Honduras Anti-Gang Crackdown Targets Only One Source of Violence

28 JUN 2023 BY SEAN DOHERTY
EN

The Honduran government is intensifying its anti-gang crackdown following recent outbursts of criminal violence, but its one-size-fits-all response fails to acknowledge the variety of organized crime dynamics at play.

President Xiomara Castro announced new security measures on June 22 and June 25, bolstering a state of exception in place since December 2022 that aims to curb gang violence and extortion.

The government put the military police in charge of the prisons and implemented curfews in Choloma and San Pedro Sula, the two largest cities after the capital Tegucigalpa.

Rafael Sarmiento, head of Castro’s party in Congress, also vowed to legally designate all gang members as terrorists.

The new measures followed two incidents of mass violence that police blamed on gangs.

Most recently, armed men dressed as police murdered 13 people, including four union workers from a soon-to-be-shuttered factory, on June 24 at a pool hall in Choloma.

More:
https://insightcrime.org/news/honduras-anti-gang-crackdown-targets-only-one-source-violence/

(Only pro-business, right-wing paras have ever terrorized union workers in the Americas, working for the owners, of course.)