Naming The One Not Named

Rene Maradiaga Panchamé is the name I think you're looking for, the one omitted from the press reports from Honduras about a Honduran National Police commander who carried out the hit on the Honduran Drug Czar.

Yesterday the Honduran paper, El Heraldo, released a story and photos of an investigative report internal to the National Police in Honduras that names "El Señor Director de Servicios Especiales de Investigacion, Commissionado General " as the organizer of the assassination plot that killed then Honduran Drug Czar General Julián Arístides González Irias on the 8th of December, 2009.  Then security Minister Oscar Alvarez claims to have never seen this investigative report.  The then head of the National Police, Jose Luis Muñoz Licona, made a similar claim.  The last date stamped on the report itself is 2010 when it was received by the Inspector General of the National Police.

That blanked out name appears to belong to René Maradiaga Panchamé, who was listed in multiple contemporary press reports as the Director of Special Investigations of the Police (here, here, for example) in late 2009.

This is not entirely a surprise.

René Maradiaga Panchamé was a former member of Battalion 316, the notorious intelligence group that disppeared more than 300 Hondurans in the 1980s.  Battalion 316 was founded in 1979 by General Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, himself trained at the School of the Americas and in Argentina.

The Interamerican Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) published a report in 2002 called "Los Hechos hablan por si mismos:  informe preliminar sobre los desaparacidos en Honduras 1980-1993".  In it, on page 474, a declassified Honduran military document from the Commander of the Armed Forces, announces the appointment of the command structure for Battalion 316 for 1987.  Maradiaga Panchame was appointed to the battalion with the title "Jefe de Equipo Movil No. I".

This was the time of Iran-Contra scandal during the Regan presidency, when the CIA was funneling arms to the Contras to fight the Sandanistas and using cocaine and other illegal trade to fund the operations.  Maradiaga Panchame was joined at this time, by Napoleon Nazar Herrera, who was named "Jefe, Secretaria de Apoyo y Servicio" of the unit, whose name appears in the same list naming Maradiaga Panchame a member.  Here he would have become familiar with, and maybe involved in the drug trade between Nicaragua and Honduras which originated from the CIA program to finance and arm the Contras in Honduras.

In December, 2009, after the coup, he was appointed by coup leader Roberto Micheletti Bain, along with many of his Battalion 316 co-workers to command positions within the National Police. 

In October of 2012, Panchame Maradiaga, and Salomon Escoto Salinas were two of the more than 99 high ranking police commanders who were put on leave, paid but with no assignment.  They failed one or more of the confidence tests being used to weed out corrupt officers.  Others, like Luis Muñoz Licona and Ricardo Ramon del Cid were suspended.  These last two were in charge of the police when Alfredo Landaverde was murdered in Tegucigalpa in December 2011, and recent news accounts in Honduras suggest they organized his murder.  They were also in charge when the University Rector, Julietta Castellanos's son and another university student were murdered by the National Police.  The same two commanders were suspended because they protected the perpetrators of the murder and allowed them to escape from custody.

We know that by 2012 Maradiaga Panchamé was publicly reported as leader of Los Magnificos, a drug operation bringing drugs through Honduras from Nicaragua while still a member of the National Police.  We believe that today Los Magnificos would be operating as part of the Zetas cartel.  His drug trafficking contact was "Chepe" Luna (Jose Natividad Luna Pereira), a well known trafficker who worked the southern Honduran drug routes across Choluteca, with whom Maradiaga Panchamé was good friends. Luna ran Los Perrones, a transportista drug gang in El Salvador.
 
In 2013 the Tribunal Superior de Cuentas found that Maradiaga Panchamé had wealth that he could not account for.  It made a similar finding for his fellow Police Commander and former Battalion 316 member Napoleon Nazar Herrera.

2014 is an interesting year.   In January, Maradiaga Panchamé was one of many of the high ranking police commanders who resigned unexpectedly, and before they had completed the normal 35 years of service.  In May it appeared as if he had been arrested and released, but he told the Honduran press that he'd just been in Police headquarters doing business as part of the Police Hospital program.  On June 25, 2014 Chepe Luna was assassinated in Comayaguela.

