{"id":6613,"date":"2011-06-28T18:03:13","date_gmt":"2011-06-28T18:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theredphoenixapl.org\/?p=6613"},"modified":"2011-06-28T18:03:13","modified_gmt":"2011-06-28T18:03:13","slug":"whos-killing-the-journalists-of-honduras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2011\/06\/whos-killing-the-journalists-of-honduras\/","title":{"rendered":"Who’s Killing the Journalists of Honduras?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span>
\n Editor’s Note: June 28, 2011 is the two-year anniversary of the coup in Honduras.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The small town of San Marco, near Honduras\u2019 western border with El Salvador and Guatemala, has no distinguishing factors that set it apart from the other tiny villages and hamlets that dot the rural region of Ocotepeque. Its dusty streets and pretty white church give off an air of sleepy, country tranquility. But to journalist Jos\u00e9 Alem\u00e1n, in late March of 2010, the town\u2019s streets were anything but idyllic as he tried to evade gunmen sent to kill him.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was Friday March 26, 2010, around six a.m., when Alem\u00e1n left the room he had rented in the town. While riding his bike, a blue automobile appeared and attempted to cut him off. Alem\u00e1n skirted his way by the truck and dodged uneasily down another street, only to have the automobile reappear and edge closer to him. Spinning his bike around, Alem\u00e1n fled from the scene to the relative safety of the main park in San Marco Ocotepeque where he was to meet a friend for breakfast.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Throwing his bike in the bed of his friend\u2019s truck, the two headed out for breakfast. While at a nearby gas station another of Alem\u00e1n\u2019s friends showed up with some news.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re looking for you,\u201d said the friend.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWho?\u201d asked Alem\u00e1n.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSome men, they\u2019re looking for you to kill you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Still shocked by the news, only minutes later Alem\u00e1n received a call from a neighbor informing her that the men in the blue vehicle had stopped by his room, looking for him and saying that they were going to catch \u201cthis dog.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI never believed that this was true because I\u2019ve lived here for 10 years and have never had a problem,\u201d Alem\u00e1n told The Latin America News Dispatch. Fearing for his life, Alem\u00e1n headed to the local police station, but after hours of waiting without any news, he left for the relative safety of a hotel room nearby.<\/span><\/p>\n

The following day, against advisement from his friends, Alem\u00e1n headed to work at the Radio Am\u00e9rica studios. Shortly after reporting on a shootout between police and a group of unidentified assailants, the station\u2019s phone rang. Picking up, he heard a mocking voice say \u201ckeep talking, keep talking.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

That Sunday, while the devout Christian Alem\u00e1n was out, gunmen entered his home, ransacked the place and peppered it with bullets. Hearing the news, Alem\u00e1n quickly packed up and fled into hiding. \u201cThank God I\u2019m a Christian and it wasn\u2019t His will that I die in my room that day,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alem\u00e1n was fortunate to escape the attempt on his life, given that he works as a journalist in Honduras. Since 2008, ten journalists have been murdered in the country and many more wounded, including the March 2011 attack on radio station director Franklin Mel\u00e9ndez. Honduras, which was labeled by Reporter\u2019s Without Borders as the most dangerous country in the world for journalists in 2010, has also seen the killing of 60 lawyers, 155 women, and 59 gays, lesbians or transgender people since 2008, giving the country the ominous title of holding the highest murder rate in the Western Hemisphere, according to The Miami Herald<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cViolence against media workers is increasing in Latin America,\u201d said Tracy Wilkinson, Mexico City bureau chief of The Los Angeles Times. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s politics…but very often it\u2019s the rise of well-armed, well-organized criminal gangs, whether drug traffickers or run-of-the-mill smugglers, who don\u2019t want journalists snooping around their lucrative businesses.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The murders began on the evening of March 3, 2010 when Joseph Ochoa, a journalist for the Canal 51 TV station, was killed in Tegucigalpa during an attack allegedly aimed at fellow journalist Karol Cabrera. On March 11, David Meza Montesinos, a radio journalist who reported receiving threats for a story on drug trafficking, was shot dead by gunmen in an ambush close to his home in the Atlantic coast city of La Ceiba. Three days later Nah\u00fam Palacios, news editor of Televisora de-Agu\u00e1n-Canal 5, was shot in his car in Tocoa, Honduras. Then on March 26, 2010 Bayardo Mairena and Manuel Ju\u00e1rez, both radio journalists, had their car shot up and then gunmen \u201cfinished them off with shots fired at close-range,\u201d according to Reporters Without Borders.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The case of Franklin Mel\u00e9ndez highlights that these attacks on journalists are not isolated incidents and have carried over into 2011. Along with Mel\u00e9ndez\u2019s confrontation, five journalists in March were attacked by police officers while covering protests in the country\u2019s on-going teachers strike. \u201cHonduras is a very dangerous country for journalists right now,\u201d said Ricardo Trotti of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA).<\/span><\/p>\n

