data collected 
and published by the Public Ministry, the Ministry of Public 
Security, the San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa morgues, Casa 
Alianza (an NGO dedicated to the betterment of abandoned 
Honduran youth), Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in 
Honduras (CODEH), and Amnesty International.  Interviews were 
conducted with members of these organizations when possible, 
and considerable time was spent at both morgues observing 
facilities, procedures, and meeting with forensic doctors and 
staff.  Procedures for conducting preliminary murder 
investigations were also observed at the Public Ministry's 
"Integrated Center" in Tegucigalpa.  In order to evaluate how 
murders are reported by the press, an assessment of murders 
reported by the four nationally circulated newspapers was 
conducted during the month of June, and several sources 
familiar with how the media reports on murders, including a 
newspaper journalist, were interviewed. 
 
-------------------------------------- 
MURDER STATISTICS VARY BETWEEN SOURCES 
-------------------------------------- 
 
GOH Data Collection Procedures: 
 
4. (U) The Public Ministry (MP) and the Ministry of Public 
Security (MOPS) are the two GOH agencies that serve as 
repositories for data on crime and violent deaths.  The 
Public Ministry derives its murder count from the nation's 
two morgues, located in San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa.  The 
morgues also report cause-of-death findings to the MOPS, 
which treats this information as one component in its broader 
investigation into whether a death was murder.  In practice, 
however, most cases are not investigated (President Ricardo 
Maduro says that each murder investigator is responsible for 
more than 200 cases, ref B) and the morgue's recommendation 
often becomes the cause-of-death for MOPS statistics. 
 
Morgue Procedures for Collecting and Reporting Murder 
Statistics: 
 
5. (U) Theoretically, when a violent death occurs in Honduras 
a forensic medicine professional arrives at the scene to help 
determine whether the cause of death was crime related.  If 
it is determined that the death is suspicious, the body is 
taken to either the San Pedro Sula or Tegucigalpa morgue, 
depending on jurisdiction.  After conducting an autopsy, 
forensic doctors record the death as a homicide, accident, 
suicide, natural death, or indeterminable.  Each morgue then 
tabulates monthly and yearly murder statistics from these 
records. 
 
Discrepancies between MOP and MOPS Murder Statistics: 
 
6. (U) As previously stated, the MP relies on data from the 
two morgues for its murder statistics.  While the MOPS also 
receives data from the morgue, its murder figures, which are 
most readily available through the Preventative Police's 
Sub-Directorate for Information and Analysis (SDIA), are 
considerably larger than the MP's numbers.  This is because 
the SDIA includes vehicular homicide in its count, while the 
morgues list these deaths in a separate "accident" category. 
The MOPS does maintain a database that differentiates 
vehicular homicide from other murders, but the most widely 
available, and the most publicly quoted, MOPS murder 
statistics do include vehicular homicides. 
 
NGO Procedures for Collecting and Reporting Murder Statistics: 
 
7. (U) NGOs that report murder statistics in Honduras also 
cite varying homicide rates.  For example, Casa Alianza 
compiles statistics on the murder of children and youths in 
Honduras, but it is difficult to compare Casa Alianza's 
figures with those of the MP because each organization uses 
different age categories.  While Casa Alianza reports on all 
murders in which the victim was under 23-years-old, the MP 
breaks their data down into smaller age groups, including a 
20 to 24-year-old grouping.  This lumps together murders 
which fall outside Casa Alianza's purview with the murders 
counted by the NGO.  This problem is compounded further by 
the fact that the 20 to 24-year-old age group accounts for 
the largest number of murder victims, making any simple 
comparison between MP numbers and Casa Alianza numbers 
impossible.  Casa Alianza's numbers differ from those of the 
MP further, because the organization draws its data 
exclusively from homicide cases reported by the four 
nationally circulated newspapers, a not entirely accurate 
barometer since many murders go unpublished. 
 
8. (U) Other high-profile NGOs that report on the murder 
problem in Honduras include the Committee for the Defense of 
Human Rights in Honduras (CODEH) and Amnesty International. 
CODEH quotes murder rates directly from the SDIA, which, as 
previously stated, are significantly higher than other 
sources because they include vehicular homicide.  Amnesty 
International's reporting on murders in Honduras, on the 
other hand, does not include any actual numbers.  The 
organization astutely notes that "it has been exceptionally 
difficult to establish with any certainty the number of 
victims in question." 
 
