Honduras adopts Salvadoran-style tactics in gang crackdown on prison inmates
Authorities in Honduras forced half-naked inmates to sit in tight rows while they searched for contraband in a sweep of prisons Monday, similar to the harsh tactics of neighboring El Salvador. Honduran authorities also arrested a suspect in a weekend pool hall shooting that left 11 dead.
The prison sweep demonstrated the Honduran government’s resolve to crack down on gangs following last week’s gang-related massacre of 46 female inmates, the worst atrocity at a women’s prison in recent memory. Police said they were considering the possibility that Saturday’s shooting at the pool hall was related to the prison violence.
On Monday, the military police — who have taken charge of the nation’s prisons — posted photos of male inmates forced to sit in rows, spread-legged, during a raid to seize contraband in one prison.
El Salvador’s evangelical churches rehabilitated ex-gang members. The country’s crackdown on L.A.-born gangs like MS-13 emptied programs and filled prisons.
Such tactics — with inmates clad only in shorts, heads bowed onto the backs of the men in front of them — were made famous last year by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele during his crackdown on gangs. Bukele’s tactics have led to allegations of human rights abuses but have proved popular with residents of El Salvador, where communities are emerging from the oppression of gang extortion and violence.
The Honduran military police said they found ammunition, guns and grenades during the search of a men’s prison in Tamara.
The town, northeast of the capital, Tegucigalpa, is also home to the women’s prison that was the scene of last week’s massacre, which outraged the country and sparked raids, curfews and a crackdown. Female inmates belonging to the Barrio 18 street gang smuggled in guns, machetes and a flammable liquid; subdued guards; and burst into cellblocks housing members of a rival gang. They sprayed the victims with gunfire, hacked others to death, then locked the cells and set the victims on fire.
Authorities in Honduras are beginning to hand over to relatives the hacked, burned corpses of 46 women killed in the riot at a women’s prison.
While Saturday’s killings at a pool hall in the city of Choloma, in Cortes province, happened far to the north of Tamara, the events could be related, according to the police.
National Police Commissioner Miguel Pérez Suazo said authorities have detained one suspect in the pool hall killings and were looking for others.
“We do not rule out that these crimes could be some sort of revenge for what happened in the women’s prison,” Pérez Suazo said. “We also do no rule out that it could have been some type of revenge by criminals against civilians.”
Choloma is reputed to be the turf of the Barrio 18 gang. But police said the suspect detained Monday allegedly belonged to Barrio 18.
Honduras has extradited former President Juan Orlando Hernández to the United States to face drug trafficking and weapons charges.
Honduran President Xiomara Castro, who put the military police in charge of the country’s poorly run prisons, has given them a year to train new guards.
She has also announced security measures, including curfews in the Choloma area, as well as “raids, captures and checkpoints 24 hours a day.” The curfew in Choloma will run from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m.
A curfew in the nearby city of San Pedro Sula will begin July 4.
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