http://quotha.net/node/2249
AP: Reverberations from drug raid felt in US, Honduras Thu, 05/17/2012 - 23:38 AP Reverberations from drug raid felt in US, Honduras<http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5je0ScnbZHvncWeZybEXFa7O05CRA?docId=33e5250e5fdf42b8927f266e2df49362> By ALBERTO ARCE, Associated Press 4 hours ago TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) Bullets flew as U.S. helicopters swooped toward a river boat. Honduran national police rappelled to the ground and locals scattered after loading close to 1,000 pounds of cocaine. Now reverberations from a drug raid that locals say killed four innocent people are being felt from the sultry jungles of Central America to Capitol Hill. Last week's DEA-supported predawn raid on the banks of a remote Honduran river began when U.S. drug agents and Honduran national police tracked an airplane loaded with cocaine as it entered the country from South America, Honduras National Police Chief Ricardo Ramirez del Cid said in an interview Thursday. Ramirez said his officers were in four helicopters when they came under fire from the boat. They fired back and then descended on ropes to the river after the shooting stopped. By the time they got there, they only found a boat full of cocaine. He said they didn't know if anyone died. There were no people, dead, alive or injured. Numerous local officials, including Mayor Lucio Vaquedano of the coastal town of Ahuas, said four people, including two pregnant women, were killed. He insisted they were diving for lobster and shellfish when were killed and that they were not involved with drug trafficking. Congressman Howard Berman said Thursday that if the reports that innocent people were killed are true, the U.S. should review this part of its assistance to Honduras. "I have consistently expressed deep concerns regarding the danger of pouring U.S. security assistance into a situation where Honduran security forces are involved in serious human rights violations," said the California Democrat. "The problems are getting worse, not better, making such a review all the more urgent." There were many versions of what happened in the early morning May 11 and by the end of the day Thursday, the DEA wouldn't confirm many details. The DEA never fired during the operation, acting only in an advisory role, both the U.S. and Hondurans said. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said she didn't know if the DEA told the Hondurans to fire back. "As I understand it, the Honduran authorities are doing a broad investigation of this incident to evaluate what exactly happened and how it happened," she said in a briefing Thursday. "I think we need to let that go forward." The U.S. has assisted with drug operations in Honduras since the 1970s, but activity has increased in the last few years, officials and statistics indicate. As the Mexican government has cracked down on drug cartels, transport of cocaine has shifted to areas like Honduras' Miskito Coast, a remote jungle along the Caribbean that is isolated, hardly policed and populated with poor people willing to load and unload illicit cargo to make money. The State Department says 79 percent of all cocaine smuggling flights leaving South America first land in Honduras. Ramirez gave one version of the operation, saying U.S. and Honduran agents were monitoring the ground from four helicopters in a region known as Gracias a Dios, about 300 miles (500 kilometers) from the capital of Tegucigalpa along the coastal border with Nicaragua. It is known as the Mosquitia for the indigenous Miskito that have lived in the region for centuries. Honduran forces have conducted numerous operations in the area and have a policy of not attacking when the plan lands, because it is quickly surrounded by families who unload the drugs, Ramirez said. "They're not drug traffickers," he said. "They're just local residents who do the work because they get paid." Honduran President Porfirio Lobo said Thursday that it's a huge problem along the country's Caribbean coast. "The community turns out en masse to defend the drug traffickers because of their situation, living in structural poverty," he told reporters. Honduran police only intervene, Ramirez said, when the drugs are being transported to their next destination. In this case, he said drugs had been loaded on the boat and were headed down a muddy waterway when people in the boat fired on the helicopters. Honduran police fired back, Ramirez said, then descended on ropes from helicopters after the shooting stopped to confiscate the drugs. He would not say how many agents were involved in the operation. Ethan Nadelmann who runs the pro-legalization group, Drug Policy Alliance, criticized the DEA's involvement in a fatal attack, even if U.S. agents didn't shoot. "DEA agents are never permitted to be involved in the killing of innocent people, whether or not they are in pursuit of criminal suspects," he said. "What happened in Honduras appears to have crossed the line - an action that was not approved by the U.S. Congress - and is, ultimately, unethical." The DEA has a Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Team based in Honduras, one of five in the region, according to congressional testimony. By the end of 2011, 42 Honduran law enforcement agents had been vetted to work with the DEA, according to State Department reports. Nuland said the State Department has two helicopters in Honduras involved in missions carrying members of Honduras' National Police Tactical Response Team. And she said the aircraft were piloted by Guatemalan military officers and outside contractor pilots. Last year, with help from the U.S., the Honduran government stopped more than 22 metric tons of cocaine in Honduras and adjacent waters, nearly four times more than 2010, the State Department has said. Although U.S. military helicopters and personnel from Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras have been involved in previous seizures, U.S. Embassy officials that neither troops nor equipment from the base were involved in last week's incident. *Martha Mendoza reported from Santa Cruz, California. Associated Press writers Alberto Arce in Tegucigalpa contributed to this report.