---------------------- 
ENDEMIC UNDERREPORTING 
---------------------- 
 
Victims From Remote Areas Less Likely to Show Up in 
Government Statistics: 
 
9. (SBU) Information about morgue procedure was obtained from 
meetings with: Dr. Amilcar Rodas, Director of Forensic 
Medicine in Tegucigalpa; Dr. Arturo Alvarez, Head of Forensic 
Pathology in Tegucigalpa; and Dr. Francisco Herrera, Director 
of Forensic Medicine in San Pedro Sula.  According to each of 
these doctors, the bodies of some murder victims from remote 
parts of the country never reach either the Tegucigalpa or 
the San Pedro Sula morgue.  Reasons they reported for this 
included:  No one ever called the police, the bodies were 
dumped somewhere and never found, family members refused to 
allow bodies to be taken to the morgue, insufficient 
transportation to move a body, and police not following 
proper procedure.  Consequently, the morgues are actually 
underreporting the numbers of murders taking place, and the 
numbers collected and reported by both the MP and the MOPS 
are also being skewed.  None of the three doctors would 
speculate as to how many murder victims do not reach a 
morgue, and were doubtful that this number could be 
determined to even a ballpark figure. 
 
10. (SBU) Wilfredo Hernandez, violent crime reporter for La 
Tribuna newspaper, also said that not all bodies from rural 
areas were transported to the morgue.  He reasoned that it 
was impractical for poor, rural families to allow the bodies 
to be taken to Tegucigalpa or San Pedro Sula since it was 
unlikely that justice would be carried out through official 
channels, and the cost of recuperating the body after the 
autopsy is exorbitant.  Hernandez said that while the MP paid 
for a body to be transported to a morgue, the family bore the 
burden of recuperating the body.  He estimated that the least 
expensive box allowed by the morgue cost USD 59, and a truck 
to transport the body would cost at a minimum USD 29. 
Additionally, the family would have to pay the morgue for 
clothing the body, sealing the casket if the body was badly 
decomposed, and for the official papers needed to bury a 
cadaver.  Hernandez estimated that a rural family allowing a 
body to be taken to a morgue would need nearly USD 176 to get 
it back, an exorbitant amount for many in Honduras.  Since 
rural families often place no value on the autopsy, they may 
never call the police in the first place, or physically 
prevent the police from transporting the body to a morgue. 
 
Honduran Media Does Not Report All Murders: 
 
11. (U) In an attempt to evaluate the degree to which murders 
in Honduras were being reported in the press, Political 
Section interns tracked all murders reported in the four 
major newspapers, El Heraldo, La Tribuna, La Prensa and El 
Tiempo, for the month of June.  This is important because 
these print media sources play a significant role in shaping 
the public's impression of murder trends in Honduras. 
Newspaper reporting on murders is also important, because 
Casa Alianza derives its murder statistics solely from 
accounts published in newspapers.  During the month of June, 
the newspapers reported on 183 individual murder cases.  La 
Tribuna generally reported more murders daily than the other 
three newspapers, while El Heraldo tended to report the 
fewest, focusing primarily on high profile murders. 
 
12. (SBU) The fact that not even every murder reported by one 
newspaper is reported by the other newspapers suggested that 
not all murders are published, and that some selection and 
exclusion is taking place.  Wilfredo Hernandez, violent crime 
reporter for La Tribuna for the past three years, confirmed 
that not every murder is reported in Honduran newspapers. 
Though Hernandez visits the Tegucigalpa morgue every morning, 
confers with police officers, and visits crime scenes each 
day, he acknowledged that many of the murders he learns of 
are not reported by his newspaper.  Hernandez said that 
newspapers generally allot one page per day for murder and 
violent crime news.  He said this usually means three to four 
articles per day no matter how much news there is to report. 
According to Hernandez, murders of women and minors tend to 
receive greater coverage, whereas the more frequent 
gang-related shootings of 20-something-year-old males 
receives less attention.  Hernandez estimated that his 
newspaper reports on two-thirds of all the murders he is 
aware of. 
 
13. (SBU) Hernandez also reported that rural murders are 
especially prone to going unreported.  He said that violent 
crime newspaper reporters rarely travel more than 20 km 
outside of San Pedro Sula or Tegucigalpa, and that crime 
reporting in secondary cities and in the countryside was left 
to correspondents and special reports.  He would not 
speculate on the number of rural murders that went unreported 
by the newspapers. 
 
