[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1299 Introduced in House (IH)]

<DOC>






115th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1299

 To suspend United States security assistance with Honduras until such 
 time as human rights violations by Honduran security forces cease and 
               their perpetrators are brought to justice.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 2, 2017

   Mr. Johnson of Georgia (for himself, Mr. Conyers, Ms. Kaptur, Mr. 
     Serrano, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr. Ellison, Ms. Lee, Mrs. Davis of 
  California, Ms. Speier, Ms. Moore, Ms. McCollum, Mr. Lipinski, Mrs. 
  Dingell, Mr. Pocan, Ms. Norton, Mrs. Napolitano, Ms. Bonamici, Ms. 
DeLauro, Mr. Gutierrez, Mr. Cicilline, Ms. Pingree, Mr. Blumenauer, Mr. 
Rush, Mr. Tonko, and Mr. Grijalva) introduced the following bill; which 
 was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to 
 the Committee on Financial Services, for a period to be subsequently 
   determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such 
 provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To suspend United States security assistance with Honduras until such 
 time as human rights violations by Honduran security forces cease and 
               their perpetrators are brought to justice.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Berta Caceres Human Rights in 
Honduras Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) The Honduran police are widely established to be deeply 
        corrupt and commit human rights abuses, including torture, 
        rape, illegal detention, and murder, with impunity.
            (2) The New York Times revealed documents on April 15, 
        2016, indicating that top officials of the Honduran police 
        ordered the killings of drug-crime investigators Julian 
        Aristides Gonzales and Alfredo Landaverde in 2009 and 2011, 
        respectively, with the subsequent knowledge of top police and, 
        evidently, high-ranking government officials. The Times 
        suggested in a subsequent article that the revelations were 
        being manipulated by the President of Honduras for his own 
        corrupt purposes.
            (3) Individuals in the police with documented records of 
        having committed gross human abuses with impunity continue to 
        be appointed to high positions within the police.
            (4) International human rights bodies have reported that 
        the Honduran military and police commit human rights abuses, 
        including killings, with impunity. The Associated Press has 
        documented death squad activity by police. Human Rights Watch 
        reports: ``The use of lethal force by the national police is a 
        chronic problem. Investigations into the police abuses are 
        marred by inefficiency and corruption, little information about 
        them is made public; and impunity is the rule.''.
            (5) The Department of State's Honduran Human Rights Report 
        for 2016 reports: ``Impunity remains a serious problem, with 
        prosecution in cases of military and police officials charged 
        with human rights violations moving too slowly or remaining 
        inconclusive.''.
            (6) Repeated efforts to clean up the Honduran police have 
        largely failed. A recent commission to clean up the police 
        reports that it has separated a number of police. However, to 
        date there has been minimal and only token progress in 
        effectively prosecuting members of the police involved in 
        corruption and human rights abuses, and the reported 
        separations have not been independently verified. Moreover, 
        long-lasting, fundamental reform of the police still needs to 
        be enacted.
            (7) Rights Action documented the Fifteenth Battalion of the 
        Honduran Armed Forces allegedly participated with police and 
        private security forces in some of the killings of over 100 
        small-farmer activists in the Aguan Valley beginning in 2000. 
        In 2015, Human Rights Watch confirmed that the killings of 
        Aguan farmers were met with no consequences. To date there has 
        been one confirmed conviction of a private actor. 
        Assassinations of key activists continue. In October 2016, Jose 
        Angel Flores, the president of the Unified Campesino Movement 
        of the Aguan (MUCA), and Silmer Dionisio George, another MUCA 
        member, were assassinated.
            (8) Further examples abound of human rights abuses by the 
        military: in July 2013 members of the Armed Forces shot and 
        killed Tomas Garcia, a Lenca Indigenous activist, and injured 
        his son while they were peacefully protesting a dam project; in 
        May 2014, nine members of the Ninth Infantry reportedly 
        tortured and killed Amado Maradiaga Quiroz and tortured his 
        son, Milton Noe Maradiaga Varela. The cases remain unresolved. 
        In a recent emblematic case, on December 27, 2015, the Honduran 
        Navy reportedly killed Joel Palacios Lino and Elvis Armando 
        Garcia, two Garifuna Afro-Indigenous men who were engaged in 
        digging a car out of the sand on a beach. The case remains in 
        impunity over a year later.
            (9) The current Government of Honduras has expanded the 
        military's reach into domestic policing, including the creation 
        of a 3,000-member Military Police in clear violation of the 
        Honduran constitution and with disastrous results, including 
        the killings of a 15-year-old boy, Ebed Yanes, in 2012 and a 
        student, Erlin Misael Carias Moncada, in 2014, after they had 
        passed unarmed through checkpoints, and the January 2, 2017, 
        killing of 17-year-old Edgardo Moreno Rodriquez. Since the 
        creation of the Military Police ``allegations of human rights 
        abuses by the military have increased notably'', reports Human 
        Rights Watch. In 2016 the creation of two new battalions of the 
        Military Police was announced.
            (10) The Honduran judicial system has been widely 
        documented to be rife with corruption. Judges, prosecutors and 
        other officials are interconnected with organized crime and 
        drug traffickers, contributing to near-complete immunity.
            (11) The Department of State in its 2015 Human Rights 
        Report for Honduras reports ``corruption, intimidation, and 
        institutional weakness of the justice system leading to 
        widespread impunity.''.
            (12) Summarizing the situation, Human Rights Watch reports 
        in 2016 that ``Rampant crime and impunity for human rights 
        abuses remain the norm in Honduras . . . Efforts to reform the 
        institutions responsible for providing public security have 
        made little progress. Marred by corruption and abuse, the 
        judiciary and police remain largely ineffective.''.
            (13) The March 2, 2016, assassination of prominent Lenca 
        Indigenous and environmental activist Berta Caceres, world-
        renowned recipient of the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize for 
        her work defending Indigenous land rights against a 
        hydroelectric dam project, illustrates the human rights crisis 
        in Honduras, and the deep complicity of the Honduran 
        government. Caceres, the leader of COPINH, the Council of 
        Indigenous and Popular Organizations of Honduras, had reported 
        to authorities 33 threats previous to her killing, but none had 
        been investigated, and the government had failed to provide 
        adequate protection measures as mandated by the Inter-American 
        Commission on Human Rights, with protection by Honduran 
        security being withdrawn the day of her death.
            (14) As of February 2017, eight suspects, four of whom have 
        ties to the Honduran military, have been arrested in the 
        killing of Caceres, one of whom is a current officer in the 
        military and three others are former military. These arrests 
        raise serious questions about the role of the Honduran military 
        in her assassination, including the chain of command within the 
        military as well as the identity of the true authors of the 
        assassination.
            (15) The Government of Honduras continues to unduly limit 
        legally mandated access by Ms. Caceres' family to the case 
        file. In late September 2016, the original case file was 
        allowed to leave the Public Ministry and was stolen.
            (16) Despite calls from 62 Members of Congress, members of 
        the family of Berta Caceres, COPINH, leaders of the European 
        Union, the Vatican Pontifical Council on Peace and Justice, and 
        many others, the Honduran government has not permitted the 
        Inter-American Commission on Human rights to conduct an 
        independent investigation of the case.
            (17) In this context of corruption and human rights abuses, 
        trade unionists, journalists, lawyers, Afro-Indigenous 
        activists, Indigenous activists, small-farmer activists, LGBTI 
        activists, human rights defenders, and critics of the 
        government remain at severe risk; and previous human rights 
        abuses against them remain largely unpunished.
            (18) The May 2, 2016, shooting of prominent opposition 
        journalist Felix Molina illustrates the continued risk facing 
        activists. Hours before he was shot, Molina had posted 
        information potentially linking Caceres's killing to a top 
        government official, members of an elite family, and one of the 
        prosecutors in the case.
            (19) The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016 allocated 
        approximately $18,000,000 to the Honduran police and military, 
        in addition to the National Defense Authorization Act for 
        Fiscal Year 2016 authorizing additional funding. The 
        Administration's funding request for fiscal year 2017 also 
        calls for an increase in security funding for Honduras.
            (20) The Inter-American Development Bank in 2012 lent 
        $59,800,000 to the Honduran police, with United States 
        approval.

