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Four articles

Recordings disclose police called for murder of president

[Translated from Diario Expreso of Guayaquil, Ecuador, for September 5. See original article here.]

A recording of the police radio includes voices of supposed officers calling for the killing of President Rafael Correa during a rebellion that left ten dead and 274 injured, according to audio distributed on Tuesday by the Andes public agency.

“Let them kill Correa so this can be over with, kill him and it will be done!” and “Kill him, kill the president!” are some of the comments heard on the half-hour recording of messages from the central radio facility released by Andes.

Last Thursday, protests against a law that eliminated bonuses for the police developed into a violent disturbance during which the president was detained for several hours in a hospital in Quito.

“Don’t let that son of a bitch [hijo de puta] go, make him sign (the police petitions) first, then he can leave; otherwise, that bastard [cabrón] doesn’t leave,” a voice demands. (more…)

[Translation of an article from El Faro of El Salvador for August 26. See the original here .] 

By Óscar Martínez

I don’t understand the uproar over the 72 migrants Los Zetas assassinated in Mexico. I guess it was because of the number of bodies piled up together, in plain view in the picture from the ranch in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, just across the border from Brownsville, Texas. It’s a worm of corpses rolled up against the wall of a ruined shed in that wilderness in the middle of nowhere, out there at the end of the little dirt road. Some of the corpses had their hands tied behind their backs. Others were lying piled on top of each other, in the parts of the worm that were swollen. I don’t understand the uproar over the massacre of so many migrants.

The big news media, of Mexico, of El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, even of the United States, of Spain and South America, have used their front pages, their important sections, their top news spots, to cover the massacre of migrants in Mexico. I don’t understand the uproar in such big media.

The politicians, the ones from Mexico, from Central America, from Brazil, Ecuador, have rushed to sit in their press conference chairs in front of those media and to apppear later on the front pages. It’s true, not just any politicians. They are the heads of departments, of institutions, of organizations. They are even the presidents themselves of those countries, who have said, as the one from Mexico said, that the perpetrators of the massacre in San Fernando are “animals.” I don’t understand such an uproar by so many importaint politicians. (more…)

[Translation of an article from the Honduran web site Revistazo.com for June 16.]

With 12 trade unionists killed in 2009, out of a total of 101 for the world, Honduras is in third place in the number of killings of union activists and leaders, according to a report by the Confederación Sindical Internacional (CSI – International Trade Union Confederation).

Tegucigalpa – The document shows that in the previous year the murders of union activists increased by 30 percent, a fact attributable to pressure exerted by unions to demand workers’ fundamental rights to job recovery, made more pressing during the global economic crisis.

The report adds that of the 101 victims, Honduras is surpassed only by Colombia, with 48 unionists murdered, and Guatemala with 16. The CSI describes this as “an escalation of violence against union leader that has developed in the past few years.” (more…)

[Translation of an article from Tiempo of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, for May 22.]

By Francisco Rodríguez

Tegucigalpa – Andrés Pavón, president of the Comité para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos en Honduras (CODEH – Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras) yesterday declared that there exists a plan to eliminate witnesses to human rights violations, including one to assassinate former President Manuel Zelaya when he returns to the country.

Pavón recalled that at the time of the June 28 coup d’état a crisis office was established in the capitol, where police commissioner Danilo Orellano brought up several persons, among them Zelaya Rosales. (more…)

Nahún Palacios -- Diario Tiempo photo

[Translation of an article from the Honduran website Revistazo.com for March 15.]

Nahún Palacios is the third journalist killed so far in 2010. His death, on Sunday evening, March 14, has added to the mourning among journalists and to their fear of practicing their profession in a country where freedom of expression is delineated by death. (more…)