14. (SBU) Another source familiar with the local media's 
murder reporting, brought to the Political Section's 
attention by the RSO, said that political pressure on 
newspapers contributes to the underreporting of violent 
crime.  He said that President Maduro's administration leans 
on newspapers to limit violent crime reporting.  The fact 
that both El Heraldo and La Prensa are affiliated with the 
National Party (President Maduro's party) and tend to report 
fewer murders than does La Tribuna and El Tiempo, Liberal 
Party (opposition) affiliated newspapers, seems to affirm 
that there is some observable link between politics and 
newspaper murder reporting in Honduras.  Note: These four 
newspapers are the primary means by which the Honduran public 
receives information on murders and crime trends.  Despite 
the phenomenon of underreporting in the Honduran print media, 
a climate of fear still pervades the country.  It must be 
assumed that the public would react even more severely if the 
newspapers were reporting all murders.  End Note. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
NUMBER OF MURDERS IN HONDURAS CLIMBING FAST IN 2003 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
San Pedro Sula Morgue Reports More Than 50 Percent Increase 
in Murders Since 2002: 
 
15. (U) Forensic doctors from both the San Pedro Sula and 
Tegucigalpa morgues report that they have seen significantly 
more homicide victims so far this year than during the same 
period last year.  The San Pedro Sula morgue, which receives 
bodies from the northern half of the country, and keeps 
better and more accessible statistics than the Tegucigalpa 
morgue, reports that through the first six months of 2003 
they have performed autopsies on 994 murder victims compared 
to 628 during the same time period in 2002.  This is a 58 
percent year-on-year increase.  While this augmentation could 
be partly due to a population increase, the Honduran National 
Institute of Statistics estimates that the population of 
Honduras is growing at only 2.6 percent annually. 
 
--------------------------------------------- -------------- 
HONDURAS MURDER RATE HIGHER THAN CENTRAL AMERICAN NEIGHBORS 
--------------------------------------------- -------------- 
 
16. (SBU) To make murder statistics comparable between cities 
and countries with different populations, a murder rate per 
100,000 is tabulated.  In 2001, based on morgue statistics, 
the murder rate in Honduras was 29/100,000.  In 2002, the 
murder rate in Honduras climbed to 34/100,000.  By 
comparison, in 2001, according to the RSO in Guatemala City, 
Guatemala recorded a murder rate of 24/100,000.  In 2002, the 
murder rate in Guatemala climbed to 29/100,000, a number 
significantly smaller than the rate in Honduras.  Similarly, 
according to numbers available from the RSO in San Salvador, 
El Salvador's murder rate was 31/100,000 in 2002, which is 
again lower than in Honduras.  As a point of reference, using 
the FBI statistics on murders, the murder rate for the U.S. 
as a whole in 2001 was 6/100,000. 
 
---- 
2002 
---- 
 
Country    # of Murders       Population    Murders/100,000 
 
Honduras    2,205              6,500,000          34 
 
Guatemala   3,631             12,900,000          28 
 
El Salvador 1,925              6,200,000          31 
 
---- 
2001 
---- 
 
Country    # of Murders       Population    Murders/100,000 
 
Honduras    1,899              6,500,000          29 
 
Guatemala   2,905             12,900,000          24 
 
U.S.       15,980            281,500,000           6 
 
---------------------------------------- 
SAN PEDRO SULA MURDER RATE EXTRAORDINARY 
---------------------------------------- 
 
17. (U) The San Pedro Sula morgue reports conducting 411 
autopsies on murder victims from the city of San Pedro Sula 
during the first six months of 2003.  If this trend continues 
through the end of 2003, there would be 822 murders in San 
Pedro Sula for the year.  Based on a population estimate of 
500,000 for the city, the murder rate would be 164/100,000 in 
San Pedro Sula (SPS) in 2003.  By comparison, according to 
police statistics, in 2002 the District of Columbia (DC) 
recorded the highest murder rate of any large U.S. city at 
46/100,000.  In other words, San Pedro Sula is almost four 
times as violent as Washington, DC. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
PROJECTED 2003 SPS MURDER RATE VS. 2002 DC MURDER RATE 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
City        # of Murders      Population   Murders/100,000 
 
SPS         822               500,000           164 
 
DC          264               572,000            46 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
CASA ALIANZA REPORTING ACCURATE, BUT MISLEADING ON AGE 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
Casa Alianza Counts Individuals Under 23-years-of-age as 
"Children and Youth": 
 
