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Radio Journalist Alfredo Villatoro Dead

Reporters Without Borders
Radio journalist Alfredo Villatoro, kidnapped on his way to work last week, was found dead yesterday on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, six days after his abduction. “With the death of Erick Martinez on May 5 and that of Alfredo Villatoro, journalism has lost two of its members in the space of 10 days, while at the same time threats, attacks and assaults remain an almost daily reality for journalists,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Against this background, where common crime, the activities of criminal gangs and political violence undermine national security and basic public freedoms, no attempt to combat impunity can succeed without wide-ranging reform of the judicial system involving civil society and international observers. It is a daunting challenge but one that cannot be put off any longer.”

LiDAR Imaging Survey of La Mosquitia Completed

Digital imagery produced by the survey will provide future benefits to Hondurans in the form of improved data for better management of natural and cultural resources. The LiDAR survey also provides the ability to produce more accurate and finely detailed topographic maps of remote portions of the Mosquitia region.

Marketwire
President Porfirio Lobo convened a press conference at the Presidential House in Tegucigalpa today to announce that The government of Honduras and UTL Scientific LLC of the United States have completed the first-ever airborne light detection and ranging ("LiDAR") imaging survey of previously-uncharted areas of the Mosquitia region of Honduras. The project brought to Honduras an advanced, US$1.5 million airborne laser scanning system to peer below the dense rain forest canopy. Initial analysis of the LiDAR data indicates what appears to be evidence of archaeological ruins in an area long rumored to contain the legendary lost city of Ciudad Blanca.

Botched DEA Air Attack Leaves Four Dead in Honduras

Honduras Weekly
The Honduran newspaper El Tiempo reported yesterday that four people were killed and another four injured in the municipality of Ahuas (Gracias a Dios) during a attack on a boat navigating along the Patuca River on Friday near a place called Paplaya. The deceased victims included two young men, Emerson Martínez and Chalo Brock Wood, and two women, Candelaria Tratt Nelson and Juana Banegas -- both of whom were pregnant. According to Congressman Wood Grawell Maylo of the department of Gracias a Dios and the Mayor of Ahuas, Lucio Baquedano, the attack was carried out in the early morning by a helicopter unit consisting of Honduran police and members of the United Stated Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). They said that the unit mistook the targeted boat for another boat that was being used by drug traffickers.

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Villeda Reveals FARC Plan to Assassinate Political Leaders in Honduras

Honduras Weekly
Liberal presidential pre-candidate Mauricio Villeda on Friday said that during a trip to Colombia to visit with then-President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), he was given access to a document captured from the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) revealing a plan by the FARC to destabilize Honduras by kidnapping and assassinating key political figures in the country and systematically dismantling its major political parties. Mr. Villeda, who was speaking to a group of law students at the Technological University of Central America (Unitec) in Tegucigalpa, said that he has a copy of the document which lists numerous individuals in Honduras targeted by the FARC. "There, you can read about the plan against Honduras... there, you can read the names of the persons who are to be kidnapped in Honduras, or who were to be kidnapped in Honduras," and Mr. Villeda.

HRN Journalist Alfredo Villatoro Kidnapped

The incident is yet another reminder of the dangers faced by Honduran journalists, and comes just days after the disappearance and subsequent murder of reporter Erick Alejandro Martínez. Martínez, a member of the Honduran resistance movement, went missing on May 5 and was found dead three days later.

By Geoffrey Ramsey
A journalist has been kidnapped in Honduras, and an ex-police officer with suspicious ties to the incident has been allowed to walk free, seemingly illustrating both the degree of police corruption in Honduras well as the dangers of being a journalist in the country. According to La Tribuna, HRN radio news manager Alfredo Villatoro was taken hostage by unknown abductors on his way to work in Tegucigalpa on the morning of May 9. Authorities arrested ex-police sergeant Gerson Basilio Godoy in connection with the kidnapping, but El Heraldo reports that he was released after ten hours in custody. Basillo was dismissed from the police force in September 2011 for his alleged links to a kidnapping and extortion network.

