BACKGROUND

Slightly over two years after the June 28, 2009 coup in Honduras the human rights crisis is only deepening. For the first time since the bloody Central American conflicts of the 1980's, death squads linked to the police and military are systematically targeting political activists and community organizers.

Hundreds of human rights and political activists have been killed since the coup, in assassinations that demonstrate the characteristics of death squad actions.

Forced disappearances of political activists, apparently by state security forces, are again occurring. In just one small rural area - the Aguan region - forty poor farmers have been killed in less than two years.

The gravity of the problem is compounded by the criminal connections within the state security forces; state security forces have become so bold that they break into homes and execute or kidnap people in front of their families, both in situations where the only identifiable motive is political and others where the motives are unclear.

The extreme corruption within the justice system worsens and deepens the problem. Corruption has been extremely problematic for years, on two occasions in 2007 and 2008 public prosecutors undertook national hunger strikes to denounce corruption, which worsened markedly after the coup when public prosecutors and judges who had been active for many years demanding reforms were purged from their offices.

Networks of corruption not only facilitate illegal activities such as drug trafficking and maintain total impunity for the rampant and widespread human rights violations but also promote political motivated, baseless and biased prosecutions.

Without first combating the structures of impunity in the justice system, arming and training security forces will make no advances in fighting the drug war or reducing terrible violence in the region.

A particularly concerning example is in the region of the Aguan, where prominent palm oil businessman in that region have been implicated in atrocities against small farmers with full support of State security forces, resulting in the death squad killings and disappearances of over 40 land rights defenders in less than two years. Palm oil plantations zealously controlled by a heavy presence of armed private security guards have been repeatedly implicated in drug trafficking.

Yet the US Army Rangers have been training soldiers from the very same military base that has been widely denounced as operating jointly with the very same security guards apparently also implicated in drug trafficking.

Recent revelations of state department cables demonstrate not only extremely close ties between public officials and the drug trade, but also that arms and equipment provided as US military assistance has repeatedly ended up at the service of drug trafficking networks.

Political persecution is also extremely concerning, particularly the case of Enrique Flores, Minister to the President during the administration of Manuel Zelaya. Mr. Flores was implicated in exactly the same politically motivated charges pressed against Mr. Zelaya, and used by the coup plotters, and by the governments of the USA and Canada to "justify" the coup.

Though Mr. Zelaya's trumped up charges were dismissed during the negotiation of the Cartagena Agreement, Mr. Flores' were not though under the terms of the agreement they should be. His rights to due process have been openly violated and at any moment he could go to jail.

These are the very same charges that following the June 28, 2009 coup Honduran officials claimed had been the basis of a supposed arrest warrant which was intended to provide legal justification for the coup. However, the Attorney General had admitted to then US Ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, that the charges had not existed before the coup. This means that the Supreme Court intentionally falsified the dates of the charges in order to generate a predated arrest warrant intended to provide legal justification for the coup.

This is an extremely dangerous precedent, especially combined with recent killings of several Popular Resistance Party activists at the exact time the new party launched its campaign to gather signatures to officially register.

In the delicate political process currently underway in Honduras denying the Resistance movement a right to political participation could be devastating.

It is of grave concern that the US is increasing its commitment to armed "security" initiatives in the Honduran military and police even as grave human rights violations continue to occur.   Before establishing security assistance the United States must demand and see enacted profound reforms in the justice system, including the prosecution of those responsible for the military coup and the on-going, systemic human rights violations, an end to politically motivated, biased prosecutions, and assurance of due process regardless of political ideas or economic status.

Otherwise, the increased security assistance will only compound violence and illegal activities.