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Fight and Flight: Tackling the Roots of Honduras’ Emergency [1]

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Date: 2019-10-25  +02:00

What happened? Months of street protests and a mass northward exodus, despite a sustained U.S. campaign to deter Central American migrants, illustrate the depth of despair in Honduras at political leaders, gang violence, extortion, poverty and inequality. Why does it matter? State security crackdowns against a backdrop of extreme political polarisation dating back to the 2009 coup, fuelled by scandals over alleged links between the ruling party and criminal networks, could further fuel violent unrest. Washington’s fixation on bottling up migrant flows in the region risks making a bad situation worse. What should be done? With support from the U.S. and other donors, the Honduran government should enact electoral and anti-corruption reforms and grant stronger investigative powers to the judiciary and police, avoid heavy-handed responses to civil unrest, and fund programs that address urgent humanitarian needs while also reducing violence, a key driver of migration.

Executive Summary

In a troubled region, Honduras stands out for its political convulsions, deadly gang presence, and the desperate flight of its people. A key U.S. ally in Central America despite recent strains on that relationship, President Juan Orlando Hernández’s government confronts profound public malaise. Discontent runs high with political leaders accused of exercising one-party rule since the 2009 coup and of colluding with organised crime. Six out of ten Hondurans live in poverty, while violent crime thrives, generating some of Latin America’s worst murder rates. Political, economic and security grievances have fuelled mass protests in recent years, and account for the huge rise in Honduran migrants and refugees heading north. But the government’s crackdown on protests and the draconian treatment of Central American migrants spearheaded by U.S. President Donald Trump risk aggravating instability and deepening the region’s humanitarian and security crisis. Backed by the U.S. and donors, Tegucigalpa should focus on reforms and programs that could eventually make flight a less compelling option. Ruled since 2014 by President Hernández, Honduras has witnessed a steady concentration of power in the ruling National Party’s hands and increasingly heavy-handed law enforcement. The Nationalists have taken some promising steps in their time in power. Moves to purge corrupt police forces, implement tough law enforcement measures and extradite drug traffickers have broken up cartels and reportedly halved the homicide rate after it reached a historic high eight years ago.

Honduras still suffers the toxic political and public legacy of the June 2009 coup.

But these changes have not brought stability. Waves of post-election protests shook the country in late 2017, and were followed by other surges of unrest in 2019 when the government announced plans for controversial health and education reforms. Public discontent has propelled a surge in emigration. From October 2018 to end-August 2019, U.S. border patrols apprehended more than 240,000 Hondurans trying to cross into the U.S. from Mexico (approximately 2.5 per cent of Honduras’ population). Several reasons account for this disaffection. For one, Honduras still suffers the toxic political and public legacy of the June 2009 coup, in which the left-leaning Manuel Zelaya was deposed and exiled abroad for allegedly seeking re-election and straying too close to Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela. The conservative National Party has since ruled the country, appointed supporters to state and judicial institutions, and reportedly abused its power through corruption and criminal collusion. Zelaya, who returned to Honduras in 2011, has emerged as the main opposition figure, exploiting dissatisfaction with public institutions and inequality in a society where only 20 per cent of people earn the paltry minimum wage. He has encouraged Hondurans to take to the streets, including after the contested November 2017 elections, when mass public unrest was met with police repression and left at least 23 dead, chiefly on the protesters’ side. After a U.S. court convicted the president’s brother on drug trafficking charges in October 2019, Zelaya and other opposition leaders called for mass protest until the president resigns.

Notwithstanding the reduction in homicide and the break-up of drug cartels, the grip of street gangs and extortion rackets on Honduran communities remains strong.

A second cause lies in Honduras’ criminal underworld. Notwithstanding the reduction in homicide (which has tailed off in 2019) and the break-up of drug cartels – especially in trafficking hubs like the country’s second city San Pedro Sula and along the Atlantic coast – the grip of street gangs and extortion rackets on Honduran communities remains strong. The murder rate is still stubbornly high – Honduras was third in Latin America in terms of lethal violence last year, behind only Venezuela and El Salvador – while the flight from violence explains between 20 and 40 per cent of the country’s emigration. Reported abuses by the security forces, their alleged collusion with criminal organisations and high impunity rates for serious crimes help drive public frustration with state institutions and allow gangs and other criminal organisations to use violence to tighten their grip on communities, with pernicious effects on women and children in particular. Honduras faces higher risks of turbulence and emigration in the years ahead unless its government and international partners find a way to start addressing the problems that push so many Hondurans to flee the country. Short-term fixes that focus on symptoms rather than drivers of unrest – such as Tegucigalpa’s crackdown on protesters or Washington’s arm-twisting to force regional governments to host migrants under asylum cooperation agreements, the so-called “Safe Third Country Agreements” – will leave the causes of instability to fester. In this vein, the U.S. suspension of assistance that might have helped Honduras address the conditions driving migration, which has been only partly reversed to allow for the continuation of security and law enforcement aid, is both callous and counter-productive. Though the many challenges Honduras confronts have no easy fixes, the government and its partners can certainly take steps toward security and better government. With U.S. and other donor support, Tegucigalpa can build on the agreements reached under UN auspices to reduce political tensions, focusing in particular on enacting political and electoral reforms thrashed out in a UN-sponsored dialogue last year. The same parties should back a fresh mandate for the Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH), created in conjunction with the Organization of American States to prosecute high-level graft. For its part, the government should shift away from militarised policing toward strengthening judicial and police investigations. And the U.S. government should resume assistance with a particular focus on programs that can address the conditions, like hunger, that drive Hondurans to flee, recognising that if Washington wants a future in which migrants do not throng to its borders every year then it will have to make more of an investment in it. Bogotá/Brussels/Tegucigalpa, 25 October 2019

I. Introduction

Honduras is one of the poorest and most violent nations in Latin America. Even after years of declining murder rates, it ranked among the three deadliest countries in the region in 2018, with an annual murder rate of 40 homicides per 100,000 habitants. It is plagued with extremely high levels of inequality, and more than 60 per cent of its 9.1 million inhabitants live in poverty. The country also has a spotty experience with democratic governance. After nearly two decades of military rule and a brief war with neighbouring El Salvador in 1969, Honduras returned to democracy in 1981 under a two-party system, although the armed forces continued to exert considerable influence over policymaking. With the backing of the government and military, Honduras became the centre for U.S. counter-insurgency operations in neighbouring Nicaragua in the 1980s.

In 2009, a constitutional crisis followed by a coup upended the political order that had prevailed in Honduras for nearly three decades.

In 2009, a constitutional crisis followed by a coup upended the political order that had prevailed in Honduras for nearly three decades. Then-president Manuel Zelaya’s ouster and exile in June 2009 followed his attempt to retain power for an unconstitutional second term, and also reflected alarm in the mostly conservative political establishment about his alignment with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Tensions escalated between Zelaya and his own centre-left Liberal Party, which worked with the Supreme Court, the military and the opposition National Party to remove him from power and establish an interim government that called a new election. An agreement between former president Porfirio Lobo from the National Party, which has ruled uninterruptedly since the coup, and the Organization of American States (OAS) allowed Zelaya to return to Honduras two years later. Zelaya went on to found the left-wing party “Libertad y Refundación”, known as Libre, displacing the internally divided Liberals as the main opposition group. Honduran politics since the coup have been dominated by two trends. On the one hand, the National Party, led since 2014 by President Juan Orlando Hernández, has practically erased checks and balances on state power by exerting growing influence over the judiciary and electoral institutions, and appointing intimate allies as high-level state officials. On the other, Zelaya’s Libre party and some Liberals have played a double game – intensifying their criticism of the moves by the ruling party that they describe as authoritarian, while simultaneously pursuing back room deals that afford them more power and posts in key state institutions.