Honduras Coffee Boom Feels Growing Pains

Honduras will export nearly 5.4 million 60-kg bags of arabica coffee next season, well over double the volume in the 2004/5 cycle, cementing the country's position as the region's biggest coffee producer.

By Gustavo Palencia
In the small town of Marcala in the western mountains of Honduras, farmers are harvesting more coffee than ever before, part of a nationwide push to capitalize on higher prices that has doubled production in less than 10 years. But the boom comes with a cost. The coffee is coming in faster than growers can handle it and they are running out of space to dry all the beans, which need time in the sun or in drying machines to stop fermenting. Improper drying can ruin coffee for export. A drastic reduction in quality will slash the price the coffee can fetch. Local coffee company Cafe Organico Marcala (COMSA) was forced to rent out a nearby soccer field this year and cover it with plastic sheets to air out coffee cherries after their cement-drying patios overflowed.

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Tela Holds First Latin American and Caribbean Dialogue on Climate Change

By Ibis Liulla
After two days of presentations, speeches, debates and thematic meetings, those attending the First Latin American and Caribbean Dialogue on Climate Change Finance and Development Effectiveness in Tela, Honduras, agreed that improving the capacity of governments to make effective use of the resources allocated for this matter is crucial. This would affect the management of funds from bilateral and multilateral agencies as well as the sound management of national budgets for facing the challenges of climate change. Ministers Julio Raudales of the Ministry of Planning and External Cooperation (SEPLAN) and Rigoberto Cuéllar of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (SERNA), and Peter Versteeg, Charge d´Affaires of the European Delegation in Honduras were among the speakers who inaugurated the event.

Former Army Colonel Named New Drug Czar

As a career military official, Santos may be hesitant to reign in military abuses.

By Geoffrey Ramsey
Colonel Isaac Ramón Santos Aguilar on Monday was sworn in as the new director of Honduras' Anti-Narcotics Directorate (DLCN). Santos has previously served as an army spokesperson, head of a military academy, and chief of the counter-narcotics division of the armed forces. The DLCN has not had a permanent head since December 2009, when then-director, retired General Julian Aristides Gonzalez, was assassinated by gunmen while driving in Tegucigalpa. Another official reportedly being considered for the position, former DLCN deputy director Jose Alfredo Landaverde, was gunned down in December.

Ham Blames FNRP for Illegal Land Invasions

Honduras Weekly
The director of the National Agrarian Institute (INA), César Ham, yesterday accused leaders of the National Front for Popular Resistance (FNRP) of inciting some 3,000 peasant farmers throughout Honduras to invade and occupy more than 30,000 acres of private land in the northern, central, and eastern regions of the country. He claimed that the Sub-Coordinator of the FNRP, Juan Barahona, along with Rafael Alegría, were behind a series of illegal invasions by at least 13 groups in the departments Olancho, Francisco Morazán, El Paraíso, Yoro, and Cortés. It is believed that the actions may have been timed to coincide with Tuesday's International Day of the Peasant commemoration, and Mr. Ham speculated that they are part of a coordinated FNRP strategy to destabilize the government and gain support for that organization's newly-established political party, Libre, headed by former President Manuel Zelaya. In a communiqué issued by the FNRP, the invasions were undertaken in response to the "constant attacks and violence by large landowners and the oligarchy which control the police, the army, and the government".

The Gradual Loss of Forests

When a truck carrying illegally cut timber is stopped, the owner needs only call a military officer he knows to get the order to allow [the truck] to pass...

By Alejandro Ludeña
Honduras, one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, loses millions of dollars annually as a result of illegal logging. According to the European Commission’s Country Strategy Paper for Honduras 2007-2013, the market value for illegally chopped timber is between US$55 and US$70 million a year, in addition to undeclared taxes and wasted public investment, which amounts to US$18 million more. This is just one of the ruinous effects of the inefficiency with which the Forestry Law is applied in Honduras, where weak democratic institutions reached a nadir in June 2009 with a coup d’etat. But perhaps it isn’t even the worst consequence.