Caribbean & Central America - March 2020

“A negative step in the fight against corruption and impunity”. This was the response by the Organization of American States (OAS) to the announcement that, after failing to reach an agreement with the Partido Nacional (PN) government led by President Juan Orlando Hernández, the OAS-sponsored Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (Maccih) would end its mandate on 19 January after nearly four years in the country. President Hernández’s insistence that anti-corruption efforts would continue albeit on a national level is unlikely to assuage concerns which have intensified since the October 2019 conviction by a US court of Hernández’s brother, Juan Antonio Hernández, for drug-related crimes which implicate the PN and Hernández himself.

Maccih’s mandate ended two days after the government and the OAS confirmed their failure to reach an agreement. In a press release issued on 17 January to mark the announcement, the OAS was clear that the Honduran government’s position has “been not to accompany this proposal, which has made it impossible to renew the Mission”. Hernández, however, sought to duck responsibility, insisting that it was not possible without congressional approval. In December 2019, the 128-member unicameral national legislature (some of whose members had been implicated in the investigations pursued by Maccih) had approved a congressional report calling for its mandate not to be renewed. Among other things, legislators complained that the OAS-sponsored mission represented an attack on national sovereignty – the same argument used in neighbouring Guatemala to terminate the mandate of the United Nations (UN)-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (Cicig) last year [SSR-19-11].

In its 17 January press release, the OAS underlined the impact of Maccih - which was set up in April 2016 in response to protests over a massive corruption scandal involving the embezzlement of at least US$300m from the Honduran social security institute (IHSS) during the PN administration led by Porfirio Lobo (2010-2014), with some of the stolen funds used to fund Hernández’s 2013 election campaign. The OAS noted that the work of Maccih and the attorney general’s office (AG) resulted in the prosecution of 133 people and 14 cases. These included the so-called ‘network of deputies’ case, brought against five national deputies in December 2017 for the embezzlement of public funds.

Other Maccih-backed investigations have implicated some of the country’s most powerful people. One resulted in the conviction of former first lady, Rosa Elena Bonilla de Lobo (2010-2014), on charges of fraud and embezzlement while Lobo himself was accused in late May 2019 by Maccih of money laundering, fraud, falsification of documents, and bribery. Another high-profile investigation involved the ‘Agua Zarca’ hydroelectric dam project opposed by Berta Cáceres, the leader of local indigenous organisation Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (Copinh), whose murder in 2016 stunned the local and international community (see box).

• Sentences handed down in Cáceres case

In December 2019 a Honduran court handed down prison sentences of between 30 and 50 years for seven men convicted of Cáceres’s murder.

   Copinh described the sentences, which came just over a year after the men were found guilty, as a “first fissure in the wall of total impunity” surrounding the case. However, it complained that the sentences don’t go far enough and that the intellectual authors of the crime have yet to be brought to justice.

  In November 2018 the court found that Cáceres’ murder was ordered by executives from Desarrollos Energéticos Sociedad Anónima (Desa), the local company responsible for the construction of the dam, due to delays and financial losses linked to the protests she had coordinated against it.

  In response to the sentences, Copinh said in a statement that “impunity doesn’t end with the sentences of the material authors”, adding that there is “sufficient proof to try and sanction members of the Atala family [one of the country’s most influential families which dominates Desa’s board of directors] and others” for the crime.

   So far only Roberto David Castillo, a former Desa executive president has been accused of being behind the murder. He was arrested in March 2018 but his trial has yet to conclude.  

As well as collaborating with local institutions charged with “preventing, investigating, and punishing acts of corruption”, Maccih’s remit also included proposing reforms and legislation to improve criminal justice, political campaign financing, and the public security system and in its 17 January statement, the OAS highlighted Maccih’s impact in “strengthening national capacities to combat corruption and impunity”. A September 2019 report by the US-based think-tank Washington Office on Latin America (Wola) highlights as examples of these reforms, the creation of a new judicial system against corruption in the country which comprises anti-corruption criminal courts and tribunals as well as the special prosecutor’s unit against corruption and impunity (Ufecic), a unit of the AG set up in 2017 to work alongside Maccih. Wola considers these entities to be “without a doubt” two of the major reforms spurred by Maccih.

