Honduras tolerates death-squad style groups

The Honduran government tolerates illegal groups that operate as death squads, a truth commission said Wednesday in a report on the effects of the 2009 coup against president Manuel Zelaya. The panel, which includes Nobel laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel and Spanish legal expert Luis Nieto, discussed the 366-page report at a public event with Zelaya in the crowd. "Starting with the coup d'etat, and with the government's acquiescence... groups have developed and been allowed to operate outside the legal system. They use the methods and procedures of death squads," said the report. "These groups appear to be linked to organized crime, to drug trafficking and to actions that are usually described as 'social cleansing,'" it added. The report proves that "the people who carried out the coup still hold power in the country," Zelaya told reporters after the event. Hector Mejia, spokesman for the Security Ministry, told AFP there was no state policy "to deprive anyone of their life, independent of any crime that person may have committed." Justice and Human Rights Minister Ana Pineda, however, acknowledged shortcomings. "The biggest difficulty is the impunity that continues to exist in human rights violations due to the coup," Pineda said, adding that the government and police "must deliver results." Soldiers rousted Zelaya out of bed at gunpoint on June 28, 2009, forced him onto an airplane to Costa Rica in his pajamas and sent him into exile. The military coup was sanctioned by the legislature and the Supreme Court but left the country polarized between coup supporters and followers of Zelaya, who took to the streets in angry demonstrations. Congress named the head of the legislature, Roberto Micheletti, as the country's interim leader, but his seven-month presidency was never recognized abroad. Micheletti's government organized elections in November 2009, and the winner -- the current president, Porfirio Lobo -- took office in January 2010. The commission "has concluded that the effects of the coup d'etat continue, and that both before and after the November 2009 elections, both governments (Micheletti and Lobo) used and continue to use terror as a social control resource," the report said. Last year, the truth commission found that Zelaya was deposed in a coup and not removed from the presidency in a "constitutional succession" as his opponents claimed. Zelaya, 60, was a wealthy conservative rancher when he was elected in 2006, but turned to the left once in office. His opponents feared he would use a proposed referendum to extend his term, as his ally Hugo Chavez had done in Venezuela. Zelaya returned to Honduras in May 2011 under a deal brokered by several Latin American governments. Despite enjoying broad popular support, Zelaya cannot run in the 2013 elections because the constitution limits presidents to a single term in office.