Tegucigalpa. The Honduran government has decided that the country’s 21 prisons will be under the control of the military police for a year from today placed become. The state of emergency, which has been in force since December 6, 2022, will be extended to other regions of the country without precise information. The army takes on public security tasks across the country.
In addition, the supervisory board of the penal system that was set up in April 2023 dissolved, chaired by Deputy Interior Minister Julissa Villanueva. The army is being urged to set up the Islas de Cisne, a group of islands off the Caribbean coast, as a new prison where the most dangerous senior inmates are to be taken.
This was preceded by a massacre in the Támara women’s prison, 30 kilometers north-east of the capital Tegucigalpa, on Tuesday, in which 46 inmates have been killed so far. According to official information, 23 women were killed by firearms and stabbing weapons, and 23 other women were burned to death in their cells. According to media reports, members of the criminal street gang Barrio 18 broke into the prison block where members of the rival gang Mara Salvatrucha were being held.
That same evening, President Xiomara Castro dismissed Interior Minister Ramón Sabillón and installed the previous head of the national police, Gustavo Sánchez. The Honduran public views the dismissal of Sabillón differently. First, in February 2022, he sponsored the arrest of former President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was extradited to the United States two months later, at the request of New York State Attorneys, on alleged drug trafficking charges. Second, it is the first time in Honduran history that an interior minister has been dismissed after a prison massacre. Political analyst Raul Pineda told the online newspaper criterio “that Sabillón’s sacking was already being planned by political circles as he was uncomfortable for the cabinet due to the deteriorating relationship with former president and current presidential adviser Manuel Zelaya Rosales. These changes “, continued Pineda, “had been planned since June and the tragedy was the perfect excuse to remove him from the Home Office.”
Human rights expert Joaquin A. Mejía told amerika21: “This crisis reflects the inability of past governments and the current government to solve the permanent inadequacies in the penal system. It reflects the failure of society”. He sees the use of the military in the prisons as a big mistake, because “there is no political solution, or no political will to implement a strategy.” According to Mejía, it is questionable whether the PMOP should be able to regain control of the prisons, since it has already failed once in the last few years. “The PMOP has been linked to organized crime and gross human rights abuses that took place in the aftermath of the 2017 electoral fraud.” Castro’s decision to militarize was “a terrible slap in the face of the citizens because they are not keeping their election promise to abolish the military police,” Mejía continued.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Honduras expressed concern about the 46 dead and explainedthat the chronic lack of security personnel both in the women’s prison and in other detention centers is worrying. There are only 52 officers, which is insufficient to ensure the safety and proper treatment of the 916 inmates at the women’s prison.
The crisis in the Honduran penal system has been going on for decades. Prison riots killed 69 inmates in La Ceiba in 2003, 107 inmates in San Pedro Sula in 2004, and 361 inmates in Comayagua Prison in 2012. In December 2019 alone, more than 50 inmates died in various prisons (america21 reported). Unofficial figures show that as of December 2022, 19,842 adults were being held in the country’s 25 correctional facilities, despite capacity for only 14,780 inmates. This means an overcrowding of 34.2 percent. At least 51.6 percent of the prisoners have not yet been convicted.