the world’s murder capital_ honduras

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The world’s murder capital: HondurasJanuary 16, 2012 6:59 am 0 comments

The Central American country of Honduras has long had problems with civil unrest, but a recent report by theUnited Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) puts the country at the top of a world murder list.

Graham Vincent






With 82 murders for every 100,000 residents last year – or about 20 murders every day – Honduras’ murder ratehas doubled in only five years, making it the world’s most dangerous place, outside of war zones.

Honduras, along with Guatemala and El Salvador, is part of Central America’s northern triangle – which US militaryleaders call “the deadliest zone in the world” outside Iraq and Afghanistan. Its murder rate is over 60 times that ofthe UK.

The alarming rate of increase of murder in Honduras – 6,200 killings in a country of 7.7 million people – is largelyattributed to the increase in drug trafficking and youth gang activity.

Honduras is believed to be a crucial stop on the route cocainetraffickers take from South America into Mexico and then on to the United States.

20-25 tonnes of the white powder travel through Honduras every month, as the world’s biggest cocaine producersin Colombia, Peru and Bolivia send their cargo up north to Mexico.

A coup in 2009 in Honduras is believed to have provided traffickers with a window of opportunity that they haveseized.

The Honduran Army ousted President Manuel Zelaya and sent him into exile. A curfew ordered at the time by theDe facto leader Roberto Micheletti still exists to some extent, despite not being approved by Congress.

This facilitated human rights abuses, according to AmnestyInternational, and in turn a marked increase in people joining criminal gangs in defiance of the curfew.

Drug flights into Honduras from South America is purported to have increased from only a handful in 2006 toaround 80 last year.

Almost half the cocaine that reaches the US is now offloaded somewhere along the Honduras coast. On the swampyMosquitia coast, entire villages have made a way of life from the cocaine trade.

This has lead to an alarming rise in gangs moving drugs and street level dealers whose violence now characterizestough urban areas of the capital, Tegucigalpa, and the northern industrial city of San Pedro Sula.






Organised crime in Honduras has got so bad that the UnitedStates Peace Corps – having had a presence there since 1963 – are to withdraw all 158 volunteers in January amidconcerns over the rising violence.

And earlier this month, the Honduran Congress – in a measure requested by current President Porfirio Lobo – votedto ban motorcyclists riding with passengers after s spate of drive-by killings.

Two high profile murders in early December prompted the government to take action. Men on motorcycles gunneddown former government security adviser Alfredo Landaverde in his car.

The previous day, in the capital Tegucigalpa, journalist Luz Marina Paz and her driver were also murdered as theydrove through the city.

Honduran journalists are facing a growing danger, according tothe country’s human rights commissioner. Mrs Paz was the 17th media worker to be slain in Honduras in threeyears.

The journalists are being executed apparently after speaking up about the drug gangs.

The spread in violence has lead to the Honduran authorities deploying troops to carry out policing duties and toaffront the presence of violent street gangs and also increasing encroachment by Mexican drug cartels.

The military are highly regarded by Honduran society, especially after their role in removing President Zelaya fromoffice, and the feeling is they can do a better job than the police in handling the criminal gangs.

A policeman in Honduras has a very difficult job. Starting on around £160 per month and having to battle betterarmed and financed criminals, corruption is inevitably pandemic.






A member of a criminal gang can earn up to ten times the averagemonthly salary of a policeman.

In a prominent case, four young officers were implicated in the murder of 22 year old student Alejandro Vargas inlate October. His mother, Julieta Castallenos, is the President of the National University.

The officers were released, but the public outcry that followed led to arrest warrants being issued. But by this time,the culprits had fled.

Vargas had been followed by a police car containing the officers as he drove home from a birthday party, stopped,then shot at point blank range. His body and that of his friend Carlos Pineda, 24, were found in a ravine on theoutskirts of Tegucigalpa.

Several of the country’s top police commanders were fired as thescandal widened.

Prior to the deployment of soldiers countrywide the capital, Tegucigalpa, had only one officer for 600 residents;London has around one officer for every 200.

Hondurans have long suffered from violence, as well as rampant poverty, which is what draws the poor towards thegangs.

In the late 70’s and early 80’s, revolutions erupted on either side of Honduras in Guatemala, El Salvador andNicaragua. In July 1979 the revolutionary Sandinista movement in Nicaragua overthrew the Somoza dictatorship,and Somoza’s national guardsmen fled into Honduras. A conservative Honduran government accepted US backingand an influx of US troops onto their soil, provoking the anti-US Nicaraguans.

Opposition to the US militarization of Honduras intensified andpolitical enemies to the governments’ policies disappeared. Public alarm grew.

Then, several years later, after the US had left the country, the lempira’s value plummeted from two per US$ toeight. The average Honduran grew poorer and poorer, as they still do today, where the lempira sits at 19 per US$.






Honduras is also experiencing the most rapid urbanisation in Central America, forcing migrants to the cities tocrowd in squalor, exacerbating the dangers in the slums. The urban population was 44% in 1990, but now the levelis close to 60%.

But despite the problems of violence Honduras suffers, tourism –especially on the Caribbean coast – could prosper.

Epic Mayan ruins at Copan, idyllic Caribbean beaches at the Bay Islands and charming old towns all feature on theitineraries of intrepid travellers.

But after the 2009 coup, tourism slumped 70%, dealing a blow to an already ailing economy.

Honduras’ biggest challenge, though, will be to tackle the ever increasing spate of murders, which render thecountry almost as dangerous as Afghanistan. This will be their hardest battle.

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