Honduras: A selective and low-intensity human hunt

Another murder in broad daylight

A little after noon on Wednesday, Feb. 24, in the city of San Pedro
Sula, there was a knock on the door at Claudia Larissa Brizuela’s
house, where she was celebrating her 36th birthday. As soon as she
opened the door she was gunned down, with three shots to the head that
killed instantly. Claudia was an active member of the trade union of
employees of the Mayor’s Office, where she worked. She was also the
daughter of Pedro Brizuela, a prominent local leader of the National
Popular Resistance Front (FNRP).

This new terrorist killing occurred just before a large mobilization
planned by FNRP for the capital, Tegucigalpa, to protest against the
Truth Commission, which is seen as a way of guaranteeing that all the
criminals involved in the coup and the ensuing savage repression will
not be punished.

Claudia is the third deadly victim of the government of Porfirio Lobo,
who’s only been in office one month. Vanessa Zepeda and Julio Funes had
already been slain this past month in similar circumstances.
Pedro Brizuela, Claudia’s father, linked the murder to his FNRP
activities and to an attempt to terrorize anyone who dares to fight for
democracy in Honduras.

The repression is now targeting women in particular, as several women
have reported that they’ve been receiving threat calls and are being
harassed, also by phone, by unidentified callers who announce the death
of their children or of somebody close to them. One woman was followed
by a car and another was brutally beaten, losing an eye and several
teeth and suffering back injuries.

This selective violence against low-ranking FNRP, trade union and
social organization leaders has intensified since Jan. 28, when
Porfirio Lobo took office. His security minister, Oscar Álvarez, has
stated publicly that the resistance must be eradicated because "there’s
no longer any reason for it to exist."

The strategy deployed by Honduras’ Intelligence Services consists of
sowing terror through highly public, almost televised, killings of
low-ranking leaders, sparing, for the time being, the more prominent
leaders of the opposition. This strategy has apparently a double aim:
intimidating the people with a state-terrorism-type "low-intensity
hunt" while, supposedly, avoiding major national and international
scandals that would be triggered by the killing of more well-known
figures.

This regime is not governing democratically; it is not a democracy. And
already there are people who have paid with their lives, demonstrating
the true nature of the government. It’s not by chance that Porfirio
Lobo’s leading security advisor is José Félix Ramajo, an ISA
(International Security Academy) instructor, with connections to the
Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service.

Honduras is seeing the reemergence of the state terrorism it suffered
in the 1980s, but with a slight difference: the perpetration of
selective killings targeting low-rankings activists. There are no
massacres, no mutilated or dismembered bodies dumped in the suburbs;
there are no high-profile assassination as of yet. The form of
repression carried out now is much more perverse, because it uses the
media to broadcast the killings and convey a clear message: "You could
be the next victim; or your children, or your relatives, or your
friends." Anyone can be next. It spreads a terror magnified by impunity
to an almost universal scale.

What mind is capable of conceiving this kind of strategy? Just putting
it into words is repugnant.
Rel-UITA, the IUF’s Latin American Office, once again holds President
Porfirio Lobo responsible for these murders, along with all the
governments that supported the process that led to the ousting of
Manuel Zelaya and the establishment of this terrorist dictatorship
disguised as a democracy.

The blood of Claudia, of Vanessa, of Julio and of all the other victims
of state terrorism in Honduras should stain the spotless offices of the
White House. The inconsolable cries of eight-year-old Eduard and
two-year-old Said, Claudia’s orphans, should resound in the broad and
elegant halls of the U.S. presidency and fill its war-spreading
peace-talking President with shame.

Rel-UITA condemns this and all other murders committed against the
Honduran people as they fought for their rights, for their democracy,
and it will go on denouncing without pause the true perpetrators of
these crimes against humanity.

The international community must react quickly and forcefully to
condemn the governments that support these inhumane regime.