After the ‘narco president’: Rebuilding hope in Honduras

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 10 August 2022

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When the president stands accused of drug trafficking, what hope is there? From 2014, for eight years Juan Orlando Hernandez ruled Honduras like his personal fiefdom. A Central American strongman comparable with some of the worst from decades past, under his presidency Honduras began a rapid descent into a so-called “narco-state”. The allegations against his government soon started to mount up: human rights violations, corruption and impunity; accusations of torture and extrajudicial killings by the police and military. And at its heart, the claim by US prosecutors of a multi-million dollar drug smuggling ring, overseen from the presidential palace itself. Just weeks after he left power in January 2022, Juan Orlando Hernandez was arrested and extradited to the US to face drug trafficking charges. American prosecutors allege he used his security forces to protect some drugs shipments and eliminate competitors. Will Grant, the BBC’s Central America Correspondent, finds out what life was like under the disgraced president and meets some people trying to instil a little hope in a nation which hasn’t had any for a long time. He meets Norma, the mother of Keyla Martinez, who was killed in a police cell. Initially, the police said she had killed herself but hospital reports later proved this wasn’t the case. Now, can Norma Martinez’s campaign for justice bring a sense of hope to those who don’t trust the authorities and have endured years of rampant corruption and police impunity? Producer: Phoebe Keane Fixer in Honduras: Renato Lacayo

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Namulanta combo and I'm so excited to tell you that my podcast, DearDota, from the BBC World Service, has won podcast of the year 2022 at the British Podcast Awards.
0:13.6	DearDota is a collection of letters and stories offering advice and wisdom for life. It's sometimes funny, it's sometimes sad, but it's always insightful.
0:24.6	Just search for DearDota wherever you found this podcast.
0:33.6	I'm standing on the open field at the centre of a tiny little village called Los Encuentros.
0:39.2	It is a beautifully picturesque spot, just a handful of zinc, roofed homes with colourful washing, drying out, children playing.
0:50.2	But unfortunately for the villagers here, it lies right in the centre of the drug corridor north.
1:03.2	Here it is.
1:05.2	See evidence of the drug lab is empty canisters, machetes.
1:23.2	Here we have the seed and the seedling in the plant.
1:29.2	So this was a nursery.
1:32.2	Just to give you a sense of what I'm looking at, it's about a hectare and a half's worth of hillside field.
1:41.2	And on the ground scattered literally everywhere I step, I destroyed coca plants all brown and pulled out by the root, crackled in the sun.
1:53.2	It was a shocking sight, the coca plant, the raw material for cocaine, being grown in Honduras.
2:01.2	Usually coca plants are only found in the Andes, in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.
2:07.2	But under President Juan Orlando Hernandez there was a rise in the production of cocaine inside Honduras.
2:13.2	A country previously considered just a transit country for the drug on its root north.
2:20.2	So this was a very sizeable production.
2:23.2	There was two or three nurseries, there was a drug lab here.
2:28.2	And this is where they would turn this plant into the pasta base, paste from which cocaine is made.
2:39.2	In many ways one could point to this and say this was Juan Orlando Hernandez's legacy in Honduras.
2:48.2	From 2014 for eight years Juan Orlando Hernandez ruled Honduras like his personal fiefdom.
3:00.2	A Central American strongman comparable with some of the worst from decades past under his presidency,
	...

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