Jonathan Blitzer
Friday, August 19, 2016 - 06:40
When the activist Berta Cáceres was assassinated in Honduras, in March, the news was devastating but not exactly surprising. Honduras has one of the world’s highest murder rates, and social activists are frequently targets—more than a hundred have been killed in the country since 2010. The relentlessness of the killings in Honduras has raised questions about how deeply the Honduran state is involved in, and responsible for, the violence. For U.S. policymakers, the death toll has also spurred a debate about whether the U.S. should cut off military aid to the regime of President Juan Orlando Hernández.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016 - 05:46
The ideal candidate to help with the investigation, as American officials like Senator Patrick Leahy have argued, is the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (I.A.C.H.R.), whose help the Hernández government has largely avoided. The organization has a troubled history with the Honduran government: it repeatedly warned Honduras to take action to protect Cáceres.