Bogus Honduras travel warning

This past Monday the US State Department released another Honduras travel warning, the fourth since June 2013.

I’ve written about two of these in the past here and here, but this one deserves the cake.

It’s largely cut and paste from previous warnings. It appears that nobody took the time to rewrite the document.

Yet there are some very interesting statistics. Some of which look alarming.

For instance, the 2015 warning notes:

Since January 1, 2012, four cases of kidnapped U.S. citizens were reported to the U.S. Embassy; the kidnapping victims were all subsequently released. 

However, this exact same statement appears in the June 17, 2013 warning. So there were no reported kidnapping since June 2013!

But what is more interesting is the reporting on murders and follow-up on the crimes.

In the June 2013 warning:

A majority of serious crimes are never solved; of the 18 murders committed against U.S. citizens since January 2011, police have closed none.

As I calculate this there were 18 in that two and a half year period.

In the December 2013 warning:

The vast majority of serious crimes in Honduras, including those against U.S. citizens, are never solved; of the 50 murders committed against U.S. citizens since 2008, police have only solved two.

So there were 50 murders in six years.

The June 2014 warning gives no number of US citizens murdered.

The March 2015 warning reads:

The U.S. Embassy has recorded more than 100 murders of U.S. citizens since 2002.

Okay. Fifty of these were between 2008 and the end of 2013. When did the others occur?

The 2015 warning does note that

In 2014, there were ten murders of U.S. citizens reported to the U.S. Embassy with seven of the ten resulting in arrests or prosecutions.

So it seems that 35 of the reported murders were between 2002 and the end of 2007. 

Why the inconsistency in time periods considered?

But what really irks me – as I mentioned in a previous post is a statement that I consider an outright UNTRUTH, a statement that has appeared in various forms in all four reports:

U.S. citizens are victims of crime at levels similar to those of the local population….

This is what some of us might call a LIE - or it could be the the US State Department doesn't know what is happening in Honduras.

And so I ask the US government:

• US State Department, do you really know what is happening in Honduras?
• Do you really know what is happening to the Honduran people?
• Do you really understand that there are various types and causes of violence here? Do you not understand that US citizens have privileges (largely because of our money) and don’t have to ride in public transportation or live in dangerous neighborhoods and can avoid dangerous areas?
• Do you not understand that most Hondurans do not have the resources to live in good neighborhoods or take secure taxis or busses?
• Do you not understand that Hondurans face violence and crime not just from common criminals but from government forces?
• I think you are really ignorant of what is happening. Even your own warning shows this.

But what really strikes me as strange is that the most recent warning notes that seven out of the ten reported murders of US citizens have resulted in arrests and prosecutions. That's a 70% response rate; of course, there may not be convictions, the "justice" system being as poor as it is. But a 70% response rate is something that Hondurans would applaud.

According to a report in Telesur:

In the three year period from 2010 to 2013, 27,272 homicides were reported in Honduras, while there were only1,009 court convictions.

An April 2014 report of In Sight Crime notes:

 In Honduras, according to figures from the Supreme Court of Justice, for every 100 homicides, the perpetrators are sentenced in just three cases. That is to say: the impunity rate in the most violent country in the Northern Triangle is 97.44 percent. 

That’s between a 3.7% and a 2.56% conviction rate for murders against Hondurans. If that were the case with the US citizens murdered, there would probably have been less than one conviction. Instead, 70% have resulted in either arrests or convictions.

In a nearby municipality there have been 14 murders of Hondurans. I need to ask how many have resulted in arrests or prosecutions, or were even investigated.

UPDATE: March 16, 2015: While visiting the municipality yesterday I asked about last year's killings. One person is jailed. Another person was arrested for another killing but was released when it was discovered that he was not responsible for the crime; another person was arrested for that crime but is out of jail, thanks to his lawyers. My source mentioned that the police are now watching the accused because he seems to have been responsible for other crimes. That's impunity and an inadequate judicial and police system.

We US citizens are privileged.

The travel warning is bogus.

I do not deny that there is violence – especially in the big cities and along the north coast. I do not deny the presence of crime – both petty crime and large scale crime related to drug trafficking and gangs (and corrupt police, military, and economic elites). I do not deny the violence in our area – often due to long-held resentments, family feuds, and alcohol abuse.

But much of the violence continues because the system does not respond to the people. Impunity runs rampant.

The US warning does not address this – and I think throwing a billion dollars into the region won’t help. That's another post.