Human rights and favorable investment conditions go hand in hand. As the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights puts it, respecting human rights builds “resilient and prosperous communities and strong institutions based on the rule of law. . . Responsible business leaders know that sustainable profits can only stem from stable societies in which people have dignity, freedom, and a voice.”
Present-day Honduras is not such a society. Although the Honduran people have plenty of dignity, they are being denied basic freedoms and a voice. A military coup in 2009 was followed by unrest and and considerable violence. When citizens poured into the streets of Tegucigalpa to protest what were widely viewed as fraudulent elections in November 2017, Honduran security forces opened fire with live ammunition.
Honduras’ security forces are clearly implicated in at least 30 killings during the post-electoral period. According to a March 2018 report, the Honduras’ Forensic Medical Institute found that 27 of the people who were shot to death at protests or afterwards were killed with bullets regulated for the sole use of the National Police and the Army. The number of confirmed Army/Police victims given by the Forensic Medical Institute, as exhumations have progressed, has now reached 30. The United Nation’s Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR), in its report on post-electoral violence states, “The analysis of the type of injuries suffered by the victims indicates that the security forces made intentional lethal use of firearms, including beyond dissuasive purpose, such as when victims were fleeing. This was illustrated in particular by the case of seven victims who died as a result of the impact of live ammunitions in the head. These cases . . . may amount to extra-judicial killings.”
Honduras’ economy already is weak. If the Honduran government is indeed interested in ensuring a favorable environment for business and sustainable and inclusive growth, the bedrock of which is respect for human rights, it must take the following steps:
- Investigate and prosecute incidents in which protesters were killed following the re-election of President Juan Orlando Hernandez.
- Withdraw the Military Police, responsible for the majority of those killings, from crowd-control functions and immediately begin phasing them out. Created in 2013 when Juan Orlando Hernandez was head of the Honduran Congress, the Military Police were meant to be a temporary force. Instead, the force has steadily grown.
- Prosecute attacks on and murders of journalists, opposition leaders, and human rights activists.
These are first, elemental steps. In failing to take these measures, the government risks tipping the country further into turmoil.