These murders and attacks have shocked and dismayed the journalism community, as Honduras battles to be the focal point of violence in a region of the world normally dominated by bad news from Mexico. \u201cThis unprecedented level of violence against the Honduran media has obviously created fear and unease,\u201d said Joel Simon, the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, in a telephone interview. \u201cThe murders of five reporters [last March] has inevitably caused widespread self-censorship, and prevented local journalists from reporting on sensitive information, such as crime, local corruption and national security.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Self-censorship, due to fear of retaliation from the Honduran government or drug-traffickers, has become a major issue within the Honduran journalism community. \u201cAny murder has the effect of intimidating the press corps and causing some journalists to pull their punches and not report what they see as the truth,\u201d Wilkinson said. \u201cThis is disastrous for society, which ends up being ill-informed. In a way, not knowing what is really behind the killings ends up creating a multitude of possibilities and a multitude of reasons for journalists to be afraid.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn Honduras, it\u2019s a crime to tell people the truth,\u201d Alem\u00e1n said, adding that when journalists report on certain issues such as drugs or corruption, editors will tell them to work on something else so they don\u2019t draw attention to the press.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aleman\u2019s manager at the El Tiempo newspaper, Rub\u00e9n Escobar, agreed that self-censorship is a fact of life in Honduran journalism. Escobar blamed fear of drug traffickers operating in the country for much of the self-censoring. \u201cThere are some media outlets that have stopped covering the actions of the drug-traffickers,\u201d he said. \u201cSelf-censorship has begun to become widespread.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Even the President of the Honduran Journalism Association asked reporters to be careful with the information and quotes they are given, according to Escobar. \u201cThis is equivalent to self-censorship,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

While many blame drug-trafficking organizations that use Honduras as a stopover point between South America and Mexico for the spike in violence against media workers, others point a finger at the Honduran government and their crackdown on opposition journalists after the June 2009 coup. \u201cAre the Honduran government\u2019s promises to the U.N. and O.A.S. to improve the situation of the media being used as a smokescreen for targeted attacks on outspoken or opposition media?\u201d Reporters Without Borders said. \u201cWe have every reason to suspect this, given the latest events and the total absence of protection for the most exposed and vulnerable media.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The coup took place on the morning of June 28, 2009 when about 100 soldiers stormed the presidential palace in Tegucigalpa, forcibly removed then-President Manuel Zelaya from the premises and flying him to San Jos\u00e9, Costa Rica. Citing a plot by Zelaya to eliminate presidential term limits and create a socialist state in the vein of Venezuela\u2019s Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, the National Congress later that day voted to remove Zelaya from office and swore in Speaker of Congress Roberto Micheletti as president.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the next few months, there were mass protests and violence between demonstrators and police. Many countries, including the United States, refused to recognize the interim government and the United Nations called for Zelaya\u2019s reinstatement. During the turmoil, Zelaya snuck back into Honduras in September and holed himself up in the Brazilian Embassy. Under this atmosphere, Honduras held elections on November 29, 2009. Porfirio Lobo, of the conservative Partido Nacional, won the election and was installed as president two months later on January 27, 2010. That same day, Zelaya flew into exile to the Dominican Republic, after Lobo and Dominican President Leonel Fern\u00e1ndez worked out a deal to ensure Zelaya\u2019s safe passage out of Honduras.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span>
Members of Honduras Resiste<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