Demonstrations have often become vehicles for expressing anti-government sentiments and demanding President Hernández resign.

The net effect has been to heighten polarisation, increase public distrust of political elites and fuel recurrent tides of unrest. This became fully visible in the wake of the 2017 elections, when concerns about foul play at the polls, among other issues, sparked a public outcry and a month of protests that left 23 dead and 1,351 detained. Protesters also took to the streets between April and June 2019, as trade unions mobilised in response to fears that health and education reforms enacted by the Honduran Congress would lead to mass privatisation and lay-offs in those sectors. These demonstrations have often become vehicles for expressing anti-government sentiments and demanding President Hernández resign, a call that has gathered steam after the president’s brother was convicted for drug trafficking in a U.S. court. Criminal networks have exploited Honduras’ weak governing institutions and gaps in its security architecture. Drug cartels and gangs such as the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the 18th Street Gang run extortion rackets in the country’s impoverished urban areas and have turned the rural areas of the Caribbean coast into a regional transit hub for drug trafficking. Although economic desperation remains the leading reason why Hondurans flee the country, and notwithstanding the government’s highly-touted achievements in bringing down the murder rate and making inroads against organised crime, insecurity remains an important driver of emigration. A lack of faith in national institutions helps drive flight as well. Ten years after the 2009 coup, this report describes Honduras’ most pressing political and security challenges, how they drive migration, how the response of the country’s most powerful foreign partner – the U.S. – threatens to lead the country and region further into crisis, and discusses steps that could start reversing negative trends. It is based on over 100 interviews in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula over the past two years with high-level politicians, security experts, magistrates, NGOs, asylum-seekers, humanitarian workers, diplomats and academics, among others.

II. Honduras’ Enduring Political Crisis

A. The Political Legacy of the 2009 Coup

1. Two camps, three parties

Ten years on, the June 2009 coup still overshadows day-to-day political life in Honduras. “Since 2009, there are two camps in Honduras: one that supports the coup and one that sees in the government of [President] Hernández a soft dictatorship”, said one civil society leader. The pro-coup bloc is represented in the Honduran Congress by the National and Liberal parties, which engineered Zelaya’s ouster and continue to defend it. Their justifications include, among other things, Zelaya’s alignment with Venezuela, which the traditionally conservative political elites feared could be a first step toward socialism in Honduras, and his apparent manoeuvring to seek a second term in office, then prohibited by the constitution. This faction has been buoyed both internationally and domestically by support from the U.S., which, despite the Obama administration’s disapproval of the coup, recognised the results of the subsequent election that in November 2009 installed the National Party in power and has proved crucial to the gradual restoration of Honduras’ global standing. Until President Trump recently turned on Tegucigalpa for its purported failure to curb migration flows, Washington has given firm backing to post-coup administrations.

The roots of political division in Honduras go deeper than the coup, however, and also are bound up with competing ideologies, values, and support bases.

On the other side of the political divide is the left-wing Libertad y Refundación (Libre) Party headed by former President Zelaya. Libre supporters led by Zelaya continue to see the National Party’s rule as the product of an illegitimate transfer of power, arguing that Zelaya (in his own words) “was taken away violently from the presidential chair”, and claim that they are working to restore democratic governance. The roots of political division in Honduras go deeper than the coup, however, and also are bound up with competing ideologies, values and support bases. The ruling National Party claims to champion conservative and Christian values. Its support network is mainly located in the capital Tegucigalpa, a traditionally conservative bastion, as well as in the impoverished farmlands of the country’s south and south east, where the party relies on extensive patronage to maintain voter loyalty.

The fastest growing economic sectors have very little impact on the country’s unemployment and sky-high poverty rate.

Economic policies favouring trade with the U.S. and state-sponsored infrastructure projects have secured the Nationalists strong support from the private sector and extensive coverage in the largest media outlets, owned by Honduras’ most prominent businessmen. Steady GDP growth in recent years has earned President Hernández the support of the business community; the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) estimated in July that the economy will grow by 3.5 per cent this year, one of the highest rates in Latin America. But this positive news has been undercut by recurrent protests and corruption scandals that have caused economic losses and the stagnation of foreign investment. Critics also argue that the fastest growing economic sectors (eg, banking, financial and energy sectors, and information technology) have very little impact on the country’s unemployment and sky-high poverty rate. Standing in ideological opposition to the Nationalists, the Libre party is young, committed to issues of social justice, and has close ties to popular movements and their champions among student and feminist associations, some grassroots human rights NGOs, and environmental activists. The party has often aligned itself with the region’s left-wing governments in Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba, although its recent support for these allies has been more guarded in light of political turmoil in the first two countries. Libre’s support base is located in central and northern Honduras, especially around the Cortés department. Less prominent than either the National Party or Libre is the once-powerful Liberal Party to which Zelaya belonged before the 2009 coup. Ravaged by internal divisions that weakened and displaced it from its historic role as the main competitor to the National Party, the Liberal Party remains a centre-left force that depends increasingly for its support on the popularity of its local representatives.

2. The consolidation of nationalist power

Nearly a decade in government and a solid majority in Congress have allowed the National Party to strengthen its control of the country’s main institutions. In 2012, when Hernández was president of Congress, he led a successful effort to expel four of the five magistrates of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court after they quashed a security initiative launched by former president Lobo. In 2015, the same court, by then stacked with judges close to the ruling party, struck down a constitutional article limiting presidents to one term in office, arguing that it violated the candidate’s human rights. This allowed President Hernández to run for a second term in the 2017 elections. The Nationalists have installed an influential cadre of political allies across the government and judiciary while cultivating cosy relations with the media. Mauricio Oliva, chair of Congress, Rolando Argueta, president of the Supreme Court, and David Matamoros, until recently head of the now disbanded Supreme Electoral Tribunal, are all reportedly close to the president. The net effect has been an erosion of checks and balances on the executive branch. “There are no counterweights in Honduras. Control [by the executive] over the country’s institutions is very clear”, said an observer in the diplomatic community. With less access to public funds and limited representation in the country’s leading institutions, opposition parties have responded in two ways. In public, they have decried the ruling party’s power-consolidating moves as authoritarian, organising rallies to protest the “dictatorship” of President Hernández. Behind closed doors, however, most disputes among parties have focused on obtaining larger shares for the opposition across the government and in judicial bodies, while all parties appear to share a lack of enthusiasm for stronger anti-corruption legislation, perhaps reflecting a concern that all have something to lose from stricter scrutiny in this domain.

B. Corruption and Collusion

The erosion of checks and balances on executive power over the past decade – and particularly the weakening of judicial oversight – has created fertile ground in Honduras for corruption and state collusion with actors engaged in illicit activities. Corruption scandals have implicated politicians of every rank up to the president. As one MACCIH magistrate told Crisis Group: “Corruption in Honduras has been normalised, socialised, and institutionalised”. The most prominent case dates to 2015, when high-ranking government officials were implicated in allegedly looting $300 million from the Honduran Institute of Social Security between 2010 and 2014 to fund their lavish lifestyles. During the course of an investigation it emerged that part of the embezzled funds allegedly supported Hernández’s presidential campaign in 2013. News of these allegations sparked mass protests – which became known as a movement of the “outraged” (in Spanish indignados) – that became a forum for demanding Hernández’s resignation. Hernández admitted receiving three million lempiras ($150,000), said he was not aware of its origins, and sought to defuse popular anger by working with the OAS to establish the MACCIH – a mechanism that, among other things, supports state prosecutors investigating graft.