* *------* http://quotha.net/node/2248 US-supported military terrorizing locals, following DEA massacre Thu, 05/17/2012 - 21:46 AP The below is my translation of an account from today (*ESPAÑOL ABAJO*) of a resident of Barra Patuca. He wishes to remain anonymous because "here, threats are our daily bread and common sense dictates that one should not always swim upstream. One day God will have pity on us and bring us justice." ------------------------------ Ok well as long as you aren't going to cite me I will tell you what happened. It really is sad to hear, to see or read such horrible and degrading things in the news. What happened was that the people who were in the dugout canoe were humble people who lost their lives for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, a thing of fate. A woman, three children and a man died. The woman was from [Barra Patuca], the others from Ahuas. They were riding as passengers in the canoe and the woman called her mother in the early morning moments before they fired on them, to say that there were problems on the way between the drug smugglers and the uniformed forces. Everything indicates that the DEA and the others were staked out ahead waiting for the drug traffickers to appear, and unfortunately in the chase, since there are so many curves in the river, in one of those the soldiers [translator's note"police" and "soldiers" are regularly used interchangeably in Honduras, especially now that they often work jointly] lost sight of the narcos and apparently the narcos were next to the dugout canoe for a few seconds and then fell behind, and the people kept going because they were innocent. But the soldiers, instead of waiting for them to come close to see if it was [the narcos] or not, began to shoot to kill. The boy who survived and spoke from the hospitalhe only had been shot in the armwhen he managed to get to the shore, the police shot him from behind. The family members were outraged, what's more yesterday some people took over the town hall of Brus Laguna wanting to throw out the mayor all because the drug traffickers paid them to throw her out since she was not supportive; the DEA and some TV stations got there to report on the incident and Thank God after so much bad faith and injustice things didn't get out of hand. The families of the dead are angry and they joined in the protest to force the mayor to speak for them, but it seems that she's indifferent to everything that's going on. The burned houses were mostly the work of the relatives of the people killed in revenge for what happened; all the houses that burned down were of the capos, that is, the big drug traffickers, disguised as distinguished men. What's more yesterday a group of soldiers came to Barra Patuca and one of the brothers of the woman who was killed fired off his gun in retaliation, and what do you think the soldiers did? They started shooting in broad daylight, in the middle of town in front of everyone. People started to scream and cry and the soldiers calmed down and went back to their motorboat. Today when I went to work I saw they were still there and people are saying that last night they were going around inspecting people's homes and demanding the identification of everyone they found in the street. This is how bad things are in this country where nobody does nor says anything to defend those who suffer for what others have done. ------------------------------ Pues bien ya que no me citaras te contare lo que paso, realmente es triste escuchar ver o leer por los medios cosas tan desagradable y denigrante. Fíjate que la gente que iban en el pipante eran personas humildes que perdieron sus vidas por estar en el momento y lugar incorrecto, son cosas del destino. Murieron una señora 3 niños y 1 hombre. La señora era nativa de aquí, y los otros de Ahuas. Ellos iban de pasajeros en el pipante y la señora llamo instantes antes de que les disparara a su mamá en horas de la madrugada diciendo que había problemas en el camino entre los narcotraficantes y los uniformados. Pues todo indica que adelante de ellos estaban los de la DEA y demás esperando que apareciera los narcotraficantes, y desgraciadamente en la persecución como hay tantas curva en el río, en una de esas los militares perdieron de vista a los narcos y aparentemente los narcos se pegaron al pipante por cuestión de segundos y luego se quedaron atrás, y la gente siguió su camino porque ellos eran inocentes. Pero los militares en vez de esperar que llegaran cerca para ver si eran ellos o no les empezaron a disparar a muerte. Al muchacho que sobrevivió y hablo desde el hospital, solo había recibido el balazo en el brazo y como logra llegar hasta la orilla la policia les disparo de atrás. Los familiares están indignados, es mas ayer tomaron la alcaldía de Brus Laguna queriendo sacar a la alcaldesa todo porque los narcos pagaron a una gente para que dieran golpe de estado ya que ella no apoya; llego los de la DEA y algunos medios televisivos pa transmitir la noticia y gracias a Dios después de tantas incoherencias e injusticias las cosas no paso a mayores. Los familiares de los muertos están indignados y se sumaron a la huelga para que la alcaldesa hable por ello, pero parece que ella esta indiferente a lo que sucede. Las casa quemados fueron provocado en su mayoría por los familiares de los fallecidos en represalia de lo que hizo; y las casas quemadas en su totalidad eran de los capos, ósea de los grandes narcotraficantes, disfrazados de grandes señores. Es mas ayer llegaron a la comunidad un grupo de militares y uno de los hermanos de la difunta fue a hacer un tiroteo en represalia, y que crees que hizo los militares? Empezar a disparar a plena luz del día y en la mitad del pueblo, delante de todos. La gente empezó a gritar y a llorar y los militares se calmaron y se regresaron a su lancha. Hoy que pase al trabajo vi que todavía estaban aquí y dicen la gente que anoche se pusieron a registrar casas y a todas las personas que se encontraban en la calle. Así esta de mal las cosas en este país donde nadie hace ni dice nada por defender a los que sufre por culpa de otros. 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