SEC. 3. SUSPENSION AND RESTRICTIONS OF SECURITY ASSISTANCE EXTENDED TO 
              REPUBLIC OF HONDURAS UNLESS CERTAIN CONDITIONS HAVE BEEN 
              MET.

    (a) Suspension of Security Assistance.--No funds may be made 
available to provide assistance for the police or military of the 
Republic of Honduras, including assistance for equipment and training.
    (b) Loans From Multilateral Development Banks.--The Secretary of 
the Treasury shall instruct United States representatives at 
multilateral development banks to vote no on any loans for the police 
or military of the Republic of Honduras.

SEC. 4. CONDITIONS FOR LIFTING SUSPENSIONS AND RESTRICTIONS.

    The provisions of this Act shall terminate on the date on which the 
Secretary of State determines and certifies to the Committee on Foreign 
Affairs of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign 
Relations of the Senate that the Government of Honduras has--
            (1) pursued all legal avenues to bring to trial and obtain 
        a verdict of those who ordered and carried out--
                    (A) the March 2, 2016, murder of Berta Caceres;
                    (B) the killings of over 100 small-farmer activists 
                in the Aguan Valley;
                    (C) the December 27, 2015, killings of Joel 
                Palacios Lino and Elvis Armando Garcia; and
                    (D) the May 3, 2016, armed attack on Felix Molina;
            (2) investigated and successfully prosecuted members of 
        military and police forces who are credibly found to have 
        violated human rights, and ensured that the military and police 
        cooperated in such cases, and that such violations have ceased;
            (3) withdrawn the military from domestic policing, in 
        accordance with the Honduran Constitution, and ensured that all 
        domestic police functions are separated from the command and 
        control of the Armed Forces of Honduras and are instead 
        directly responsible to civilian authority;
            (4) established that it protects effectively the rights of 
        trade unionists, journalists, human rights defenders, 
        Indigenous, Afro-Indigenous, small-farmer, and LGBTI activists, 
        critics of the government, and other civil society activists to 
        operate without interference; and
            (5) taken effective steps to fully establish the rule of a 
        law and to guarantee a judicial system that is capable of 
        investigating, prosecuting, and bringing to justice members of 
        the police and military who have committed human rights abuses.
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