Rights Action
October 17, 2019
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What do U.S. and Canadian authorities know about Honduras’ “State-sponsored” drug-trafficking, and other organized crime, since the 2009 U.S. and Canadian-backed military coup?
- Below: Toronto Star article “Closings in US drug trial of Honduran president’s brother”
Will the U.S. congress and senate, and Canadian parliament and senate properly investigate the role of the U.S. and Canadian governments since the 2009 U.S. and Canadian-backed military coup brought to power 10 years (and counting) of anti-democratic, repressive, corrupt governments in Honduras, including that of current ‘narco-president’ Juan Orlando Hernandez?
Much of the information, now coming out in this drug-trafficking trial in New York City, about organized crime infiltration into all branches of the Honduran state and government has been known for years. It has been, assuredly, known to the U.S. and Canadian governments (and their embassies). Yet both governments, through to today, maintain full political, economic, political relations with the ‘narco-government’.
(Over past few years, the “democratic” government of ‘narco-president’ Juan Orlando Hernandez (JOH) has been a prominent member of the Canadian-led ‘Lima Group’ that supported politically and with sanctions U.S.-led efforts to overthrow the elected government of Venezuela.)
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Closings in US drug trial of Honduran president’s brother
By Larry Neumeister & Claudia Torrens, The Associated Press, Oct. 16, 2019
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/us/2019/10/16/closings-in-us-drug-trial-of-honduran-presidents-brother.html
NEW YORK - The brother of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez created “state-sponsored” drug trafficking by corrupting the country’s politics to protect drug dealers, a prosecutor told a jury during closing arguments Wednesday at a drug trial.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Emil Bove in New York made the allegation as he asked a jury to convict Juan Antonio (Tony) Hernandez, 41, a former Honduran congressman, of drug conspiracy, weapons charges and of lying to the Drug Enforcement Administration. If convicted, he could face life in prison.
Defence attorney Michael Tein, though, dismissed what he characterized as a “shock and awe” presentation by prosecutors that included machine-guns and testimony from five turncoat witnesses he described as “liars, losers and murderers.” “This isn’t a referendum on the drug war,” he said. “The question is whether the evidence you heard from the witness stand can be believed enough. If you’re not sure, you cannot convict.”
A highlight of the two-week trial came with testimony that convicted Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán personally gave $1 million in bribes to Antonio Hernandez to pass on to his brother.
Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández has been labeled a co-conspirator, though he has not been charged. Prosecutors allege he took some $1.5 million in drug proceeds to win his first presidential campaign in 2013, in exchange for traffickers receiving protection.
After the prosecution’s allegations became public early in the trial, the president tweeted: “The allegation in itself is 100% false, absurd and ridiculous ... this is less serious than Alice in Wonderland.” He has said before that drug smugglers extradited under his government are seeking revenge.
The drug-related corruption allegations against Antonio Hernandez have loomed over his brother’s government in a Central American country that is a major transit point for cocaine shipments to the United States. Hernandez is accused of using his government connections to smuggle U.S.-bound cocaine through Honduras.
Juan Orlando Hernández was re-elected in 2017 despite a constitutional ban on re-election. Last month, Honduras signed an agreement over how to handle asylum seekers with the U.S. government.
In his closing, Bove said Antonio Hernandez entered the drug trade in 2004, stamping cocaine shipments with his initial, T.H. Before he was arrested, he paved the way for nearly 200,000 kilos of cocaine to be shipped into the United States, Bove said. He said each kilo was worth over $30,000. “These numbers, ladies and gentlemen, are staggering,” he said. “They are horrific.”
By 2010, the prosecutor said, Antonio Hernandez and his associates had taken control of the Honduran government. “The largest and most violent drug traffickers who testified at this trial were protected by this defendant,” Bove said. “He smothered Honduran in corruption to achieve it.”
The prosecutor conceded that the government witnesses, who admitted to dozens of killings and the torture of individuals, had committed crimes “every bit if not more tragic and awful than the defendant’s.” But he said their testimony combined with Antonio Hernandez’s post arrest statements and other evidence show how they had access to levers of the Honduran government that enabled them to provide radar information to help planes and boats carrying cocaine and to warn them of Honduran military operations. “The defendant had so much power in Honduras that anyone who challenged his authority was murdered,” Bove said.
The jury is expected to begin deliberations Thursday.
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Rights Action (U.S. & Canada)
Since 1995, Rights Action funds human rights, environment and territory defense struggles and projects in Guatemala and Honduras; funds victims of repression and human rights violations, health harms and natural disasters; works to hold accountable the U.S. and Canadian governments, multi-national companies, investors and banks (World Bank, etc.) that help cause and profit from repression and human rights violations, environmental harms and forced evictions, corruption and impunity in Honduras and Guatemala.
Act – Stir up the pot – Chip away
Keep sending copies of Rights Action information (and that of other solidarity groups/ NGOs) to family, friends and networks, politicians and media – always asking the question as to why our governments, companies and investment firms benefit from and turn a blind eye to poverty, repression and violence, environmental and health harms that caused the forced migrancy / refugee crisis in Guatemala and Honduras.
Other solidarity/ NGO groups in U.S. and Canada
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Tax-Deductible Donations (Canada & U.S.)
To support our land, human rights and environmental defender partner groups in Honduras and Guatemala, make check to "Rights Action" and mail to:
- U.S.: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
- Canada: (Box 552) 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8
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