The Latin American Report # 309: A big scandal breaks out in Tegucigalpa

_{Xiomara Castro, the president of Honduras (source of image).}

Honduras is a paradigmatic case of Latin America's chronic ills. A country that cannot dispense justice on its own, rife with corruption and violence. This week, the government there “denounced” a century-old extradition treaty with Washington, through which some nationals linked to drug trafficking have been prosecuted in the United States, including former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández. The decision could take effect in six months, and was made on the grounds that the Biden administration could use the treaty to attack figures allied with Castro. The specific trigger was a statement of Foggy Bottom's ambassador in Tegucigalpa, who said she was surprised “[after] seeing the [Honduran] Minister of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sitting next to a drug trafficker from Venezuela,” referring undiplomatically to Nicolás Maduro's defense minister.

“These accusations made by the [US] ambassador of practically linking the Minister of Defense [José Manuel Zelaya] and the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with drug trafficking, could be the [first] step for accusing them in order to [a potential extradition]”, said the Honduran foreign minister, who also affirmed that military intelligence had detected a "conspiracy" among a group of officers to carry out a coup d'état, in apparent coordination with the declarations of the US diplomatic representative. A former Honduran prosecutor warned of the consequences of the action taken by Castro, who has spun his country out of the U.S. political orbit—the fact that this political conflict comes after the visit of a high-ranking Miraflores official confirms this. “If we don't create the internal conditions, the problem is that the drug traffickers are going to feel they are enjoying impunity because they are not going to be taken to the United States”, the former prosecutor said, openly acknowledging the country's inability to prosecute criminals at home.

_{Laura F. Dogu, U.S. Ambassador to Honduras (source).}

Please don't relativize corruption

So look, the Honduran defense minister is the son of Carlos Zelaya, a congressman who is also the brother of former President Manuel Zelaya, husband of President Xiomara Castro and currently an official adviser to her. There seems to be quite a bit of nepotism here, don't you think? The fact is that yesterday, Saturday, just 72 hours after Tegucigalpa pulled out of the extradition treaty, the defense minister and his congressman father resigned from their posts, after the latter became embroiled in a drug trafficking investigation that arose after his name was mentioned in former President Hernández's trial in the United States last March. The Honduran attorney general sent a delegation to New York to be on the lookout for any nationals mentioned in the hearings, Congressman Carlos Zelaya being one of them along with 35 others. Zelaya acknowledged that he held a meeting with narcos in 2013, after appearing before the Public Prosecutor's Office yesterday. “[I] fell into a trap [and] I assume my apparent responsibility [...] One participates in many meetings where [there is] talk about [...] all kinds of political campaign contributions and that's what the vast majority of politicians do [when meeting] with businessmen [and] investors to be able to make [a career]”, he told the press.

_{The Honduran Attorney General (source).}

Zelaya is a cheat who outrageously seeks to relativize that fact, period. He can sell himself as naïve elsewhere. Why he didn't disclosed this encounter honestly, on his own, and not now after being exposed in New York. Next, the timing of Castro's denunciation of the treaty, just as his brother-in-law was about to appear before the Public Prosecutor's Office, is highly suspicious. Carlos Zelaya—who is now serving as secretary of the National Congress—somehow embarrassed his brother, having to defend that he attended the meeting for which he is being investigated “unilaterally”. “That meeting never had the endorsement of [former] President Zelaya, it never had [his] accompaniment, [...] it was a unilateral meeting on my part”, he said, adding that ”[if] tomorrow the U.S. government believes it has enough data or evidence to prosecute me, tomorrow I can present myself to the U.S. justice system". You're dirty man, be quiet. An emergency meeting of the “Libre” (Free) party, founded by former president Zelaya—by the way, deposed in 2009 by a coup d'état—was scheduled for this Sunday.

_Source

And this is all for our report today. I have referenced the sources dynamically in the text, and remember you can learn how and where to follow the LATAM trail news by reading my work here. Have a nice day.