After concluding a ten-day official visit to Honduras this Thursday, the United Nations Working Group* on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances called on the Honduran authorities “to redouble their efforts to guarantee the rights of victims of enforced disappearances in the areas of truth, justice, reparation and memory”.
Despite acknowledging the deficiencies and existing challenges in terms of human rights, and regarding the necessary measures to address them, expressed by the authorities, the experts pointed out the distrust of the victims in a context of systemic and prolonged impunity for human rights violations.
“Among the relatives of the disappeared that we found in many parts of the country, although there is some hope for change, the common feeling was distrust, hopelessness and fear,” they said.
The experts were especially concerned about the almost total impunity in cases of forced disappearances, both for past ones, particularly those that occurred during the 1980s and 1990s committed in the context of the national security doctrine, and for current cases. .
The specialists attributed the lack of progress to a combination of factors that includes “an inadequate legislative framework, institutional weakness and lack of coordination, capacities and resources, together with insecurity, collusion and corruption”.
With respect to the latter, the experts state that “in order to break the cycle of impunity, it is essential that these measures are based on a firm and coordinated commitment by all relevant State actors, in particular the executive, legislative, and judicial authorities and the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and zero tolerance against corruption”.
Search and registration of victims
The Working Group urged the Honduran government to recognize forced disappearance as a crime independent of the context of crimes against humanity and to establish specialized units for the search, investigation, criminal prosecution and prosecution of this crime.
“Holding the perpetrators and masterminds of forced disappearances accountable is not only essential to make the victims’ right to justice effective, but it is also key to guaranteeing the non-repetition of this atrocious crime,” the experts stated.
They also urged to create a registry of all the victims of enforced disappearance and a database with the genetic data of their relatives, as part of a search plan for missing persons, with the necessary human, technical and financial resources.
“Each and every one of the complaints related to forced disappearances must be duly and effectively investigated from the beginning and the relatives must be promptly informed of any progress in this regard,” since the vast majority of the victims they met reported of scant attention from authorities, leaving them essentially alone in their search efforts.
Increased regional cooperation
The specialists also met with relatives of disappeared persons who were victims of organized crime, whether in the context of territorial or immigration disputes, and witnessed the “anguish and suffering due to the lack of response or investigation by state authorities.”
Recalling the emblematic disappearance in 2020 of four members of the Garífuna community in Triunfo de la Cruz, still unresolved, they affirmed that it is essential independently investigate all elements of these crimes, including the possible involvement of public officials.
They also urged the government to increase cooperation with other states, both in the region and beyond, to ensure that the families of the victims receive information about the search for their loved ones.
During the visit of the Working Group, an Executive Decree was adopted creating a Memory and Reparation program. The experts await “with interest the effective application of this program” and expressed their confidence “that it addresses reparation in a comprehensive, inclusive and holistic way”.
Finally, they urged the authorities “to fully recognize the legal status of the disappeared persons and to respect the rights of their closest relatives, issuing declarations of absence due to disappearance.”
The Working Group will present its final observations on the visit to the Human Rights Council in September 2023.
The Working Group on enforced or involuntary disappearances is made up of five independent experts from all regions of the world: Aua Baldé (chair-rapporteur), Guinea Bissau; Gabriella Citroni (vice president), Italy; Angkhana Neelapaijit, Thailand; Luciano Hazan, Argentina; and Grażyna Baranowska, Poland.
The UN Working Groups are part of what is known as the special procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent investigative and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues across the globe. world. Special procedures Experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN employees and do not receive a salary for their work. Its members are independent of any government or organization and act in their individual capacity.