Criminal gangs are so territorially widespread that local politicking requires interaction between elected officials and gang members.

Politicians also reportedly work with organised crime at every level of government, starting at the grassroots. Criminal gangs are so territorially widespread that local politicking requires interaction between elected officials (or would-be elected officials) and gang members. “Logistically, it is impossible not to talk to them [gangs] if you want to campaign in their neighbourhoods”, said a member of the Liberal party in San Pedro Sula, although publicly the major parties tend to deny such conversations. As to whether and how much the gangs influence elections, accounts vary wildly. On the one hand, National Party representatives alleged to Crisis Group that in the 2017 presidential elections gangs co-opted at least “150,000 people living in National Party strongholds in Tegucigalpa [to vote for their opponents]”. Security experts, meanwhile, maintain that certain gangs have worked on behalf of the National Party. By contrast, researchers from the Autonomous University of Honduras found “no evidence” of gang involvement in the 2017 electoral process. Over the last decade the country’s most senior leaders have been credibly accused of working with drug trafficking groups. According to documents filed by U.S. prosecutors in the trial of drug trafficker Hector Emilio Fernández (alias Don H), in 2005 then President-elect Zelaya allegedly received $2 million from the drug lord, although he denies the accusations. In 2017, drug lord Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga, one of the leaders of the Cachiros cartel who turned themselves in to U.S. authorities in 2015, testified that the group had business dealings with the ruling National Party, which included financing recent presidential campaigns. Former Nationalist president Porfirio Lobo has always denied these accusations. The most recent and inflammatory scandal concerns allegations that President Hernández received drug money to consolidate his political power. In November 2018, his brother Juan Antonio was detained in the U.S. on drug-trafficking charges. On 18 October 2019, he was convicted on four charges, including drug trafficking, and will face sentencing in early 2020, although his lawyers claim he is innocent and have announced they will appeal against the ruling. In court documents, U.S. prosecutors alleged Hernández’s 2013 campaign received $1.5 million of funding from drug proceeds. Prosecutors and trial witnesses, who were mostly convicted drug traffickers collaborating with U.S. authorities, even alleged that at the height of the 2013 presidential elections convicted Mexican drug lord “El Chapo” gave $1 million to Juan Antonio as a payoff intended for the president in order to protect his business partners – including the Valle brothers and Alexander Ardón, mayor of the town of El Paraíso. Hernández has vigorously denied these allegations, questioned the integrity of the prosecution case, and argued that they are the work of drug cartels striking back at him for tough law enforcement policies, in collaboration with opposition parties seeking political advantage. Against this backdrop, Honduran prosecutors and the MACCIH have worked closely together. They have brought some thirteen investigations against high-level criminal targets, and secured the conviction of former first lady Rosa Elena Bonilla, wife of former president Porfirio Lobo, on fraud and embezzlement charges. (Bonilla pleaded innocent and her lawyers filed an appeal to the Supreme Court on 8 October.) In May 2019, MACCIH filed charges against twelve people in a money-laundering case involving drug proceeds. Although not formally included in the list, Lobo was mentioned in the case because he appointed some of the accused as directors of public infrastructure institutions and granted them multimillion-dollar contracts. He later accused the mission’s head of defamation and filed a complaint with the National Commissioner for Human Rights. The mission has helped spearhead the selection of a group of anti-corruption judges within the Honduran judiciary, the creation of a dedicated unit in the Attorney General’s Office to investigate high-impact cases, and the establishment of a civic observatory on penal justice. Moreover, the MACCIH has proposed legislation that would beef up the judiciary’s investigative powers. An example is the Law of Effective Collaboration, which encourages alleged criminals to cooperate with investigations and prosecutions in exchange for lighter sentences. The MACCIH presented the first draft in 2017 and the latest in February 2019, but Congress has repeatedly found ways to slow passage of the bill and shows little interest in its enactment. On the other hand, Congress recently approved a law restoring immunity from prosecution for all parliamentarians in relation to their legislative activities.

With its mandate due to end in early 2020, the MACCIH faces an uncertain future.

Notwithstanding some success, Honduran prosecution units fighting crime and corruption still face significant challenges. One is that they lack sufficient staff and resources, with some prosecutors juggling backlogs of 200 to 300 cases. Another is that tensions between OAS headquarters and MACCIH officials in Tegucigalpa over the management of the mission hampered its operations in its early days, though this is less of a problem of late. Yet another challenge is that the mission’s efforts have predictably generated hostility from certain quarters. Congress reacted indignantly after the mission started an investigation probing whether more than 60 lawmakers repeatedly misused public funds allocated for local NGOs. A group of lawmakers also sought a ruling from the Supreme Court that the MACCIH was unconstitutional. The court ruled in May 2018 that the mission was legal, but questioned the constitutionality of the dedicated anti-corruption prosecution unit formed under its auspices. With its mandate due to end in early 2020, the MACCIH faces an uncertain future. The Honduran government has asked the OAS to provide an assessment of MACCIH’s performance before taking any decision, while in parallel proposing the creation of an Anti-Corruption National Observatory. Some civil society representatives fear this initiative could be aimed at dismantling the MACCIH and replacing it with a weaker body. Ongoing investigations of National Party members could make President Hernández reluctant to extend its mandate, or lead him to propose a bill to Congress to reform the mission’s objectives (diminishing its investigatory capacity and making it less threatening to political elites) as a condition for a mandate extension. Despite their reservations, Honduran lawmakers should redouble efforts to fight corruption, recognising that an outraged public is demanding progress, and that failure to respond could have implications for the country’s stability (see below). They should pass the Law of Effective Collaboration and assign more resources to national anti-corruption judicial units, as well as ensuring a fresh mandate to the MACCIH without weakening its powers. Making the most of its significant leverage with the Honduran government, the U.S. – which has in recent years been a strong supporter of the MACCIH – should urge the Honduran government to take these steps.

C. Public Unrest and Political Weakness

Against the backdrop of intense political polarisation, corruption and other criminal scandals involving senior Honduran officials and public institutions have fuelled widespread discontent with authorities that has flared into mass demonstrations and violence. An April 2019 survey by a Honduran media group registered extremely low approval rates for politicians and public officials: the National, Liberal and Libre parties had approval rates of between 15 and 17.6 per cent among those surveyed, and more than 80 per cent of respondents distrust the Supreme Court, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal or Congress. President Hernández’s approval rate has fallen to 38 per cent, down from 61 per cent in 2017. The slogan “Fuera JOH” (“Get Out Juan Orlando Hernández”) is a common battle cry among his administration’s opponents, but also represents a deeper frustration with Honduran politics. It is, in the words of one academic, “a scream against corruption, impunity, insecurity and everything that [Honduran] politics represents”. The 2017 post-electoral crisis showcased the extent of public dissatisfaction and may have marked a turning point. The sense among many Hondurans that the election had been rigged arose partly out of the way election results emerged. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal delayed the announcement of the first count – in which the ruling National Party was losing by a small margin – for several hours. But the candidates’ fortunes reversed during a weeklong vote count, and electoral authorities declared Hernández the winner. The opposition cried foul and called for roadblocks and protests to contest the results. Most marches were peaceful, but some ended in clashes between protesters and military police, as well as looting and other criminal acts. The government, shaken by the upheaval, declared a ten-day curfew. By mid-January 2018, violence had left 23 dead and 1,351 in jail. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights subsequently reported on numerous human rights violations allegedly committed by security forces.

