World

or 80 days in 1983
Ines Murillo was
beaten, doused with
freezing water, sex-
ually assaulted and
shocked with elec-
tricity.

In short, the Hon-
duran who advised
the country’s trade union and peasant
Movements was tortured — by a govern-
Ment which receives economic aid from
Canada and the United States. ;

urillo, now international representative
of the Committee for the Defence of

Human Rights in Honduras, wants to avoid
Sensationalizing her ordeal. In a recent tour
of Canada she aimed to acquaint Canadi-
ans with the realities of the Central Ameri-
Can nation the United States uses to wage its
Undeclared war against neighbouring Nica-
Tagua.

To listen to Murillo is to receive a quick
education in a number of little-known facts
about U.S. activities in the war-torn region,
Which on Nov. 7 marked the first anniver-
Sary of the Esquipulas II accord. Also
Teferred to as the “Arias” peace plan after
Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, the
accord binds its five signatory nations to
Improving human rights within their respec-
live boundaries and to a commitment to
Prohibit use of their territories as a base on

Ostile operations against another signa-
tory.

; The plan enraged the Reagan administra-
tion because it sent a message to the world
that its co-signers — Nicaragua, Hondu-
Tas, Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa

1ca — could work on solving their prob-
lems Without, and indeed in defiance of, the
heavy hand of interference from the United
tates,

Initial opposition, however, hasn’t pre-
Vented. officials like U.S. State Secretary

Corge Shultz from harping on the theme
Of alleged “violations” of the accord by

ICaragua, which the U.S. continues to
attack by funding the gang of counter-
Tevolutionary thugs called contras. Such

Ypocrisy angers human rights activists and
Central America support groups, who note
In the continued operations of torture and
assassinations by right-wing, government-
Sanctioned death squads in Guatemala, El

alvador and ‘Honduras the true violation
Of the spirit and letter of Esquipulas II.

f these countries, the least is known
about Honduras, Central America’s poor-
est Nation and unwilling host — on the part
of its people — to several squadrons of

Merican troops and gangs of contras who
°onduct raids into Nicaragua. :

‘The U.S, justifies its military occupation
©n the grounds that it is protecting Hondu-
Tas from a Nicaraguan invasion,” Murillo,
‘peaking through a translator, noted.

‘But it is an aggression against Hondu-
"as. We are not going to be invaded. We are
already invaded.”

Between 1980 and 1984, more than 100
People “disappeared” due to the actions of

~Onduran police. But the systematic viola-
“ion of human rights did not exist until 1980,
When the U.S. military occupation began
es airstrips for contras were built, Murillo

i The Presence of the military necessarily
“nplies “an intelligence superstructure” and
itis U.S. personnel who have trained Hon-
Uran interrogators and created the death
Squads who attack the country’s trade
Union, peasant and solidarity movements,
She Telated,
yvtutillo fell victim to the squads in
atch, 1983. A student leader, legal advisor
© trade unions and peasant groups, and an
PUtspoken opponent of the contra bases in
“country, Murillo was kidnapped while
Waiting for a bus and taken to a secret jailin
©meone’s house.
th uring the 80 days of interrogations and
i Ture she became aware that her tribula-
ns Were observed and directed by a
theber of the U.S. military. She identified

sea
Dobbs” as U.S. army advisor Michae

INES MURILLO

accompany U

c. visible Effec®

Bruises
ADT sions

spouses 9°
7) gh coer

illo said questions read to her were
Sones SeaTED in “bad Spanish.
She overheard her tormentors saying things
like, “Hey, the gringo’s coming. A friend
who was also confined and tortured
reported hearing the words, “Mr. Mike is
tater she was removed to a public prison,
confined for 13 months and then exiled.
Pressure from the eins prevented her

i ce, she said.

pee ei I’m alive today is because I
wasn’t the daughter of a peasant, but of a

military man who was prominent in a more

i

occupation of Honduras

democratic Honduras (prior to a military
coup in 1963). When the coup came, his

.career went down the drain.”

Police in charge of her incarceration who
had worked under her father kept him
informed of the situation. His talks with
some members of U.S. Congress led to a
“network” of information between the U.S.
and Honduras. Even then, Murillo’s father
did not know her whereabouts. “‘All he was
told was that, ‘your daughter is alive,” she
said.

Despite such revelations to U.S. Con-

TRIBUNE PHOTO

gressmen, the economic and military aid
continues. A 1987 report by the Committee
for the Defence of Human Rights in Hon-
duras states that the U.S. Military Assist-
ance Program granted $3.4 million in funds
and weaponry to Honduras’ Public Secur-
ity Force — thanks in large part to the tes-
timony of State Secretary Shultz that the
Honduran government “has made signifi-
cant progress ... in eliminating any human
rights violations.”

The report states Shultz’s conclusions
were based on “an analysis which must
have been produced by the State Depart-
ment using the reports and supposed inves-
tigations of the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa
(Honduras’ capital).”

Honduran progressive forces struggle
under Law 33, an Act proclaimed in 1982,
which considers all trade union, peasant or
other activity subversive, said Murillo.
Trade unionists also have to fight de-
unionizing attempts by the government
which wants to impose economic free
zones. The resulting products, sold cheap
because of criminally low wages, “will be
used to produce unemployment in Can-
ada,” Murillo warned.

Honduras has had a nominal civilian
government since the early Eighties. But it is
a captive government, both of its military
and the United States, which is there to help
fulfill “the geo-political conception to
occupy as much of Central America as they
can,” she asserted.

U.S. administrations once used world
East-West tensions as an excuse for its
actions in Central America. The recent
thaw in Soviet-American relations has
invalidated that excuse, so the United States
now uses its war on the drug trade to engage
in military actions, Murillo charged. But in
reality the war is being waged against the
people of the region, she said.

Recently the U.S. sponsored a raid in the
Peten jungle in Guatemala. But its victims
were the area’s indigenous people, she said,
pointing to similar actions in Belize and
Mexico. The phoniness of the campaign can
be seen in the fact that the same airstrips
used by the contras in Honduras are also
used by drug dealers. Murillo observed:
“When they say they are fighting dealers
they are in fact fighting themselves.”

The kidnapping and extradition to the

US. earlier this year of accused drug dealer ~

Juan Ramon Matta — an action that vio-
lated Honduran laws — drew such outrage
that demonstrators torched the USS.
Embassy in Tegucigalpa last March.

News of tortures, illegal kidnappings and
assassinations have gained some attention
through the testimony of former interroga-
tors who have defected. This year Murillo
and a former military interrogator, Floren-
cio Caballero, appeared before the Inter-
American Court on Human Rights (a
branch of the Organization of American
States, which includes the U.S. and most
Central American countries) to testify
against the regime’s activities.

Caballero now resides somewhere in
Ontario. But he has yet to receive refugee
status, and has been unable to secure exits
from Honduras for his wife and four child-
ren, who live in fear of death or torture.

Meanwhile, Ottawa has allowed some
3,500 contras into Canada, while its new
immigration bill will bar genuine refugees.
“How can they compare contras to people
who live in my home town and have been
terrorized for the past eight years?” Murillo
said.

During her tour Murillo met with
government officials, non-governmental
organizations, students, church leaders and
trade unionists. She has argued for changes
to the way in which Canada sends economic
aid to the Honduran government, which
totalled some $45 million over the past five
years.

More Canadians have become aware of
the Honduras situation. Recently the Uni-
ted Steel Workers Hamilton Local 1005
contributed financially to a series of adver-
tisements in Honduran newspapers de-
nouncing human rights violations.

Pacific Tribune, November 21, 1988 « 9

ee

ie hae

SPE aA OBEN i