Tegucigalpa.- The continuity of the Anti-Corruption and Impunity Support Mission in Honduras (Maccih), which depends on the Organization of American States (OAS), remains uncertain because it will depend on the decision of Parliament, where deputies dotted with corruptela oppose that it remains in the country. Uncertainty about the continuity of maccih, which was installed in Honduras in April 2016, has arisen because the Minister of the Presidency, Ebal Díaz, said in late December 2019 that the new convention, which would be signed this month, “is going to come out something broader and more compressive”.
An amended extension of the current agreement, signed in Washington in January 2016 for four years by the Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernández, and the Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro, must be approved by the Parliament of Tegucigalpa.But it turns out that the Maccih is like a flogging for several Honduran deputies, some of them from the ruling National Party, who have been denounced for alleged acts of corruption investigated by the OAS Mission with the Fiscal Unit Corruption (Ufecic), of the Public Prosecutor’s Office.” Lima’s Anti-Corruption Commitment, the recommendations of the Mesicic (Inter-American Convention against Corruption Monitoring Mechanism) and the evaluation reports of what has been achieved so far are important inputs for a new instrument that allows us as a country to continue to move forward with transparency with the support of the OAS,” Diaz said on December 27. On that day, the OAS and the Government of Honduras, in a meeting that also participated, the Honduran chancellor, Lisandro Rosales, began formal dialogues on the second stage of maccih, whose mandate is about to expire, began in Washington. DEBILITATION OF MACCIHCivil society organizations, including universities, the National Anti-Corruption Council (CNA) and the Coalition for the Renewal of the Maccih, have asked the OAS and Honduran government missions to renew the convention of the anti-corruption mechanism “immediately and unchanged”. A request in the same vein has been made by the European Union, the US and other cooperating countries that finance the Misión.La petition follows the almost widespread criterion in the country, that if the current agreement with Maccih is amended, their actions against the corrupt will be undermined.
Building of the Support Mission Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (Maccih). / EFE.
The former rector of the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) Julieta Castellanos told EFE in Tegucigalpa that she values as necessary the continuity of the Maccih, because the state “has not been able to subdue” all the corrupt “to justice”, and that “the fact that an international body investigates, becomes an element of greater presence for justice to act”. Castellanos, a sociologist and researcher, believes that “there is no good atmosphere” in the Honduran Parliament for Maccih, since a mission of deputies, in a recent report they made, “in five days, with a very precarious methodology, very limited”, proposed to President Hernández that the Maccih should not continue in the country.” That’s where the doubt comes from. If there are new elements to the convention, that goes to the National Congress and we assume that the Executive has given in to pressure from his party so that there is no continuity as the Maccih is today in its current convention”, Castellanos said.Until now the Maccih has worked alongside the Ufecic on about twelve cases of investigation and criminal prosecution, in which politicians, businessmen officials of the present and other governments have been involved, although the one with the greatest impact is the so-called “Lady’s Girl Box” , against former first lady Rosa Elena Bonilla (2010-2014), captured and imprisoned on 28 February 2018 in Tegucigalpa for various corruption offences. Bonilla, wife of former President Porfirio Lobo, was sentenced on 4 September 2019 to 58 years in prison, in an unprecedented event in local justice, which in the recent past has been dotted with allegations of corruption by judges and magistrates. Wolf, upon knowing the sentence, reiterated that his wife is innocent, He called the event a “lynching” and said that it was a foreas that Juan Orlando Hernández “promised” Luis Almagro.A ESPERANZA AGAINST CORRUPTIONMaccih came to Honduras between the optimism of many and the rejection of sectors involved in acts of corruption, flagellaus that, according to various sources, including the Catholic Church, is the cause, to a large extent, of poverty.
Overview of the building of the Supreme Court of Justice of Honduras. / EFE.
Julieta Castellanos believes that maccih should not be valued for the number of cases it has reported and investigated, but “because it has had the ability to identify political actors who, in networks, have been managing funds that are from the State of Honduras, who must go to the beneficiaries directly”. Some of these actors have used state funds “for political campaigns or to enrich themselves in a personal way,” said former UNAH chancellor, who also believes that Maccih has been the opportunity and hope of being able to sit political and economic subjects to justice that was not possible before. In Central America, Honduras is the only country where no former president has been seated in court, as has happened in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama.According to Castellanos, with the incursion of organized crime into the economy and politics of Honduras, has become “very difficult to bring these elites to justice, and that is the hope and expectation that was generated with the Maccih”.
I feel that the Maccih has played a role according to circumstances and the conduct of an investigation that is always difficult,” the former chancellor said.
For the first spokesperson for Maccih, Juan Jiménez, who resigned in the first year of his tenure because of marked differences with Almagro, behind a new agreement for the Mission to continue in Honduras, there would be another interest of the OAS secretary general. In a recent message on the social network Twitter, Jiménez said: “But perhaps more than the renewal of the Maccih that is being negotiated is Honduras’ vote for the election of the Secretary-General in the OAS on 20 March and among the few supportes that re-election has would be Honduras. That’s the problem.”
Dear Thelma is not good news, but perhaps more than the renewal of MACCIH, what is being negotiated is Honduras’ vote for the election of the SG in the OAS on 20 March and among the few supports that re-election has would be Honduras. That’s the problem. — Juan F Jimenez Mayor (@JuaJimenezMayor)
December 30, 2019