Between April and June, clashes between protesters and security forces left at least six dead and 80 injured.

These episodes of unrest have become more frequent since 2017. As noted, turmoil erupted in April 2019 after Congress passed controversial reforms to the health and education systems, which workers in those sectors worried could lead to privatisation and mass layoffs. President Hernández’s effort to lower tensions proved ineffective. Despite the president’s call for a national dialogue with the trade unions in those sectors and the ultimate withdrawal of the bills in early June, protests and strikes went on for months, with some demonstrations so large they paralysed major transportation arteries. The protest movement got another boost in May when the government published a new criminal code penalising public criticism of officials, feeding worries that the authorities would use the law to suppress political expression and association. As a result, demands for Hernández’s resignation intensified. With protests growing violent, Hernández deployed the army across the country on 20 June. Between April and June, clashes between protesters and security forces left at least six dead and 80 injured. Allegations of Hernández’s ties to drug-trafficking networks are another driver of current unrest. The allegations in August 2019 that Hernández’s 2013 presidential campaign had benefited from drug-trafficking proceeds spurred another wave of protests, with more demands for his resignation. Even before Hernández’s brother was convicted, opposition leaders such as Manuel Zelaya, Luis Zelaya and Salvador Nasralla, stepped up their calls for the president to resign and for early polls. The latter two jointly asked for a popular “insurrection” starting 9 October, while the former – who has greater mobilisation capacity – suggested waiting until the trial’s culmination. After the U.S. jury found the president’s brother guilty, Manuel Zelaya joined forces with Nasralla and Luis Zelaya, and called on his supporters to protest until the president resigned. Before urging protests, Libre’s deputies announced on 9 October they would seek Hernández’s impeachment, but that would require the support of three quarters of the Nationalist-controlled Congress votes to start investigations, support that Libre does not have.

The growing tumult has cost President Hernández both domestically and internationally.

The growing tumult has cost President Hernández both domestically and internationally, calling into question his earlier reputation among diplomats and others as a “man in control”. Hernández has faced growing criticism by some traditional allies within the Catholic Church, private sector, security forces and, to a limited extent, the U.S. government. Although Nationalists in Congress have mostly remained supportive of the president, frictions with his own political party have also surfaced: Vice President Ricardo Álvarez suggested on 16 July that the next round of presidential elections, due to be held in 2021, be brought forward to 2020. The proposal has yet to gain traction within the National Party, which has so far maintained support for the president even after the verdict in his brother’s trial. The U.S. government remains enormously influential with the Hernández administration. “If the U.S. ambassador simply posts a critical tweet, that has ten times more impact than all [other] ambassadors publicly condemning [the government]”, explained one diplomat. But Washington has sent mixed signals about the extent of its support in recent years. On the one hand, in late 2017, while Honduran security forces were confronting anti-government marches, the U.S. State Department certified Honduras’ human rights efforts and fight against corruption, thereby releasing aid to the country. But in 2019, Washington veered between a generally supportive tone, sharp criticism that Tegucigalpa was not doing enough to curb migration and – after clashes between protesters and police forces turned deadly in spring 2019 – exhortations to convene a dialogue and hold accountable those responsible for the violence. In Washington, congressional staffers worry the U.S. is less than optimally positioned to support stability in Honduras because the State Department tends to treat Tegucigalpa – where the ambassadorial post is currently empty – as a “backwater”. As one staffer said: “We need our most senior, accomplished people to go there […] because these relationships are among the most important in terms of day-to-day impact on the United States. We treat them like they don’t matter, but they do”.

D. Dialogue and Electoral Reforms

Amid the 2017 post-electoral turmoil, national bodies and foreign powers sought to calm Honduras’ tensions. With its leader weakened and its international standing tainted, the National Party announced in December 2017 its willingness to engage in a “national dialogue” with its opponents, and in early 2018 asked the UN Secretary-General for technical support. Local UN Coordinator Igor Garafulic led the initiative and decided to press ahead despite the conclusion of an exploratory UN mission in February 2018 that “there were no conditions nor incentives” for dialogue. With support from the Spanish embassy, the UN launched the dialogue in August 2018 after six months of “pre-dialogue” aimed at reaching agreements among the country’s three main parties. The process ended in December 2018 with no agreement, but 169 nonbinding points of understanding on accountability, electoral reform and human rights, which it referred to the Congress for discussion and approval.

Although [the dialogue] has not been able to reverse the polarisation that divides the country, it functioned as a political “decompression mechanism” to some extent.

Even with these points of consensus, the dialogue was at best a mixed success with incomplete participation. The opposition was represented by Luis Zelaya, leading one faction of the divided Liberals, and Salvador Nasralla, a political independent without negotiating experience. Libre, the main opposition, did not attend a single discussion and refused to participate despite several invitations from the UN, arguing the dialogue was a “trick” by Hernández to buy time as he consolidated power. The National Party participated, but criticised the process and insisted that any efforts to increase transparency and accountability would remain under its control. The Nationalist head of Congress, Mauricio Oliva, allegedly sought to undermine the dialogue by inviting the OAS to initiate a parallel study on electoral reforms in September 2018. Participants were also either unwilling or unable to reach consensus on certain key issues, such as whether presidents can run for multiple terms and whether presidential elections should include two rounds of voting. Notwithstanding its failings, the dialogue has been a bright spot in a charged political atmosphere. Although it has not been able to reverse the polarisation that divides the country, it functioned as a political “decompression mechanism” to some extent, in the words of one civil society leader. It showed that political parties can reach agreement on at least some sensitive issues, and stoked political interest in reform efforts. It also produced some potentially significant results on electoral reform. By early 2019, lawmakers from the Liberal, National and Libre parties had agreed – consistent with the dialogue’s recommendations – to reform the Supreme Electoral Tribunal by replacing it with two new bodies and (with support from the EU) digitalise the personal identification system, both measures intended to improve the electoral system’s integrity. In mid-September, Congress appointed the members of the new bodies, evenly distributing the posts between representatives of the country’s main parties. Honduran lawmakers should now work to approve the electoral reforms agreed in the national dialogue process. Although Hernández is reaching the midpoint of his term, political parties are already starting to focus on primary elections. These soon will begin to absorb legislators’ attention and paralyse the already faltering legislative process. The opposition for its part should also strengthen efforts to enact electoral reforms, instead of insisting Hernández resign immediately, which would force early elections. Early polls carried out without clear regulatory legislation of new electoral bodies and an incomplete reform process are not likely to pre-empt the kind of electoral disputes that spurred the 2017 post-electoral turmoil. International partners should also insist on the importance of implementing crucial electoral reforms – especially digitalising the voter registry – to avoid further upheaval after future polls.

The government and opposition should build on last year’s dialogue to ease current tensions and prevent further violent clashes between protesters and security forces.

