US embassy cable - 04TEGUCIGALPA315

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