President Lobo is in a difficult position when it comes to the violence against journalists, as he is under constant watch from the coup\u2019s military leaders to rule the way that they see fit. If he relaxes his tough stance on Zelaya supporters he runs the risk of being ousted himself, said Adrienne Pine, a professor at American University and Senior Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing Lobo can do, even he wanted to,\u201d she added. \u201cIt\u2019s horrifying,\u201d she added.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the reporters killed were outspoken critics of the post-coup government, leading some to speculate that the Honduran government is solely responsible for the murders of these journalists. \u201cHonduras is unique. In other parts of Latin America where violence against the press is endemic \u2013 Mexico, for example \u2013it\u2019s tied to drug trafficking. In Honduras, at least as far as CPJ can determine, the violence against the press appears to have a political dimension,\u201d Simon said. \u201cThat\u2019s an extremely alarming development for the entire region.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOf the ten journalists killed, seven were known members of the resistance,\u201d said Gerardo Torres of Honduras\u2019 National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP, in Spanish). \u201cIf this were any other country, everybody would hear about this. When they kill ten journalists in Honduras, nobody knows.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Torres, an outspoken critic of the coup and the current Lobo government, said that all these murders have gone unprosecuted and that while the Honduran government blames drug-traffickers and common criminals, the government itself is committing these murders.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many people, including Torres and Pine, believe that the Honduran government is deeply entrenched in drug-trafficking. \u201cThe violence is from the administration, but the administration is totally immersed in drug trafficking,\u201d Pine said.<\/span><\/p>\n

If the government does not tacitly support the drug traffickers, they at least let them operate freely due to bribes and corruption and might hire them out to do the government\u2019s dirty work. The parties in power are subcontracting the killings of journalists and dissidents out to gang members or even private security agencies that have links to paramilitary groups, Pine added.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Others, such as the IAPA, don\u2019t believe that the government is so entrenched with drug traffickers and see the problem mainly resulting from reporting on the drug trade. Mexico, in the midst of President Felipe Calder\u00f3n\u2019s drug war, is a hotbed of violence toward media workers and some fear that the violence has spread into Central America, which is a key region in the drug smuggling routes from South America to Mexico.<\/span><\/p>\n

The U.S. State Department listed Honduras, along with Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, on its list of 20 \u201cmajor illicit drug transit or major illicit drug producing countries.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With Mexican cartels now holding sway in much of the region, they can recruit from local criminal groups to help with the shipment of drugs as well as form groups to carry out murders and kidnappings of rivals and critics.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs Mexico and Colombia continue to apply pressure on drug traffickers, the countries of Central America are increasingly targeted for trafficking of cocaine and other drugs primarily destined for the United States,\u201d U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement on the State Department website.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s organized crime, the government, or a mix of both, what cannot be debated is that these murders have struck fear into the hearts of Honduran journalists and cause them to censor much of their work. Will Honduras become like Mexico, where as The New York Times reported, many journalists have stopped covering drug murders and shootouts because they fear retribution from the cartels?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a climate of fear,\u201d Aleman said. \u201cYou can\u2019t trust anyone, only God, because in the end you\u2019re alone.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: June 28, 2011 is the two-year anniversary of the coup in Honduras. The small town of San Marco, near Honduras\u2019 western border with..<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[166,21,97],"tags":[340,197,347],"class_list":["post-6613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","category-international","category-us-news","tag-honduras","tag-imperialism","tag-workers-struggle"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenix.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/435967_6613_0053b.jpg?fit=800%2C506&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}