Honduras follows El Salvador in Anti-Gang Crackdown
After a bloody weekend in Honduras, the country’s president, Xiomara Castro, determined to implement a new strategy to deal with the violence generated by the activities and feuds carried out by criminal groups.
On June 24, a massacre left 13 people dead in the municipality of Choloma, where the Honduran government established a curfew from 9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m., a measure that as of July 4th will extend to San Pedro Sula.
Days before, on June 20, the news shook the country and even all of Central America: 46 Women’s Center for Social Adaptation (Cefas) inmates died after a confrontation between the Mara Salvatrucha and Pandilla 18 gangs.
After the women’s prison tragedy, the Government of Xiomara Castro ordered the Military Police to control the prisons. The authorities baptized this action as Operation Faith and Hope, which implies a change of position concerning what had been previously agreed: the demilitarization of security.
Honduran authorities began security operations at several prisons, using tactics similar to those used in neighboring El Salvador: emptying cell blocks and forcing inmates to sit in rows, spread-legged and huddled against each other.
The prisoners were seated on the floor under the strict surveillance of military police, in an operation somewhat similar to those carried out in prisons in El Salvador, on the instructions of the president of that country, Nayib Bukele. He asked human rights defenders to “let PMOP (Military Police for Public Order) work.”
During that time, the PMOP must “recruit, train, and form at least 2,000 new custodians of penal centers, in compliance with the Law of the National Penitentiary Institute (INP),” Xiomara Castro said.
Unfortunately, these actions are a desperate attempt to maintain order in the population in the face of different situations. Each government works differently, and each place should keep that in mind.
The question that leaves these situations resonating is: who is to blame? Is it the Government? Or something else? What is causing all this?