More broadly, the government and opposition should build on last year’s dialogue to ease current tensions and prevent further violent clashes between protesters and security forces. The government should engage in substantive dialogue with health and education professionals on improving working conditions. It should also delay the entry into force of the new penal code, continue to discuss its contents with interested parties, including press associations, media outlets, the private sector, human rights defenders and anti-corruption activists, and show itself willing to rescind those parts of the code that risk criminalising dissent and enabling corruption and impunity. For its part, the opposition should refrain from inciting the population to stage an “insurrection” and strive to keep protests peaceful.

III. Crime and Violence

Honduras has relied on a combination of mano dura (iron fist) law enforcement and extraditions to dismantle drug cartels and reduce murder rates, but the sustainability of this approach is doubtful. The downward trend in the homicide rate has recently reversed, while the population’s perception of insecurity has worsened, prompting large numbers of civilians – many of whom feel that they are living under the de facto rule of criminal groups – to flee.

A. Organised Crime in Honduras

Drug trafficking groups exploited the instability created by the coup to consolidate their territorial presence.

Honduras’ thriving illicit economy is rooted, among other things, in the country’s geographic position on drug trafficking routes from South to North America, weak institutions and security half-measures. These longstanding problems became worse in the aftermath of the 2009 coup. Drug trafficking groups, present in Honduras since the heyday of Colombian kingpin Pablo Escobar in the 1980s, exploited the instability created by the coup to consolidate their territorial presence. With the support of the Mexican cartels, the country’s major smuggling clans – the Valle and the Cachiros – established control over the Honduran border with Guatemala and the northern Caribbean coast respectively, having already cultivated political influence and popular support in those regions. The breakdown of the democratic system, its corrosive effects on political and judicial institutions, and the massive deployment of security forces to contain social unrest that followed the coup – which diverted those forces’ attention from policing illicit activities – fostered the cartels’ expansion. A U.S. government annual assessment of drug-related activities reported that 75 air flights believed to have transported cocaine from Venezuela into Honduras in 2010, compared to 54 in 2009 and 31 in 2008. Disputes over drug routes soon turned violent. In 2012, the main groups entered a period of bloody turf wars. Cities San Pedro Sula and La Ceiba that were considered strategic because of their proximity to trafficking routes recorded homicide rates of 173 and 157 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2012 respectively (up 41 per cent from 2009 in San Pedro Sula and up 35 per cent in La Ceiba). Even now, some of the most violent Honduran municipalities are located along the country’s main drug corridors. Since 2012, authorities have made a pronounced effort to break up the main Honduran drug cartels. They captured and extradited many of the cartels’ leaders to the U.S. for prosecution, prompting others to turn themselves in to U.S. authorities. But while this has broken up the cartels to a great extent, drug-related criminal activity has not fallen significantly and has (according to U.S. authorities) even been “revitalised” in recent years. According to Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) estimates, in 2017 as much as 84 per cent of cocaine reaching its territory passed through the “Eastern Pacific” region, which includes Honduras as one of the main Central American hubs; this figure is up from 76 per cent in 2015. U.S. authorities maintain that drug trafficking organisations have “begun moving drug shipments in smaller amounts to avoid detection and interdiction by Honduran authorities”. Beyond cooperation on extradition, the U.S. has provided counter-narcotics assistance in the form of training, technology and equipment to Honduran security forces. At times it has gone further. A series of interdiction missions the DEA conducted in partnership with Honduran authorities in 2012 resulted in deaths and injuries to innocent civilians. Most prominently, a May 2012 operation conducted by DEA and Honduran police officers in eastern Honduras left four people dead, including two women and a 14-year-old boy.

High urban poverty rates, the disruption of family units caused by mass migration to the U.S., and weak and corrupt law enforcement all made Honduras fertile territory for gang expansion.

Criminal gangs have also thrived in Honduras – the number of gang members was once estimated to be the highest in the region, although El Salvador appears to have since surpassed it. While gangs have been reported in Honduras since the 1970s, the largest groups took root in the early 2000s following mass deportations of convicted criminals from the U.S. to Central America. High urban poverty rates, the disruption of family units caused by mass migration to the U.S., and weak and corrupt law enforcement all made Honduras fertile territory for gang expansion. Groups such as the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the 18th Street Gang have proliferated over the past two decades and are considered largely responsible for Honduras’ sky-high murder rate. Among the differences between the two largest gangs, the 18th Street Gang is often linked with extortion rackets, while the MS-13 is allegedly more involved in local drug peddling. Both activities drive high levels of violence in the fight for territorial control. Interviews with local authorities in San Pedro Sula indicate that from their perspective the MS-13 seems to use armed violence more sparingly and selectively, mainly to maintain its grip on illicit activities and expand its territorial reach. “With these guys [MS-13 members], at least you can talk”, said a veteran politician. For its part, the 18th Street Gang seems more prone to violence to intimidate the communities under its sway, whether in Honduras or elsewhere in Central America. However, a 2016 study did not find any statistical difference in the number of homicides between areas controlled by the MS-13 and 18th Street gangs. The two larger outfits have managed to absorb many local groups over the past few decades, but others have also emerged to challenge them. Such is the case of the Chirizos, which got its start by taking on MS-13 in downtown Tegucigalpa. Many other gangs have emerged in the poorest neighbourhoods of San Pedro Sula, such as Los Vatos Locos, Los Tercereños, La Ponce and Los Olanchanos, which are in constant territorial dispute with one another, and rely heavily on the extortion of local businesses. These groups are often confused with extortion racketeers – ie, more traditional criminal cells that manipulate fear of gangs to coerce small and medium-size businesses. “[Y]ou do not even know who is extorting you”, said one security expert. According to a 2017 survey by the Honduran Council of Private Enterprise, more than 32,000 businesses had to cease their activities because of extortion in the last six years.

B. Flawed Security Policies

Honduras was a regional pioneer in iron fist security policies, which have become the norm in Central America over the past two decades. Its militarised approach to law enforcement reflects, among other things, the influence the armed forced have historically had in shaping public policies, the focus of foreign donors (especially the U.S.) on security assistance, and the weakness of civilian policing due to endemic corruption. The same considerations that inflated the role of the military have generally undermined cultivating stronger prosecutorial and judicial capacity. The Honduran strategy for managing gangs has been fairly consistent over the past two decades. Under Ricardo Maduro’s administration (2002-2006), the country responded to the rise of organised gangs with an increased police presence in affected neighbourhoods, mass detentions of young people and heavy-handed law enforcement, including reported extrajudicial executions of young people. Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009) promised to focus on economic opportunities and violence prevention. But little of what he pledged materialised, and efforts in this direction evaporated after the 2009 coup. The subsequent Nationalist president Porfirio Lobo (2010-2013), an advocate of capital punishment, resumed the tough line of Zelaya’s predecessor, but nevertheless saw a spike in homicides during his mandate. Since 2014, under President Hernández’s guidance, the Congress has strengthened anti-gang legislation and increased the security and defence budgets, to the detriment of social spending.

Hernández has a long record of looking to military measures to fight crime.

