Honduran accused of atrocities, deported 3 times, caught again

Posted on Mon, Apr. 05, 2004

Honduran accused of atrocities, deported 3 times, caught again
Associated Press


WELLINGTON, Fla. - A former Honduran military officer who has been deported three times on his admission that he tortured political activists in the 1980s was arrested Monday when federal immigration agents found him back in the United States.

Agents first nabbed Juan Angel Hernandez Lara, 41, in 1988 after he illegally crossed the Mexican border. He was forced to leave the United States, but within a year was back and building a new life in Palm Beach County.

He applied for political asylum, saying he feared persecution if he was returned to Honduras, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. The INS rejected his asylum request, but it took 11 years for his appeals to be exhausted and him to be deported in 2001.

The INS said Hernandez Lara admitted he belonged to Honduran army intelligence unit, Battalion 316, that killed dozens of suspected government opponents. Hernandez Lara also confessed to having kicked and punched four people who were later killed, the INS said, adding that the victims had pins placed under the fingernails and plastic bags on the heads before their deaths
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/8363167.htm

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I don't get it. During Reagan's time, this country heavily supported all kinds of torture of the terrifying "leftist" labor union members, clergy, human rights activists, etc.

Why on earth would a _Bush regime suddenly start acting as if this kind of stuff has been frowned upon? He was doing what Reagan wanted him to do, f'r crissakes.

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This was the first link which just jumped right out at me immediately. There are many, many more to shed light on Reagan's government's encouragement of the wrath of god to fall on anyone who got out of line with the right-wing dictators in Latin America.

Another contra-cocaine connection ran through Panamanian Gen. Manuel Noriega, who was recruited by the Reagan administration to assist the contras despite Noriega's drug-trafficking reputation. The CIA worked closely, too, with corrupt military officers in Honduras and El Salvador who were known to moonlight as cocaine traffickers and money-launderers.

In Honduras, the contra operation tied into the huge cocaine-smuggling network of Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros. His airline, SETCO, was hired by the Reagan administration to ferry supplies to the contras. U.S. government reports also disclosed that contra spokesman Frank Arana worked closely with lieutenants in the Matta Ballesteros network.

Though based in Honduras, the Matta Ballesteros network was regarded as a leading Mexican smuggling ring and was implicated in the torture-murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena.

The CIA knew, too, that the contra-cocaine taint had spread into President Reagan's National Security Council and into the CIA through Cuban-American anti-communists who were working for two drug-connected seafood companies, Ocean Hunter of Miami and Frigorificos de Puntarenas in Costa Rica. One of these Cuban-Americans, Moises Nunez, worked directly for the NSC.
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http://www.colombiasupport.net/200006/consortiumnews-ciacocaine.asp