Honduras: Latin America's Murder Capital

[Joanne98]

Honduras: Latin America's Murder Capital - by Stephen Lendman

By some accounts, it's the world's murder capital. The UN Development Program (UNDP) reported 4,473 2008 murders (61.3 per 100,000) in a country with about 7.3 million people, the equivalent of over 190,000 annual US killings, over 10 times the actual rate.

For 2009, anthropologist Adrienne Pine estimated a 9% increase, saying in June 2010:

"As someone who has been closely following the human rights and political stability situation in Honduras for over a dozen years; who has written a book and numerous articles on the topic; who has served as an expert witness in over a dozen asylum cases; and who has been living and conducting research in Honduras during the past month, I can say with absolute confidence that I have never seen worse security conditions in this country."

"And while in the previous decade, the victims of extrajudicial assassinations and other forms of state violence were disproportionately young men identified (often incorrectly) as gang members, today a large percentage of the victims fall into two primary categories: people who are involved in or are openly critical of drug trafficking, and individuals who are seen as being critical of the June 28, 2009 coup."

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Honduras-Latin-America-s-by-Stephen-Lendman-101205-433.html

[Billy Burnett]

1. "Mission accomplished" - Hillary Clinton. eom