Hernández has a long record of looking to military measures to fight crime. In his previous post as head of Congress, he was strongly supportive of the Public Order Military Police, under the aegis of the Defence Ministry, and Troop and Special Security Response Groups (TIGRES), a military unit inside the National Police trained with U.S. financial support. In 2014, he created the Inter-institutional Security Force (FUSINA), an interagency task force of military, police and judicial personnel. He also pushed in 2018 for the transformation of the National Anti-Extortion Force into a joint police, military and judicial force dedicated to combating gangs. Setting aside whether the militarisation of anti-gang efforts has been effective, which is discussed below, it has had several drawbacks. For one thing, military units involved in public security have been implicated in the use of excessive or unlawful force to manage civil society activism and political dissent. The Military Police allegedly killed at least thirteen protesters in post-electoral clashes in 2017. A Military Police training officer was convicted in 2018 of recruiting the hitmen responsible for the notorious 2016 killing of environmental activist Berta Cáceres. In gang-controlled communities, humanitarian workers report the alleged involvement of security forces, ostensibly there to fight organised crime, in committing abuses against local residents. Moreover, relying on security forces may propel gangs’ expansion in what experts call a “cockroach effect”: while their area is occupied by these forces, some gang members seek refuge and settle elsewhere, installing local “cliques” before returning to their former territories once the occupation has ended.

Growing reliance on the military to perform law enforcement functions has also run parallel to a deep crisis in the Honduran National Police.

Growing reliance on the military to perform law enforcement functions has also run parallel to a deep crisis in the Honduran National Police. Before Hernández took office, the Honduran government had made at least three attempts to reform the National Police to tackle widespread corruption and ineffectiveness – usually in response to scandals over criminal infiltration, corruption and abuse. The latest attempt was prompted by a New York Times report in April 2016, which alleged that officers killed the head of anti-drug operations for the National Police, Arístides González, on his morning commute in 2009, days after the arrest of twelve officers on drug trafficking charges. The scandal led Hernández to create a special commission for police reform, which itself triggered a surge of dismissals for corruption and other wrongdoing. These reform efforts have yielded mixed results. On the one hand, over three years, the special commission has dismissed 5,775 officers for corruption and other misdeeds, and pushed through new legislation to ensure better working conditions, including improved training and greater internal oversight for police officers. On the other hand, only 2,100 of those dismissed officials were denounced by the commission and investigated by public prosecutors for alleged collusion with illicit activities, and only one has been sentenced so far. Moreover, critics of the reform worry that the process has been insufficiently transparent and may in part be driven by political motivations – namely the desire to purge government detractors from the force. They add that the failure to take prosecutorial action against or provide alternative employment for sacked personnel is particularly worrying given that many were dismissed for alleged links to criminal networks. President Hernández in July launched the creation of a police unit tasked with investigating the alleged involvement of purged officials in illicit activities. Honduras has also struggled to manage a dangerously overcrowded prison system. The prison population boomed in the late 1990s as a result of iron fist policies, which led to mass incarceration of gang members. As happened elsewhere in the region, gangs took advantage of overcrowding, lax security and corrupt officials to turn prisons into their headquarters, from where they oversaw illicit activities on the outside. Penitentiaries such as the one in San Pedro Sula became a symbol of the deterioration of the prison system as they fell under the rule of inmates. A fire that swept through Comayagua prison in 2012, killing 382, drew attention to the extreme squalor and prisoner neglect in many jails. In recent years, the government has tried to address both overcrowding and security issues, building two new maximum-security jails. Even so, prisoner numbers under Hernández have outstripped the capacity of these new facilities. In 2018 there were 229 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants, and jail conditions are still “deplorable” according to human rights groups, especially for minors. Another chronic failing of the Honduran prison system is the lack of rehabilitation and reintegration policies. The Hernández administration has endeavoured to implement initiatives aimed at steering youth away from criminal activity – generally referred to as “violence prevention” programs – with limited success. It has created a dedicated (though underfunded) ministerial office to oversee the construction of infrastructure for these initiatives (for example new parks and “outreach centres” that are essentially recreational centres located in crime hotspots) as well as sports and cultural events. USAID officials tend to tout the outreach centres as successful, and there is some evidence linking them to homicide reduction in some neighbourhoods of San Pedro Sula. Still, the security gains resulting from these new public spaces appear somewhat superficial: critics maintain they have to be guarded by military units all day long, while gangs take back control at night. Residents have complained that the initiatives do not match communities’ needs, while consultants familiar with these projects suggest that their reliance on foreign government funding imperils their sustainability and prospects for long-term impact.

C. Results and Areas for Improvement

President Hernández has both claimed and received credit for his role in bringing down Honduras’ homicide rate over the past eight years. “We are the ones who made this [model of homicide reduction] possible, something that is now being studied as a success in the world”, Hernández said in a March 2018 speech in the northern city of La Ceiba. That model relied in part on aggressive extradition policies that dismantled all the main drug cartels, particularly in the coastal and border regions where these outfits mainly operated, combined with intensified law enforcement. The government also gives substantial credit to the 2014 creation of 30 Citizen Security Municipal Observatories (OMCSC in Spanish) in providing reliable local information and enabling tailored security interventions, enhanced by police reform.

But although the lower murder rate is certainly an achievement, it needs to be considered in a broader security context where many trends are not as positive. Even the area of homicide statistics contains much sobering news. For one thing, the decline in murders has slowed since 2016, with homicides even starting to creep back up at the height of this year’s protests. Honduras currently seems on track to reproduce its 2018 murder rate of 40 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, which, as noted above, made it the third most dangerous country in Latin America, right behind Venezuela and El Salvador. Furthermore, the annual number of multiple killings increased by 32.3 per cent in the year to August 2019, according to the Honduran Observatory of Violence.

Gender-based violence indicators remain very high, with Honduras reporting the second highest femicide rate in Latin America, with 5.8 killings per 100,000 inhabitants.

Changing extortion practices may have a role in the declining rate. Some studies hint at the possibility that the MS-13 is ceasing this practice, at least in communities under its control, which would explain a decrease in the violence used as part of this racket. According to this analysis, the decision to pull out of extortion is made possible by the gang’s growing participation in the more lucrative drug trade, and is intended as a way to build a loyal support base in communities. By contrast, other local observers contend that the extortion business is actually thriving and becoming a more formal business operation. If it is so, the decrease in homicides may stem from increasing public resignation in the face of extortion and widespread payment to the gang of a “war tax”, sparing payers’ lives. Meanwhile, despite the reported reduction in homicides, many of Honduras’ security indicators still reflect worrying trends. Gender-based violence indicators remain very high, with Honduras reporting the second highest femicide rate in Latin America, with 5.8 killings per 100,000 inhabitants. Hate crimes have not decreased: 332 members of the LGBTI community have been murdered since 2009, with 26 alone in the first nine months of 2019, up from 25 in the whole of 2018. While improving, the rate of unsolved murder cases remains around 90 per cent. The fact that police investigative units are only present in 16 out of 298 of the country’s municipalities does not help. Consequently, the fall in homicides has not led to improved public perceptions of security, at least when measured over the last several years. A recent study by the Autonomous University of Honduras suggested that 42.8 per cent of participants believe insecurity to be the most pressing issue in the country, and 87.6 per cent feel insecure – 16.8 per cent more than the previous survey in 2016. Despite reform efforts, distrust of security forces remains high. The Latinobarómetro 2018 survey showed that only 33 per cent of interviewees trusted the National Police, while 80.3 per cent of those who participated in a 2019 poll by the Autonomous University believe security forces are involved in corruption. “They [the police and gangs] are the same thing. If I go to the police, in minutes I would have a gang member in front of my house”, said an asylum seeker who decided to flee his hometown after being harassed by a local gang. Since causes of gang violence in Honduras tend to be found in extreme urban poverty, impunity and lack of economic opportunity, future security policies should shift toward violence prevention, stronger powers of criminal investigation and security force accountability. Higher levels of investment in those violence prevention initiatives that seem most promising, and in effective rehabilitation programs for prisoners, would be a good place to start. Police reform should focus on empowering investigative units so as to combat high impunity rates for serious crimes such as murder, strengthening internal accountability mechanisms to sanction abuses of authority, and providing reintegration programs for dismissed officers. Reforms supported by the MACCIH, such as the Law of Effective Collaboration – still paralysed in Congress – would also provide a boost to Honduras’ public prosecutors in their efforts to reduce impunity.

