Honduran police say mutilated body belongs to missing journalist

[Judi Lynn]

Honduran police say mutilated body belongs to missing journalist
By Freddy Cuevas, The Associated Press July 10, 2013 9:00 PM

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - The charred and mutilated body of a man found on the bank of a lagoon in the northern city of San Pedro Sula is that of a missing journalist, Honduran authorities confirmed Wednesday.

Investigators identified Anibal Barrow's body through dental records and other forensic tests, Honduras' top prosecutor Roberto Ramirez said. Ramirez said he wouldn't discuss possible motives in the slaying to avoid harming the investigation.

The 62-year-old journalist had a popular daily morning news show called "Anibal and Nothing More" on Globo television in San Pedro Sula.

The body was found Tuesday in a shallow pit on the bank of the Siboney lagoon, about 12 miles (20 kilometres) south of San Pedro Sula. Buried nearby was a bank book and a credit card with Barrow's name, along with clothing and a belt that resembled what he was wearing the day he was kidnapped.

More:
http://www.canada.com/news/Honduran+police+mutilated+body+belongs+missing+journalist/8642241/story.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. This courageous man who opposed the unconstitutional coup, illegal kidnapping

of the elected and beloved populist President Zelaya, with the US ambassador Llorens stating in a message to the US that it was contrary to the Honduran constitution, such as it was, had been getting death threats and harassment from the right-wing radicals since they realized he was not going to back down in his position at his job.

More from the article:

National police chief Juan Carlos Bonilla said Barrow's body had been beheaded and the arms legs cut off before it was set ablaze.

Bonilla said four people have been detained in the killing and that there were 10 suspects in the case altogether, including a minor.

"All of them directly participated in Barrow's killing," Bonilla said.

Local media reported that one suspect was being treated as a witness after leading police to the body, but Bonilla wouldn't comment on that.

Heavily armed men kidnapped Barrow on June 24 while he was driving in his truck. Three of his family members were also taken, but were quickly released unharmed.

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May the people of Honduras regain the progress they had made before the iron-fisted, greedy oligarchs stole the country.

[MinM]

2. Missing (1982)

Last edited Fri Sep 6, 2013, 09:25 AM - Edit history (1)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2938918

Dealt with the Allende coup d'état in Chile and it's aftermath...

Missing is a 1982 American drama film directed by Costa Gavras, and starring Jack Lemmon, Sissy Spacek, Melanie Mayron, John Shea and Charles Cioffi. It is based on the true story of American journalist Charles Horman, who disappeared in the bloody aftermath of the US-backed Chilean coup of 1973 that deposed the democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende.

The film was banned in Chile during Pinochet's dictatorship, even though neither Chile nor Pinochet are ever mentioned by name (although the Chilean cities of Viña del Mar and Santiago are)...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_%28film%29

We need more Anibal Barrows .. Manuel Buendias and Charles Hormans...

[Judi Lynn]

3. Isn't it interesting the film was banned in Chile during Pinochet?

I didn't know it until seeing your post, Good grief. It really wasn't that long ago, in many ways.

Costa Gavras, Missing's director, had a film banned by the U.S., concerning the kidnapping of a torturer, who was, in real life, the torturer who worked first in Brazil, according to all that is publicly known now, and then in Uruguay, in Motevideo, sent there to train police in torture, which he did, using a sound-proof room as he instructed local police personel, working on the people he had arranged to be taken off the street, poor people, street people who wouldn't be missed and searched for right away. That sadistic a-hole was Dan Mitrione. The film was State of Siege.

Wikipedia:

State of Siege (French title: État de Siège) is a 1972 French film directed by Costa Gavras starring Yves Montand and Renato Salvatori.

~snip~
Yves Montand plays Philip Michael Santore, an official of the United States Agency for International Development (an organisation sometimes used as a front for training foreign police in counterinsurgency methods). Posted to a fictional South American country in the early 1970s, Santore is kidnapped by a group of urban guerrillas. The story is based by Costa Gavras on an actual incident in Uruguay in 1970 when U.S. Embassy official Dan Mitrione was kidnapped and killed.

Using Santore's interrogation by his captors as a backdrop, the film explores the often brutal consequences of the struggle between the repressive government of Montevideo and the leftist Tupamaro guerrillas. Using death squads, the government decimates the revolutionary group, whose surviving members vote to execute the smugly calculating Santore, who is accused of arranging training in torture and political manipulation. In the finale a replacement U.S. official arrives, watched from the crowd by a defiant and angry survivor of the radical group.

~snip~
The film opened to positive reviews from critics and is regarded as one of Costa-Gavras' finest works since the 1969 film Z. While it was released one year later in American theaters, a storm of controversy developed. Many U.S. officials hated the movie and even stated that it was a heap of lies about U.S. involvement in Latin America and other third world countries. In Washington, D.C., it was removed from a special screening at the John F. Kennedy Center, only to be run uncut on a local TV station. Before the 1970s ended, many who decried the film as false found themselves admitting involvement in Latin America, this during the investigations and committee hearings on the CIA and other government groups.[

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Siege

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You're so right: there are so few people courageous and good enough to stand up for GOOD principles, as we all know they are the ones who put their entire lives at risk, and they very often pay a terrible price. It's a miracle whenever one rises.

Meanwhile, the ones who work against them bury their own consciences, which will come back with a vengeance and become their very worst, most intimate, unavoidable enemies.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Missing is too important to never see. Now I want to see it again. Thanks. n/t

[MinM]

6. Justice for Victor Jara--40 Years On?

@GregMitch: Chilean folk music star Victor Jara died after U.S.-backed coup. Now his family suing the torturer/murderer. http://bit.ly/X12dft

http://gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.com/2012/12/justice-for-victor-jare-39-years-on.html

[Judi Lynn]

7. Thank you for providing the lyrics. They will be remembered. n/t

[Judi Lynn]

5. Honduras Shaken by High-Profile Murders

Honduras Shaken by High-Profile Murders

By Thelma Mejia

TEGUCIGALPA, Jul 12 2013 (IPS) - Honduran society remains shocked at the tragic fate of Aníbal Barrow, a journalist and university professor whose body was dismembered and scattered around a lake in Villanueva, in the northern province of Cortés.

Barrow, 65, was kidnapped on Jun. 24 in the city of San Pedro Sula, the provincial capital, 450 km north of Tegucigalpa, as he was riding in his car with family members and a driver, who were released unharmed by the unidentified gunmen

The car was found several hours later, with a bullet hole in one of the doors, and traces of blood inside. Barrow’s remains were discovered 15 days later in a swamp next to a lagoon near the community of Siboney, in Villanueva.

Social analysts say the murder indicates that Honduras has entered a phase of “high-profile violence,” and that reporters are the favourite victims in order to spread terror. In the past three and a half years, 29 media workers have been killed on the job.

“We are experiencing a kind of violence that was not seen 15 years ago. The way criminals are operating has changed. This action is more like a message from organised crime in the 21st century – a long way from the banditry seen in Honduras in the 19th century,” historian and social analyst Rolando Sierra told IPS.

“This is high-profile violence. The victims are not ordinary citizens, but well-known journalists, evangelical preachers, lawyers or human rights activists; in other words, the violence is spreading towards sectors that have a greater impact on society,” he said.

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/07/honduras-shaken-by-high-profile-murders/