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LatinNews Daily Report - 20 January 2014
In Brief – Honduras
SECURITY | Congress approves shoot-down law. On 17 January the 128-member unicameral congress approved a new shoot-down law (Ley de Espacios Aéreos) which gives the incoming Partido Nacional (PN)-government led by Juan Orlando Hernández (which takes office on 25 January) legal authority to bring down suspected narco planes. PN members like Deputy Tomás Zambrano recently told reporters that the law “is necessary, because we have to look for all mechanisms so that organised crime, narco trafficking and above all those planes…do not enter our country in any form”. Zambrano added that Colombia, the Dominican Republic and other countries in the region have similar laws in place. Yet he failed to mention, that such laws in several cases are no longer in active use, not least because of heavy US opposition. Indeed in mid-2012, several suspected shoot-down incidents, including one involving US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents caused a spat between the US and Honduras, prompting the temporary suspension of US radar support for Honduras. It is unclear how the US congress in particular, which has been scrutinising US cooperation with Honduras more closely, will react to this new law, which may or may not be in contravention of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (the Chicago Convention). Honduras is due this month to receive delivery of a US$30m purchase of three radars from Israel for anti-drug trafficking efforts, in order to reduce reliance on “support from friendly countries” to combat drug-trafficking.
