Dying Young in Honduras

The kids turn up dead nearly every day in some foul corner of this capital.

Some have been shot in the head. Some have been beaten with sticks. Some have been hacked to bits. Their bodies are dumped into muddy ditches or dead-end alleys like dolls chucked in the trash.

Many are scarred with the crude black tattoos that mark them as gang members, probably victims of an internecine war over drugs or street corner space. But even more appear to be kids with no criminal history.

In the last five years, by one count, more than 700 youths 18 or younger have turned up dead in Honduras, a vast majority in two major cities, Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. The number has grown each year, jumping from 66 kids in 1998 to a projected 230 this year.

By comparison, Los Angeles -- with a population more than double those of Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula combined -- saw 108 homicides of youths 18 or younger last year and 83 this year to date, not including cases of child abuse, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

One reason for the deaths here is an explosion of gang violence during the last five years. Police estimate that more than 33,000 gang members stalk the country, most of them tied to Los Angeles-based gangs. They kill one another for points, for respect, or just for fun.

“It’s like a game of ‘Doom’ to them,” said Cesar Ruiz, the city’s chief homicide inspector, referring to a violent computer game.

But at least some of the children were killed by police officers bent on wiping out suspected gang members. President Ricardo Maduro held an extraordinary news conference last month in which he admitted that at least 23 kids had died at the hands of state security agents over the last five years.

Human rights groups and the United Nations believe the figure to be much higher, as does the national police department’s internal affairs investigator. They say the government has allowed ad hoc death squads to flourish both in the department and among private citizen militias.

“I don’t think the government has issued a policy to the military or police that says, ‘Go kill kids,’ ” said Bruce Harris, regional director of Casa Alianza, a group dedicated to protecting street children. “But I would say that either through direct action or inaction, there’s state responsibility in the murder of children.”

Blanca Valladares keeps a tattered manila folder with a few blurry photos of her son, who was found dead in a police station holding cell in May.

Seventeen-year-old Franklin Noe Valladares wasn’t involved in gangs, she said, displaying a photo as proof. He is standing shirtless in a grassy meadow. His narrow chest is thrust forward with the cockiness of youth. He has none of the tattoos that gang members here receive as part of their initiation rites.

Police brought him in for questioning on suspicion that he stole a wristwatch from another youth. Although the investigation is still incomplete, Blanca Valladares believes police beat her asthmatic son, who then had an attack, collapsed and died.

Franklin was the second son Valladares lost. Her oldest child was shot and killed by an angry drunk four years ago. His killer also remains at large.

“I spend my days crying and crying. I ask God for help to move ahead,” she said, her face trembling with the effort to block tears. “Five months have passed, and they have said nothing to me. I want answers.”

Casa Alianza was the first to sound the alarm about the growing number of dead children. Five years ago, the group, which is affiliated with the New York-based Catholic charity Covenant House, began noticing more and more slayings of homeless kids.

Casa Alianza heard stories from the children it took in, about kids being rounded up for questioning by police and their battered bodies appearing in the street the next day. The group was told of white trucks similar to police vehicles that would take kids off the streets, and of cops dumping gang members in rival turf, ensuring that the youths would be attacked.

Casa Alianza began gathering evidence. In one case, two teens allegedly were taken by police officers for questioning in a town outside the capital. The youths were later found dead, stabbed with ice picks and their genitals cut off.

In another case, four people -- ages 15, 17, 19 and 32 -- were found slain at four spots around Tegucigalpa after having been taken in by police for questioning. Each had been shot with the same weapon, the corpses scattered apparently to throw off investigators.

Casa Alianza investigators have collected information on 1,248 children and young adults killed between January 1998 and the end of last June. Of those, 725 were 18 or younger. In about 4% of all cases, evidence points to police committing the killings, investigators say. In about 11%, they blame vigilante groups operating with tacit police endorsement. About 13% are attributed to gangs. The rest of the slayings were committed by unknown assailants or blamed on others, such as private guards.

Despite the visibility of the gangs, there is no single explanation for the growing violence in Honduras. Some people blame a U.S. policy that began in 1996 of deporting rather than trying illegal immigrants accused of serious crimes. Many were U.S.-based gang members who returned to their homes in Honduras and started gangs.

Others tie it to the economic and social dislocation that followed Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which devastated Honduras. Lost jobs and families shattered by the stress of rebuilding might have contributed to the wave in violence.

Finally, some blame the end of Honduras’ mandatory draft, in which the military often rounded up teenagers by force to serve their time. Now these young people find themselves with no jobs and nothing to do.

Whatever the cause, everyone agrees there is no easy answer to the gang problem. “It goes to the deepest roots of society,” said Oscar Alvarez, the country’s dynamic young security minister.

Casa Alianza’s contention that the police were executing children attracted the notice of Asma Jahangir, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary execution.

Jahangir spent 10 days in Honduras last year and produced a report this fall that concluded there had been a “number of instances” of children killed by police or by citizen militias whose activities are tolerated by the government.

By the time the report was delivered, the Maduro administration had launched an investigation. The government report concluded that 574 minors had been killed from January 1998 to last June. The government decided that in at least 23 cases, the police were responsible.

As a response, the government created a special police unit to investigate child homicides. It also set up a committee to monitor the results. So far, one former police officer has been arrested.

Alvarez said the government’s acknowledgment of responsibility is a sign of the willingness to confront a problem in its own ranks. But, he said, the government believes the vast majority of the killings can be blamed on gang-on-gang violence. Stopping the killings means stopping the gangs.

Part of his solution lies in a general crackdown on crime. Maduro won office last year on pledges to have “zero tolerance” for crime. He has put thousands of soldiers on the streets, proposed tough new sentencing laws and urged lawmakers to lower the age at which youths can be tried as adults.

But some of the solution lies beyond police control, Alvarez said. Youth gangs are as much a social problem as a criminal one.

“I can have all the police officers and cars and radios I need, and we’ll have the same problems,” Alvarez said.

A short trip outside Tegucigalpa reveals how serious the problem is. At a rehabilitation center in pine-covered hills, four youths sit by a gurgling fountain looking slightly uncomfortable in their new surroundings.

They are far from the filthy cities where they once ran through the streets, killing and robbing. All are former gang members and drug addicts who have come here to this ranch, called Project Victory, to look for new lives.

They know firsthand the problem of kids getting killed in Honduras’ cities. One is here because his best friend was killed in a hail of gunfire. Another has seen 20 of his friends die in five years of gang life.

For them, there is no mystery about who is killing the country’s children. They are.

“I sincerely believe that the police don’t have very much to do with this. The real reason is rivalry and hatred between the gangs,” said a 22-year-old former gang member who asked to be called Alex.

Alex joined a gang called the Salvatrucha when he was 13. At 15, he was sent for “training” to Los Angeles, the gang’s headquarters and birthplace. He speaks fondly of the days he spent in downtown MacArthur Park, learning how to deal drugs and memorizing the gang’s internal code of conduct.

He was deported to Honduras three years ago after being caught by police. Back in his native country, Alex found himself disenchanted with gang life. There was too much focus on killing, even compared with the violent U.S. gangs.

So he came to Project Victory to escape. He is trapped now, unable to return to his neighborhood. Rival gang members still want to settle scores. And his former companions want to kill him for deserting.

He ducks his head and pauses for a long moment when asked what can be done to stem the bloodshed. He doesn’t really have an answer.

“I want to go back and help,” he said. “I want to help the other young members get out of that life. I still care for them.”

Miller was recently on assignment in Honduras.