18. (U) Casa Alianza's murder reporting in Honduras is 
focused exclusively on murders in which children and youth 
are the victims.  The organization publishes monthly and 
yearly reports, as well as intermittent stories about 
individual homicide cases that exemplify what Casa Alianza 
considers to be the government's indifference towards the 
murder of children.  The monthly and yearly statistics 
reported by Casa Alianza are published under the title 
"Children and Youth Extrajudicially Murdered in Honduras," 
and come exclusively from the four nationally circulated 
newspapers.  For these reports, Casa Alianza uses the term 
"children and youth" to mean anyone under the age of 23.  The 
Honduran Penal Code defines minors as individuals less than 
18 years old.  Casa Alianza's numbers do not include 
vehicular homicides, suicides, or drug overdoses. 
 
19. (U) Setting aside Casa Alianza's broad definition of 
"children and youth," the statistics published by the 
organization accurately reflect the number of youths murdered 
in Honduras as reported by local newspapers.  A review of the 
murders recorded by Casa Alianza during June 2003 showed that 
all were distinct cases published in at least one local 
newspaper.  In fact, Casa Alianza actually erred on the side 
of underreporting, having missed several published murder 
cases involving victims under 23-years-of-age.  No vehicular 
homicides, suicides, or drug overdoses were recorded by Casa 
Alianza as murders during the month of June. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------------- 
DIFFERING USES OF TERMS "MURDER" AND "EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLING" 
--------------------------------------------- --------------- 
 
20. (U) Any discussion of collecting and reporting murder 
statistics is incomplete without a discussion of what the 
term "murder" actually means.  In general terms in the U.S., 
murder is considered to be the intentional and unlawful 
killing of a human being.  There is a wide-ranging use of the 
term in Honduras, however.  The morgues define murder as 
"death given by one person to another."  The MOPS, on the 
other hand, has a more complicated definition of murder that 
takes into consideration a criminal investigation, the penal 
code, and the rulings of judges.  For some NGOs, suspicious 
deaths that have not been categorized as murders by any 
official entity are at times referred to as murders. 
 
21. (U) The use of the term "extrajudicial killing" is 
similarly nebulous.  Traditionally defined, extrajudicial 
killing is a murder carried out by someone acting in an 
unofficial capacity as judge, jury, and executioner.  Casa 
Alianza uses a looser definition and counts every murder of a 
child or youth as an extrajudicial killing.  In fact, in its 
monthly and yearly reports of extrajudicial killings of 
children and youth, Casa Alianza includes every murder of a 
youth published in local newspapers.  Amnesty International 
relies almost exclusively on Casa Alianza's information for 
its critique of the extrajudicial killing situation in 
Honduras.  CODEH on the other hand, perhaps because of its 
focus on state involvement in human rights violations, counts 
murders perpetrated by police officers or soldiers as 
extrajudicial killings. 
 
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CONCLUSION 
---------- 
 
22. (SBU) Comment:  Honduras is a shockingly violent country. 
 There are many theories as to why the murder rate is so 
astronomically high, including the plethora of AK-47s and 
other guns left in the region from the 1980s, the high 
unemployment (and underemployment) rate, the dissolution of 
families due to heavy illegal immigration to the U.S., the 
huge number of gang members (estimated to be at least 
30,000), and, in some cases, the actions of corrupt security 
officials.  The fact that the police force is understaffed 
and undertrained, and that the Public Ministry is often 
ill-equipped to successfully prosecute criminals also 
contributes the high number of murders.  As noted in the 
Human Rights Report, during 2002 "no perpetrator was 
identified in an average of 60-70 percent of the killings; 
gangs were suspected in 15-20 percent of killings; police, 
private guards, or neighborhood vigilante groups were 
suspected in 5 percent of killings, and 10-15 percent of 
killings were drive-by shootings usually involving a truck, 
often without license plates." 
 
23. (SBU) Comment Continued:  What is clear is that the 
murder rate is high and increasing, especially in San Pedro 
Sula.  Debates over varying figures and interpretations 
should not cloud the fact that the high murder rate is one of 
the most critical human rights and law enforcement issues in 
Honduras, one that has wreaked devastation on a country 
already challenged by slow economic development, corruption, 
and natural disasters.  It also makes it clear why reform of 
the justice system is one of the GOH's (and Post's) top 
priorities.  End Comment. 
Pierce