Given these achievements, the government’s decision not to renew Maccih’s mandate prompted an international response. US Assistant Secretary of State Michael Kozak tweeted that he was “deeply disappointed” that it had not been extended, adding that Hernández “has put forward no credible alternative to fight corruption” (although Wola has highlighted the US’s role in the failure of these anti-corruption efforts – see sidebar) while the European Union described it as “regrettable and a step in the wrong direction”.

Providing reassurances?

Hernández has since sought to assuage concerns about the direction of anti-impunity efforts following Maccih’s departure. On 24 January the AG announced that a new unit, the specialised unit against corruption networks (Uferco), would be established to replace Ufecic. Meanwhile on 21 January, Hernández tweeted that he planned to ask the legislature to discuss and make decisions on various anti-corruption initiatives proposed by Maccih. Examples include the law on effective collaboration which would enable the AG to negotiate plea deals with those accused of crimes, offering more lenient sentencing in exchange for information that could be used to combat criminal groups and operations as well as the so-called ‘law on official secrets’, which relates to the classification and declassification of documents (which Hernández said had been 98% agreed).

Lobby groups such as Wola have questioned whether the legislature is likely to act on these demands, however, pointing out that as well as rejecting an extension of Maccih’s mandate, it has approved measures counterproductive to anti-corruption efforts. Among other things, these include legislative changes approved in October 2019 which reactivate the departmental social fund (which allows congress members and public officials to receive and execute public funds for social works), and a legislative decree granting the superior court of accounts (which is responsible for ensuring the proper use of state assets and resources), a three year period to audit funds, during which time those officials may not be charged for improper use of funds.

•  New study

Amid the concerns about the direction of anti-corruption efforts, human rights groups have applauded a new study released on 6 February by the national anti-corruption council (CNA), a civil-society umbrella group, and the Honduran social forum on external debt (Fosdeh), a collective of NGOs, which sheds further light on corruption in Honduras, estimating the cost of it, and identifying the sectors involved.

 The study puts the macroeconomic impact of corruption at L85bn (US$3.5bn) in 2018, equivalent to 12.5% of GDP, while the total cost between 2014 and 2018, the period surveyed, was estimated at L254bn.

   A joint statement released on 14 February by Wola and other international NGOs such as Oxfam America and Center for Justice and International Law (Cejil) notes that this report exposes the organisations to “retaliation from those who benefit from corruption” and calls on the international community and the Honduran government to “guarantee the safety and integrity of these two invaluable organisations”. END BOX

• Hernández’s brother convicted

In October 2019 a US court convicted President Juan Orlando Hernández’s brother, Juan Antonio, on four counts, which include conspiring to import cocaine into the US. The verdict caused some discomfort for President Hernández who first won election in 2013 given that the court found that millions of US dollars of drug proceeds had been funnelled to PN electoral campaigns to “impact on Honduras’ presidential elections in 2009, 2013 and 2017”, including from Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán Loera.

• US role

As was the case with the closure of the United Nations (UN)-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (Cicig) Wola highlighted the failure by the US administration led by President Donald Trump to support anti-corruption efforts in Honduras. In a statement released on 15 January it points to the signing last year of the controversial asylum cooperation agreement (ACA) with Honduras (which the US also signed separately with Guatemala and El Salvador [SSR-20-01]) as a sign that the Trump administration is “prioritising acquiescence to a harmful anti-migrant agenda, rather than addressing the systemic corruption that is driving migration”.

• CNA/Fosdeh study

The CNA/Fosdeh study on corruption in Honduras estimates that organised crime accounted for 40% of the total cost of corruption, followed by the private sector (31%) and central government (16%).