When Juan Orlando Hernández was convicted by a federal jury in Manhattan in early March 2024, it marked a spectacular fall from grace: from being courted within the U.S. as a pleasant head of state to going through the remainder of his life behind bars, convicted of cocaine importation and weapons offenses.
“Juan Orlando Hernández abused his place as President of Honduras to function the nation as a narco-state the place violent drug traffickers had been allowed with digital impunity,” stated U.S. Legal professional Normal Merrick Garland following the jury conviction. Anne Milgram, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, added: “When the chief of Honduras and the chief of the Sinaloa Cartel work hand-in-hand to ship lethal medicine into the US, each should be accountable.”
The conviction was a victory for the Justice Division and the DEA. Throughout Hernández’s two phrases in workplace, from 2014 to 2022, he and his acolytes transported greater than 400 tons of cocaine into the US, based on U.S. prosecutors. The previous head of state now faces a compulsory sentence of as much as 40 years in jail; sentencing is scheduled for June 26.
However there’s extra to this story.
As I discover within the e book “twenty first Century Democracy Promotion within the Americas: Standing Up for the Polity,” written in collaboration with the Open College’s Britta Weiffen, Honduras is a tragic instance of what occurs when a rustic turns into a narco-state. Whereas its individuals endure the implications – the World Financial institution studies that about half the nation at the moment lives beneath poverty – its leaders develop wealthy via the medicine commerce.
Moreover, the way in which Hernández got here to energy and maintained that place for therefore lengthy may present “Exhibit A” in any indictment of U.S. coverage towards Central America – and Latin America extra usually – over the previous few a long time.
Rising ties with cartels
As much as Hernández’s arrest in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, and extradition to the US in January 2022, his largest enabler had been none apart from the U.S. authorities itself.
Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden all backed Hernández and allowed him to inflict huge hurt to Honduras and to the US within the course of.
How so? To reply this query, some background is required.
On June 28, 2009, a traditional army coup occurred in Honduras. Within the wee hours of the morning, whereas nonetheless in his pajamas, President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya was unceremoniously escorted by armed troopers from his dwelling and flown to a neighboring nation. The coup leaders alleged that, by calling for a referendum on reforming the Honduran Structure, the federal government was transferring towards eradicating the one-term presidential time period restrict enshrined within the nation’s constitution and opening the door to authoritarianism.
Initially, then-President Barack Obama protested the coup and took measures towards these accountable – the right-wing opponents of Zelaya.
However the administration ultimately relented and allowed the coup leaders to prevail, largely because of strain from Republicans, who noticed Zelaya as being too near Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, whose leftist agenda was deemed by the GOP as a risk to U.S. pursuits.
The coup-makers merely ran the clock towards the upcoming election date and put in their very own candidate within the presidency, Porfirio Lobo of the Nationwide get together, whose son Fabio was additionally later convicted of cocaine trafficking.
Washington appears the opposite means
Lobo laid the foundations of Honduras because the new century’s first narco-state, permitting drug cartels to infiltrate the best echelons of presidency and the safety equipment as cocaine commerce grew to become an more and more central plank of the nation’s economic system.
All of the whereas, the U.S. pumped tens of tens of millions of {dollars} into increase Honduras’ police and army, regardless of widespread allegations of being engaged in corruption, complicit within the medicine commerce and engaged in human rights abuses.
The {dollars} continued to movement when Lobo was succeeded in 2013 by his buddy and fellow Nationwide get together member, Juan Orlando Hernández.
In 2017, Hernández – an ardent supporter of the 2009 coup – ran for a second time period after the Supreme Court docket of Honduras pronounced this to be completely authorized.
Many Hondurans consider Hernández stole the November 2017 elections. The vote rely was suspended in the course of the night time as Hernández was operating behind, and when the polls opened within the morning, he miraculously emerged as a winner.
Regardless of widespread allegations of election fraud, the U.S. shortly acknowledged the consequence, congratulating Hernández on his win.
Emboldened by his success, Hernández continued to construct up Honduras as the brand new century’s first narco-state of the Americas.
In 2018, the president’s brother, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, a former member of the Honduran Parliament, was arrested in the US for his affiliation with the Cartel de Sinaloa, the Mexican drug cartel. This entity valued his providers a lot that they named a specific pressure of cocaine after him, stamping the baggage as “TH.” Tony Hernández was convicted on 4 prices in 2019, sentenced to 30 years in jail, and has been in U.S. federal jail ever since.
President Hernández denied any affiliation with the cartel, however the proof pointed on the contrary. As reported in The Economist, in a New York Metropolis trial, one accused drug trafficker alleged that Hernández took bribes for “serving to cocaine attain the US.” One other witness testified that the president had taken two bribes in 2013, earlier than being elected; a former cartel chief testified that the president had been paid $250,000 to guard him from being arrested.
‘Complicit or gullible’
Given Hernández’s historical past in Honduras, the repeated claims of U.S. authorities officers that they merely didn’t know of his crimes ring hole.
Honduras grew to become a narco-state, partially, as a result of U.S. policymakers regarded the opposite means because it did so. They embraced Hernández as a result of he was ideologically extra palatable and subservient to Washington’s needs in contrast together with his rival, Zelaya. However because the trial verdict in Manhattan makes clear, it was a call with disastrous penalties.
As one State Division official put it, “As we speak’s verdict makes all of us who collaborated with (Hernández) look both complicit or gullible.”
The latter stands out as the extra charitable evaluation. However the reality is extra uncomfortable.
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