So this is the name you're not allowed to know in Honduras, René Maradiaga Panchamé, because it might endanger the non-existent investigation.

Police Deny Responsibility for Death

The Deputy Director of the National Police, René Maradiaga Panchamé, a former unit leader in Battalion 3-16, says the police are investigating the death of Ilsa Ivania Velásquez during the teacher's protest, but he's sure they, the Police, aren't responsible.

"Everything is in the process of being investigated. There's an investigation. There's video, the investigators will use all these situations [sic]."

But he told reporters the Police are not involved in her death:

"the investigations are what will produce the final determination of these facts."

Lets see, the investigation has only just started, but even before the investigation gets rolling, Panchamé can tell us the Police aren't responsible for her death.

Does that give anyone confidence that there's a real investigation into her death? or are the results of the investigation being foretold to block any chance the Police could be found responsible?

I guess he's just echoing the official line, dictated by the executive branch, which issued a statement on her death that also claims the National Police are not responsible.

I guess they haven't gotten used to actually investigating crime in Honduras. After all, as the US State Department notes,

Honduran law enforcement authorities' ability to prevent, respond to, and investigate criminal incidents and prosecute criminals remains limited, further strained by the necessity of policing the increased number of demonstrations since the June 28, 2009 coup.

Maybe the National Police should just stick to brutalizing demonstrators. At least they've demonstrated they know how to do that.

"We'll respect human rights" (for now)

After creating total alarm in the Bajo Aguan over the weekend, we learned late this morning that contrary to the official statements made yesterday, the government of Honduras does not intend, at least today, to evict the campesinos who reclaimed african oil palm plantations in the region around Tocoa, Colon.

El Heraldo reported that in a press conference late this morning, which it characterizes as involving, "the three powers of the state" those involved confirmed the presence of large numbers of police and military in the Bajo Aguan, but denied that they were there to evict the campesinos from the African oil palm farms they've claimed.

In this case, the "three powers" were not the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches, but rather Maria Antonieta Bográn, representing the Executive branch, Marlon Pascua, the defense minister, and Roberto Romero Luna, the vice minister for security. El Heraldo goes on to inform us that they assured the press that the police and military would respect human rights.

The sub-director of the National Police, René Maradiaga Panchamé, is quoted as saying that the police and military were "complying with the precise instructions of the President, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, the Security Minister, Oscar Alvarez, and the Director of the National Police, José Luís Muñoz Licona, to maintain public order and preserve the rule of law, bringing security to all in the area." He also denied local reports of a curfew having been imposed over the weekend.

Today the police set up checkpoints around Tocoa, Colon, to check people's papers and confiscate weapons, El Heraldo concluded.

Meanwhile, Tiempo reported this morning that the same Police spokesman, René Maradiaga Panchamé, confirmed to them that the evictions were scheduled for early this morning (Monday), and that's why there was a strong presence of the police and military in the area. Tiempo confirmed with Maradiaga Panchamé that more than 2000 police and 1000 Special Forces (a.k.a. the Cobras) had been dispatched to the Bajo Aguan.

The military commander of these troops, Colonel Florentino Sarmiento, said that the military was simply there to assist the National Police, and it was the police that would have to carry out any evictions.

La Tribuna changed its story this morning, from the earlier headline "Bajo Aguan heavily militarized" to "Start of Disarmament Operation" adopting the messaging of the Lobo government.

Meanwhile, videos posted to YouTube show military transports loaded with troops and towing supply trailers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdL17p_mblM
http://www.youtube.com/user/MUCAtv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTaIVEIdDQ0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUmbrOdBJoI

The government is deliberately muddying its message. On the one hand, the massive deployment of police and military is, they tell us, meant to reduce tensions in the Bajo Aguan, never mind that it achieved the opposite; but it is also meant to carry out drug interdictions, no doubt using the water canons seen transiting past El Progresso toward the Aguan over the week end.

Anyone concluding the Honduran government is not being honest about the purpose of water canons, troops, and police in the Bajo Aguan would not be mistaken.