IV. Migration and the U.S. Response

A. A Worsening Crisis

Driven by poverty and insecurity, which have been compounded in recent months by political unrest, waves of Hondurans continue to flee northward in search of safer and more prosperous lives. U.S. authorities reported that they apprehended more than 240,000 Hondurans – 2.5 per cent of the country’s population – seeking entry into the U.S. between October 2018 and August 2019. Of these, 19,696 were unaccompanied Honduran children, and 182,449 were in families.

Climate change has made a bad situation worse, contributing to droughts that wrack 40 per cent of the country’s territory, and affecting the livelihoods of 170,000 families.

The primary driver of emigration is economic need. A total of 69.5 per cent of Honduran interviewees in a 2018 ERIC-SJ survey indicated lack of income as the primary cause for leaving the country. According to World Bank estimates, one out of five Hondurans in rural areas lives on less than $1.90 per day. Only 20 per cent of the total population earns the minimum wage of $369 a month, well below the $540 that the World Bank estimates is the monthly price for a “basket” of essential food sufficient to feed a family. Climate change has made a bad situation worse, contributing to droughts that wrack 40 per cent of the country’s territory, and affecting the livelihoods of 170,000 families, according to the National Commissioner for Human Rights. Layered atop these economic concerns are deep worries about personal security. Among Hondurans who flee the country, between 20 and 40 per cent reportedly do so in part to escape violence. According to a recent survey, almost one in every three Hondurans has a relative or acquaintance who left the country for this reason. The percentage of women among the migrant population is a potential indicator: Mexican authorities reported a ratio of one woman to every three deported Honduran men in the first half of 2019, while it was one for every five in 2017, possibly a reflection of high rates of gender-based abuse, including strict anti-abortion laws. Parents may also emigrate to protect their children from armed gangs: a 2014 UNHCR survey found that 44 per cent of children migrating from Honduras “were threatened with or were victims of violence by organised armed criminal actors”. Another explanation for the growing number of families and children travelling north is that human smugglers reportedly mislead migrants by convincing them it is easier to obtain refugee status in the U.S. if they travel with children. Migrants fleeing Honduras are of course not an isolated population. They join flows from other countries in the region – notably Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico – who are similarly fleeing poverty and violence. Of the 740,000 citizens of these countries apprehended by U.S. authorities in the eleven months beginning October 2018, Hondurans account for almost a third.

B. Tough U.S. Migration Policies

For the Trump administration, with restricting immigration at the core of its political agenda, reducing flows across the southern border has become the defining objective of its relationship with Central American countries. In the service of this objective it has been willing to deploy forms of pressure that more traditional administrations would have considered off limits – including humanitarian and development aid cuts and tariff threats – and proved either blind or indifferent to the possibility that its policies may well, over time, worsen the situation it is trying to address. While the U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa has both been a source of political support for the Hernández government and an occasional voice of restraint during the recent civil unrest, Washington’s insistence on measures to curb emigration increasingly drowns out all other messages. U.S. immigration policy toward Honduras has three overlapping strands. One relates to dismantling or limiting mechanisms by which Hondurans can gain legal entry or the right to stay in the U.S. In May 2018, the U.S. government gave nearly 81,000 Hondurans who benefit from temporary protected status in the U.S. until January 2020 to seek alternative lawful immigration status or leave the country (the order is currently on hold following a court ruling). More recently, in July 2019, the Trump administration proposed changes to the asylum system that would impede access to refugees who travel to the U.S. via a third country. On 12 August 2019, the administration introduced a new rule that would weed out poorer immigrants by making applicants ineligible for temporary or permanent visas if they fail to meet income standards or receive public assistance such as welfare, food stamps, public housing or Medicaid.

Both the U.S. and Mexico are deporting increasing numbers of Central Americans. Together they returned 75,279 Hondurans in 2018 and 90,109, as of 11 October 2019.

A second strand of U.S. migration policy as it relates to Honduras concerns denial of entry and deportation. In order to seal the border to Central American and other migrants, the administration has deployed more than 6,000 soldiers to patrol the border with Mexico. It has also strong-armed Mexico into tighter enforcement of its own southern border, as part of a deal struck by threatening a tariff hike. In addition, both the U.S. and Mexico are deporting increasing numbers of Central Americans. Together they returned 75,279 Hondurans in 2018 and 90,109, as of 11 October 2019. The flood of returnees – especially children – has placed enormous strain on the improved but still limited Honduran facilities tasked with providing assistance to them. Finally, the Trump administration has managed to pressure its southern neighbours to sign agreements committing to corral migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. It has sought asylum cooperation agreements with Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries (Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras) under which the counterparties promise to receive those who have applied for asylum in the U.S. and process their cases. Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales committed to such an agreement on 26 July after the U.S. threatened to impose travel restrictions on Guatemalans visiting the U.S. as well as tariffs and remittance fees. El Salvador and Honduras followed suit with similar agreements in September. Mexico has so far declined to sign an agreement of this sort, but joined a protocol that entails similar measures. Some observers note that the countries concerned are unsafe, lack the processing capacity to handle the influx of asylum seekers, and are likely to see the migrants settle in precisely the poor areas that their own people are already fleeing. With respect to Mexico, media outlets report that waiting times for the more than 40,000 migrants under the protection protocol are extremely long, and they are exposed to rape, kidnapping and murder while they wait in dangerous border cities. Even as U.S. policies place increasing strain on its southern neighbours and deny their most vulnerable citizens the release valve that a more generous migration policy would afford, the Trump administration has also cut aid to the region. President Trump announced in March 2019 that all aid to the three Northern Triangle countries, including much of the $182 million in unspent funding destined for Honduras in 2017, would be frozen due to their alleged failure to halt emigration. A total of $432 million of previously approved projects and grants were restored in June, but 0n 16 July Trump announced the U.S. would not disburse any more aid to Honduras and Guatemala. That same day his administration allegedly diverted $41.9 million in humanitarian aid destined to those two countries to support the opposition in Venezuela. Civil society organisations in Honduras supported by USAID, which have provided services to crime victims and returnees, as well as monitoring corruption and reform, fear they may lose all funding from the U.S. Washington has shown willingness to at least partly reconsider its decision after Central American governments signed the migration deals. On 16 October, President Trump praised Central American governments’ commitment and promised to reinstate some aid, focused on security and law enforcement. He did not provide further information, but an anonymous source consulted by the Washington Post claims the amount of restored aid will be around $143 million.

