US embassy cable - 05TEGUCIGALPA223

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 TEGUCIGALPA 000223 
 
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/CAM 
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: 
The U.S. Record 2004-5 
 
REF: 04 STATE 267453 
 
1.  The following is Post's submission for the "Supporting 
Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2004-5" 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 October 21, 2004, during meetings with senior Honduran 
government officials in Washington.  The Assistant Secretary 
of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs on September 16 in 
Washington and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for 
Western Hemisphere Affairs during his September 8-10 visit to 
Honduras also discussed these issues. 
 
The Embassy, using INL counternarcotics assistance, spent 
$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.  In order to allow wide 
participation, the projects are carried out with the 
assistance of NGOs, police, community leaders, and teachers. 
 
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 to assist the Police Internal 
Affairs Office with investigating complaints, including those 
from private citizens, and make recommendations for 
substantiated complaints, ranging from administrative 
disciplinary action to criminal charges. 
 
USAID is spending $1,400,000 in Fiscal Year 2005 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 948 trials and another 4,219 cases were 
closed through non-trial procedures during the year.  The 
Supreme Court-run and USAID-funded "purging unit" is clearing 
backlogged cases from prior to the implementation of the new 
code.  By the end of the year, 73 percent of 140,000 pending 
cases under the previous procedure had been dismissed or 
resolved.  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 $465,000 of USAID money in Fiscal Year 
2005 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 
Embassy also brought in a U.S. consultant expert as a speaker 
on anti-corruption in October 2004. 
 
The Department of Treasury, using State/INL funding, is 
executing a $227,000 project from 2003-2005 to assist the 
government in addressing financial crimes and money 
laundering in the country.  The project includes technical 
assistance in the operation of the 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 primary elections set for 
February 20, and general elections set for November 27, USAID 
dedicated significant resources for assisting the Honduran 
government's ability to conduct the elections and increasing 
the voting public's awareness of recent significant electoral 
reforms.  USAID is providing the following assistance in 2004- 
2005 for the elections: $1 million of local currency funds to 
support the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) and the National 
Registry of Persons, $216,000 from local currency funds for a 
Cooperative Agreement with the Inter-American Institute of 
Human Rights' Center for Electoral Assessment and Promotion 
(CAPEL) to provide advisory assistance, $130,000 from the 
Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean to FOPRIDEH to 
support its nonpartisan voter education campaign, and $65,000 
from the Bureau of Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian 
Assistance (DCHA) under DCHA's contract with the 
International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES) for an 
elections expert to advise the TSE.  In addition, the State 
Department is providing $150,000 in Economic Support Funds in 
2005 to further assist FOPRIDEH's voter education.  The State 
Department also contributed $75,000 for the Organization of 
American States election observation mission for the 
primaries. 
 
U.S. government efforts in promoting democracy through the 
development of transparent and accountable democratic 
institutions continued to be quite strong.  USAID is spending 
$2,500,000 in Fiscal Year 2005 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. 
 
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, 
which has been particularly important given the U.S-Central 
America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) which is awaiting 
ratification,.  The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) funded the 
following projects: Strengthening Labor Systems in Central 
America (Cumple y Gana) from 2003-2007 for $8,750,000; 
Freedom of Association, Collective Bargaining and Industrial 
Relations in Central America Project (RELACENTRO) from 
January 2001 - August 2004 for $1,888,000; and a Regional 
Occupational Safety and Health Project (CERSSO) from August 
2000 - July 2004 for $7,057,538.  USAID's $3,000,000 PROALCA 
II regional Labor Component from 2002-2006 supports efforts 
to improve the functioning of regional labor markets while 
strengthening the protection of core labor standards, through 
assistance to the Secretariat for Central American Economic 
Integration (SIECA) and alliances with international private 
businesses and NGOs, including the Continuous Improvement in 
the Central America Workplace project. 
 
Child labor is a significant problem in Honduras.  From 1995 
to 2004, DOL grants provided more than $46 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.  Ongoing projects in melon production 
and the commercial sexual exploitation of children are 
implemented by ILO/IPEC.  In addition, the Government of 
Honduras is participating in a $5.5 million DOL-funded 
regional project implemented by CARE USA to combat child 
labor through education, which includes direct action in 
Honduras, from September 2004 - September 2008. 
 
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 a U.S. NGO expert twice, as well as 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 San Pedro Sula, 
Santa Rosa de Copan, Puerto Cortes, and Tela in 2004.  The 
Embassy is spending $320,000 in 2004-2006 in funds from the 
State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking 
in Persons to provide training, technical assistance, 
equipment to police investigators and prosecutors on TIP, as 
well as public awareness campaigns on TIP.  The Embassy is 
also 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 spent $29,400 to fund Department of 
Justice Office of Prosecutorial Development and Training 
(OPDAT) classes in 2004 for Honduran judges on TIP cases. 
 
The mission is also sending various civil society leaders and 
government officials on international visitor programs in 
2004-2005, 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 e-mail DRL/PHD the following: an addendum of USG- 
funded human rights and democracy programs of USD 100,000 or 
more, success stories, and photographs. 
 
Palmer