Thread: Honduras declares national emergency over gang extortions

Honduras declares national emergency over gang extortions






FILE PHOTO: Swearing-in ceremony of new Honduran President Castro in Tegucigalpa



Thu, November 24, 2022 at 6:22 PM



TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Honduran President Xiomara Castro declared a national security emergency on Thursday and began implementing a new plan to combat a rising number of cases of extortion by violent criminal groups operating across the country.

Castro's new measures would allow the suspension of some constitutional rights in areas with predominant criminal gang presence, a deployment of 20,000 police agents, new security controls on roads and measures against money laundering.

Congress must still approve the suspension of constitutional rights, though the security plan came into force on Thursday.

The declaration also authorizes the Honduran government to make extraordinary use of public funds to combat criminal gangs known for involvement in illicit activities such as kidnapping and drug trafficking.

The leftist president announced the new plan to combat extortion afflicting the impoverished Central American nation in a television broadcast.

The plan follows pressure from businessmen, truck, bus and taxi drivers, residents and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who say extortion - largely by the Mara Salvatrucha MS-13 and Mara Barrio 18 gangs - has worsened in recent months.

In exchange for a so-called "war tax", gangs offer protection or say that those who pay up will not be killed. The gangs have torched buses and killed drivers who did not pay the fee, prompting businesses and people to pay out of fear.

This extortion generates annual profits equivalent to $737 million for the gangs, nearly 3% of the country's gross domestic product, according to the Association for a More Just Society, a security-focused non-governmental organization.

(Reporting by Gustavo Palencia, editing by Deepa Babington)


https://www.yahoo.com/news/honduras-...232215815.html

These are the violent vermin pouring over our border. They have spread across all our states like cancer and need to be expelled from our communities.

We need to offer to send in Special Forces to help them take out every damn one of these gangs and cartel members. Put them out of OUR misery for good. Their prisons are full of these vermin and ours are too.

Deport them all including their UACs.

They need to unleash their land and resources and use their own labor to get out of poverty and quit breeding in a mud puddle like mosquitos! These disgusting women just give birth to more gang babies. Get on birth control. We do not want their women or their offspring here. They invade our border dragging two offspring with them and leave four more behind. It is disgusting.

No more foreign aid. We need to rebuild America.