C. Prospects for Reviving U.S. Assistance

U.S. policy toward Honduras during the Trump administration has been increasingly driven by the administration’s hostility to immigration, but it has also been shaped by a tight-fisted approach to foreign assistance that is linked to the president’s inward-looking political agenda. While Congress has generally served as a brake on the administration’s efforts to slash foreign assistance, it is not clear whether it can resuscitate U.S. funding for Honduras. This may depend on whether a Republican champion emerges to push the White House on the kinds of development and institution-building programs that the government has traditionally viewed as both an investment in Central American peace and prosperity and a damper on the forces that drive migration. Technical and political challenges will hamper any congressional effort to force the administration’s hand and require it to restore funding. At a technical level, funding legislation for countries in the region has in recent years authorised the executive branch to spend “up to” a designated amount, leaving the White House and State Department discretion to spend at levels that fall short of the cap without technically running afoul of rules against “impoundment”. While there has been some conversation among congressional staff about including more “directive” language that requires the administration to spend a definitive amount in the next funding bill, this is unlikely to clear the Senate, which is controlled by the president’s Republican allies. The better route to restoring some assistance would be for a member of Congress with political sway in the White House to press for it. To date, however, Republicans who carry such weight have not sent clear signals about whether they are willing to do so. Without dismissing the possibility that Florida Senator Marco Rubio (who has traditionally shown interest in regional policy) or someone like him could push to restore some programs, staffers sounded a note of caution, pointing out that while congressional Republicans have in the past “gone along” with long-term institutional investments, they are sceptical about their effectiveness.

Organisations and governments that have traditionally worked with the U.S. in providing support to Honduras should encourage Washington to resume its assistance beyond the security realm.

Indeed members of both parties in the U.S. worry it has too little to show for earlier investments in Honduras and the other Northern Triangle countries, but there appears to be more support for restoring assistance among Congressional Democrats. Some are of the view that for the U.S. to shut down foreign assistance in the face of the enormous hardships facing the Honduran people is both cruel and counterproductive, particularly where the curtailed programs seek directly to address specific drivers of migration. They also suggested that programs clearly addressing the latter – for example, through support for hunger alleviation – might be the most promising for attracting bipartisan congressional support. Organisations and governments that have traditionally worked with the U.S. in providing support to Honduras should encourage Washington to resume its assistance beyond the security realm. Until then, they should help fill funding gaps generated by the U.S. suspension. In particular, the EU and OAS should continue to offer support for institutional reforms and humanitarian aid, with the OAS focusing on capacity-building in the area of electoral reform and pushing for a renewed mandate for MACCIH. The EU should also continue to prioritise support for electoral reform, particularly digitising the voter registry, and press for accountability for alleged human rights violations in the state response to public protests. However, suspending the EU Association Agreement with Honduras, as some members of the European Parliament have proposed, would not be a constructive response to the government’s crackdown on protesters earlier this year as it would merely worsen the country’s economic predicament.

V. Conclusion

The June 2009 events solidified Honduras’ status as one of the region’s most unstable countries. An unresolved political crisis has bequeathed a divided, ever more belligerent opposition and a ruling party that has accumulated largely unchecked power across the breadth of the state and judiciary over the past decade. The country’s judicial and electoral bodies have lost much of their legitimacy; corruption has burrowed deeper into many public institutions; and criminal groups have flourished. Poverty remains high, while the benefits of economic growth are spread unevenly.

Political unrest, violent crime and a surge in emigration are the price Honduras is paying.

Political unrest, violent crime and a surge in emigration are the price Honduras is paying. The post-electoral protests of late 2017 and the wave of unrest over health and education reforms earlier this year marked the most visible displays of political disaffection in recent years, while fresh turmoil could well follow the conviction of the president’s brother for drug trafficking. But it is the relentless emigration of Hondurans northward that shows the depth of public despair. The exodus of close to 3 per cent of the nation’s population since late last year and their journey to the Mexican border in the face of intimidating rhetoric from the White House should serve as a warning that increasing border and asylum controls may displace migration, but will not stop it. Even though it may be difficult to change migration patterns dramatically any time soon, the country could begin to resolve its principal institutional and security dilemmas and improving the way it is governed, thereby setting itself up for greater stability over the longer term. Fledgling reform efforts nurtured in UN-led talks offer a start. The OAS-backed MACCIH anti-graft mission has done some good work and, if renewed, stands to do more. But donor support and encouragement will be important if this strained, poorly governed, and under-resourced country is to make meaningful progress in addressing the deep-seated challenges it faces. The U.S. – traditionally the country’s biggest donor and most powerful partner – has a particularly important role to play.

Honduras urgently needs help in addressing some of the roots of its public discontent, as well as providing more security and economic opportunities for its potential migrants and refugees.

The question is whether it will do so or instead mistakenly continue to turn bilateral relations into a transaction over migration control. Honduras urgently needs help in addressing some of the roots of its public discontent, as well as providing more security and economic opportunities for its potential migrants and refugees. A fixation on short-term results will only exacerbate the conditions that make Honduras an inhospitable home. Bogotá/Brussels/Tegucigalpa, 25 October 2019

Appendix A: Map of Honduras

Appendix B: Fleeing the Grip of Gangs

Crisis Group interviews with Hondurans who have fled their homes show that gangs have become the de facto authority in many neighbourhoods. These testimonies illustrate how gangs exercise control over people living in their areas of influence through physical and sexual abuse, forcing affected residents to flee. Rosa, 32 years old: One day, my 14-year old daughter did not come back to school. I looked for her everywhere I could think of, desperate to find her. Finally, I went to a place where gang members usually “make people disappear”, and there she was. Thankfully, I knew one of the guys because I sell tortillas in the market, so he let my daughter go. We immediately ran away, who knows if that could happen again! Luisa, 51 years old: I saw my son and my mother killed by the gangs in the same week. My son was killed because he refused to pay renta [extortion payment]. He was 21. My mother was killed because the marero came to my house and thought she was me. When I close my eyes, I can still see my son’s entrails spread all over the floor. I want to leave Honduras no matter what. What can be worse than this? Rodolfo, 34 years old: I am a father of five, I used to live in a community controlled by the MS-13. These guys [gang members] are very noisy, and were partying all the time by our house. My mum is sick and she could not sleep well, so one day I went and talked to them, telling them to be respectful in the neighbourhood. They hit me until I was bleeding, and the next day a group of them came on their motorcycles making circles and firing their guns outside my house. When I saw that, I knew it was a sign for us to leave. Source: Crisis Group interviews, asylum seekers, Tegucigalpa, 2018. Names have been changed.

Appendix C: Migration

Table 1: Apprehensions in U.S. Southwest border by country and type

Single adults/Unaccompanied alien children/Family unit (2019 = TD AUG)

Source: U.S. Border and Customs Protection https://bit.ly/2Yx2cli.

Table 2: Hondurans returned from any country, January 2015 to 11 October 2019

Source: Consular and Migratory Observatory of Honduras (CONMIGHO).

Graph 1: Hondurans returned from any country by month,

January 2015 to September 2019

Source: Consular and Migratory Observatory of Honduras (CONMIGHO).

Appendix D: Homicides

Comparative maps of homicide rates by department 2011 and 2018

Crisis Group / KO / 2019 (base map from © Vemaps.com). Source: Violence Observatory of the Autonomous University of Honduras, 2011 and 2018.

Graph 2: Comparative number of homicides in Honduras by month,

January to 21 October 2018 and 2019

Source: Security Secretariat, Honduras National Police.

Graph 3: Homicide Rates 2007 to 2018 in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras

Source 2018: Insight Crime 2019.

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