Attacks, infiltrations and murders intensify in Honduras
Extracts from the original article by Dick Emanuelsson
Translated from Spanish by Karla Jacobs
Photos by Mirian Huezo Emanuelsson
Tegucigalpa, July 26th 2009 - Three agents of the National Direction of Criminal Investigation (DNIC) were discovered and captured by mourners
during the burial of the young bricklayor, Pedro Magdiel Muñoz Salvador, this morning. Muñoz Salvador was the victim of
a horrendous murder which took place late on Friday night (July 24th) or during the early hours of Saturday (July 25th)
after being picked up by Honduran police officers in the community of Alauca near the border with Nicaragua.
Click for big version
Click for big version
Like thousands of other Hondurans, Pedro Magdiel intended to accompany President Manuel Zelaya Rosales who was planning
to enter the country that day. But he never arrived at the border. He was brutally murdered. Meanwhile Zelaya was
obliged to return to Nicaraguan territory after the millitary and de facto presidency failed to permit the First Lady
(Xiomara Castro de Zelaya) to travel to the border to meet her husband.
Pedro Magdiel was tortured terribly before his body was dumped in a field at 6.30am on Saturday. He had recieved 42
puncture-cuts in different parts of his body. There are numerous eye witnesses of the moment Pedro Magdiel was detained
by the police. According to the National Front Against the Coup D'Etat the brutal murder, which has all the
charateristics of the dirty war of the 1980s when the Batallion 3-16 operated in Honduras, is aimed at terrorizing the
masses out of participating in the struggle against the de facto regime (a struggle which, it is essential to point out,
has so far been completely peaceful).
Click for big version
Click for big version
From the beginning of the burial ceremony people became suspicious about the presence of the three men who were later
identified as infiltrated DNIC agents. As soon as the tribute to the young man (who has been declared a Hero of the
National Struggle against the de facto regime) began, people started crying out alerting the crowd to the agents'
presence.
Out on the street, two of the agents were captured by members of the crowd while a third was able to escape and warn the
police about the situation. The lives of the two captured agents were saved thanks to the insistence of leaders of the
National Front Against the Coup like Razel Tomé and Rafael Alegría. Ironically, later the same day Alegría was detained
by the police when he attempted to the reach the border. He was released that night.
Click for big version
Before Alegría and Razel Tomé took the two agents to the nearest police station located just 200 metres from where the
burial took place, the agents were disarmed and their identification documents registered by members of the crowd.
Meanwhile a group of enraged mourners including some of Pedro Magdiel's relatives set fire to the agents' vehicle.
"They don't even leave us alone during the burial despite the fact that they are the ones who murdered him," said one
member of the same group, "we should have set fire to the vehicle with them inside." This sentiment is representative of
the common feeling of indignation held by the Honduran people right now.
ENDS