Xiomara Castro delivers a speech at an air force base in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, in an archive image. FREDY RODRIGUEZ (Portal)
Locking up hundreds of dangerous criminals on an island is Honduran President Xiomara Castro’s new plan to deal with the violence that is bleeding this Central American country dry. The crime-ridden Honduran government plans to build a massive maximum-security prison on the Islas del Cisne, an uninhabited archipelago in northwestern Honduran’s Caribbean, to incarcerate the leaders of the gangs spreading terror in their country. The complex will accommodate about 2,000 people and will be so isolated that communication is only possible via satellite, Honduran authorities told the US agency AP. “It’s as far away as it gets, so these gang leaders feel the pressure once they’re on the island. “The idea is that they can lose touch with everything, with the whole of society… and really pay for their crimes,” said José Jorge Fortín, chief of the Honduran armed forces.
The prison on the island is the latest desperate measure by the Castro government after a series of bloody incidents that have shown gangs and other criminal groups have widespread control over the prisons and vast areas of this country, one of the poorest and most backward on the continent. Castro has reversed his campaign promises to fight crime through deep political reforms to clean up the corrupt judicial system and opted for a hard hand, following in the footsteps of El Salvador’s president, populist Nayib Bukele. After the massacre in June at a women’s prison near the capital Tegucigalpa, in which 46 inmates were murdered and several burned, the President pledged that she would take “drastic measures” to stop the bleeding. Almost four days later, however, a series of criminal attacks showed that violence was getting out of hand: 21 people were killed in two massacres in the north of the country in a single day.
Satellite image of the Swan Islands where the prison is to be built.AP
Castro has opted for bukelization of his security policies, announcing extreme measures that include curfews and partial states of emergency to fight crime in 120 communities, and has deployed the military and police to regain control of areas that criminal groups have taken over as well overruled the constitutional guarantees of citizens. To these measures are now added the plans to build the mega-prison on the Islas del Cisne, a kind of Honduran Alcatraz, where the authorities hope to finally contain the gang leaders who continue to carry out their activities from the current conventional prisons. Criminals, largely with the support of corrupt prison officials. “I have taken steps to reassure them in the face of the brutal and ruthless terrorist attack they are being subjected to by hired thugs trained and directed by drug trafficking leaders, who operate with impunity,” the president wrote in a chain in mid-June of messages published on your Twitter profile.
Honduran security authorities have had to turn to El Salvador to calm criticism of the impossibility of confronting violence in a country where, according to the United Nations, young people between the ages of 18 and 30 remain the main victims of the killings. “If another country has done something well, why not copy it?” Honduran armed forces chief José Jorge Fortín told the AP. “We will not allow this atmosphere of terror to continue.”
The government has not yet provided details on the prison’s construction, which is expected to alleviate overcrowding in the country’s prisons. In late July, military police released images showing hundreds of men being arrested and forced to remain in their underwear while being guarded by dozens of officers in a bid to regain control of the prisons. “We have started activities so that prisons are no longer schools for criminals and break the vicious circle with organized crime,” said José Manuel Zelaya, Secretary of State for National Defence. But these measures are not enough to curb the violence, and that is why the Castro government is now aiming to build the mega prison in the Caribbean.
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While the President is trying to calm her citizens’ criticism of the violence with these tough measures, she is also opening an international front. Castro has announced that he is working with the United Nations to create a commission similar to the successful CICIG in Guatemala to fight corruption and impunity. “I respectfully informed the UN Mission of Experts that the agreement to install the CICIH has to be finalized and signed in the coming months. Personally, I will speak to the secretary, Antonio Gueterres [secretario general de la ONU]. “We can’t wait any longer,” assured the President.
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