Four shot dead at pizza joint in Honduras

[Judi Lynn]

Four shot dead at pizza joint in Honduras
Published: Monday, Mar 4, 2013, 16:34 IST
Place: Tegucigalpa | Agency: IANS

Gunmen killed four people at a pizzeria in San Pedro Sula, a city in northern Honduras, the National Police said.

The two gunmen entered the restaurant Saturday, walked to the table where the four young men were eating and opened fire.

Two of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene, while the other two died at a hospital in the second-largest city in Honduras.

The pizzeria is in the Las Palmas district near the San Pedro Sula penitentiary.

The crime wave in Honduras has left an average of 20 people dead a day, according to the Observatory of Violence of the National Autonomous University, which reported that 10,411 violent deaths, of which 7,172 were murders, occurred in the Central American country in 2012.

More:
http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report__1807161

[Judi Lynn]

1. US Special Operations Command Trained Military Unit Accused of Death Squad Killings in Honduras

US Special Operations Command Trained Military Unit Accused of Death Squad Killings in Honduras
By Annie Bird
3/1/2013 at 20:13:41

Since January 2010, there has been a constant stream of killings of members of land rights, campesino movements in the Bajo Aguan region of Honduras. At least 88 campesino movement members and supporters have been killed, along with five bystanders apparently mistaken for campesinos. Most recently, on Feb. 16 two campesinos were killed--Santos Jacobo Cartagena was gunned down while waiting for a bus, and Jose Trejo, an outspoken advocate for the investigation of his brother's Sept. 22, 2012 murder, was shot while driving.

While the 2010 and 2011 State Department human rights reports described deaths of campesinos in the Aguan as the result of "confrontations" between palm oil corporation's security forces and campesino farmers who claim the land was stolen by the agri-businessmen, only six of the killings have occurred on disputed land during land occupations or evictions. In contrast, 78 were targeted assassinations, 8 of those preceded by abductions, their tortured bodies found later; another 3 victims remain disappeared. Fifty-three people were shot while driving, riding their bicycles or walking along public roads. Another 13 were assassinated in their homes or while working on farms not in dispute.

All of this points to one explanation: a death squad is operating in the Aguan. This is not news to anyone who lives there, where it is considered common knowledge and it is widely understood that police and military participate in the killings. Dozens of acts of violence and intimidation have been carried out by the Honduran military against campesino communities over the same time period and geographical area where the death-squad killings have targeted campesinos, lending greater credibility to the charge.

While masked gunmen have been killing campesinos, the Honduran military's 15th Battalion special forces unit and units or joint taskforces associated with it, have been receiving training from the U.S. armed forces Special Operations Command South, SOCSOUTH, which is also funding construction on the 15th Battalion's base in Rio Claro, Trujillo.

More:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/US-Special-Operations-Comm-by-Annie-Bird-130301-924.html