| On Honduras US Designates
Pepe Lobo and Wife But Still Omits JOH Like UN
Guterres
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon Song Filing
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- ESPN
UN GATE, July 20
– Honduras President Juan
Orlando Hernandez took a
briefcase of cash and said he
would stuff drugs up the noses
of the gringos, a jury was
told on March 16, 2021.
Inner City Press live tweeted
it, morning here
and then the afternoon, about
the video(s), here
and below. Geovanny
Fuentes was found guilty, and
his lawyer told Inner City
Press he thinks JOH will be or
has already been indicted.
But when the US on July
20 designated for sanctions a
Honduran president, it was not
(yet?) JOH but rather Pepe
Lobo. Antony Blinken said,
"The United States is
designating former Honduran
President Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo
Sosa (Lobo) and former First
Lady Rosa Elena Bonilla Avila
(Rosa Lobo) due to their
involvement in significant
corruption. While in
office, President Lobo
accepted bribes from the
narco-trafficking organization
Los Cachiros in exchange for
political favors. As
First Lady, Rosa Lobo engaged
in significant corruption
through fraud and
misappropriation of public
funds for her personal
benefit. While their
corrupt acts undermined the
stability of Honduras’
democratic institutions,
former President Lobo has not
yet been convicted and Rosa
Lobo has been released from
prison awaiting a
retrial." What about
JOH?
When the
U.S. State Department on July
1 released its Section 353
List of Corrupt and
Undemocratic Actors for
Guatemala, Honduras, and El
Salvador, Juan Orlando
Hernandez was not on the list.
At 4:30 pm
on July 1 the State Department
held a press call with Special
Envoy for the Northern
Triangle Ricardo Zúniga.
Others asked about Guatemala
and El Salvador (and China) -
then Inner City Press asked
about Honduras, noting that
while Pepe Lobo and Oscar
Najera are on the list, JOH is
not, despite evidence
presented by US DOJ in the
Tony Hernandez and Geovanny
Fuentes Ramirez cases, below.
Envoy Zuniga
replied that the US uses a
variety of tools and will only
work with leaders who are
committed to anti-corruption.
What? Transcript here:
MR PRICE:
We’ll go the line of Matthew
Russell Lee.
QUESTION:
Sure. Thanks a
lot. And thanks, thanks
for doing the call. I
wanted to ask about
Honduras. In looking at
the list, you have former
President Pepe Lobo, you have
current Congressman Oscar
Najera, and you mention this
Cachiros. But being here
in the Southern District of
New York court and covering
the trials of the brother of
the current president and of
Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez, it’s
clear that President Juan
Orlando Hernandez is mentioned
repeatedly by Department of
Justice prosecutors as not
only getting campaign
contributions from drug
traffickers but perhaps being
involved in it himself.
So I’m wondering: On
this specific case, can you
say what the reasoning is of
not having him on the
list?
MR ZUNIGA:
So for questions about U.S.
criminal prosecutions, we
obviously refer you to the
Department of Justice.
We do – this list is intended
to demonstrate that we have a
commitment to the rule of law
and to fighting impunity in
Honduras. We’ve made
that clear in our
communications with
governments across the region,
including Honduras, and we’ve
made clear that leaders who
seek a close relationship with
the United States have to
demonstrate a commitment to
combating corruption. We
use, again, a variety of tools
for promoting accountability
and combating impunity.
This is one – this list is one
of several tools that we use
for that purpose. We do
work with other actors in
Honduras in government, in
civil society, in private
sector, and – but again, our
primary commitment is to
leaders who demonstrate a
commitment to combating
corruption.
On May 10,
in the parallel case of US v.
Lobo, Honduras police
officer Ludwig Criss Zelaya
Romero was being sentenced by
Judge Schofield. Inner City
Press live tweeted it here:
Inner City Press
video stand up afterward here.
This case is US
v. Lobo, et
al., 15-cr-174
(Schofield)
A question still:
Does the right to access to
Federal court proceedings
extend to listen-only
telephone lines, in the time
of COVID and beyond? Should
it?
The
question has been further
raised in the ongoing Honduras
narco-trafficking case US v.
Geovanny Fuentes, which Inner
City Press has been covering
in-person in the U.S. District
Court for the Southern
District of New York, where it
is "in-house press."
On
the morning of March 13, Inner
City Press filed a challenge
to the cut-off of audio access
to the US v. Fuentes trial,
citing the First Amendment,
COVID and real-world politics,
see here
and below.
Late on
the evening of March 14, the
US Attorney's Office filed a
three page letter into the
docket, specifically arguing
the the call-in line be
eliminated for two entire
Witnesses and everything they
say. US Attorney's Office's
letter, now uploaded on Inner
City Press' DocumentCloud, here.
Inner City
Press has immediately
responded in opposition, here,
stating among other things
that "the US Attorney's Office
seeks to specifically ban
public access to two of their
Witnesses, while saying that a
transcript would be available
at some unspecified date
afterwards. Given that the
Office has yet to unseal
improperly redacted portions
of their filings, there is
little reason to have
confidence in the speed of
transcription, or that such
transcripts would not be too
expensive for the public or
media.
Inner City Press
after its first filing waited
nine hours, including this song,
here, to report about
it. Full first letter on Inner
City Press' DocumentCloud, here.
Inner City
Press itself obeys all
existing rules and is grateful
for the additional access as
in-house media (particularly
since it is banned
from covering the UN, which
now Constitutional rights such
as the First Amendment exist).
But others
have rights too - including
journalists and regular
citizens of Honduras. If the
SDNY prosecutors are going to
exercises essentially
universal jurisdiction for any
wire transfer that passes
through lower Manhattan, how
ever briefly, they should not
oppose access to their trials
by those impacted, for better
and worse.
Judge Castel is a
good judge, in Inner City
Press' experience. When
petitioned he has ordered the
unsealing of certain court
documents, in a North Korea crypto-currency
conference case and the tech /
child sex sentencing
of Peter Bright former of
ArsTechnica, both of which
Inner City Press covered and requested.
And Judge Castel is certainly
in the mainstream in his March
12 psoition. But should it be
rethought? Is there a right?
Should there be? Watch this
site.
The case is US v. Diaz, 15-cr-379
(Castel).
***
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