HONDURAN DEATH SQUAD ALLEGED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706080001-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 2, 2011
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 2, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Si Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000706080001-3
ARTICLE APPEARED 2 May 1 Nli I UN RUST
GE ~4 9 2 May 1987
ON PA
Honduran Death Squad Alle~dI
g
Former Sergeant Says Army Group Tortured, Killed Leftists
7 By Terri Shaw
7 and Herbert H. Denton
WaJiinpton Pont Forcipn So,nce
ra r Man physical torture, but
Honduran commanders preferred to
continue using violent methods.
At the time of the alleged abuses
described by Caballero, the United
States was pressuring Honduras to
disband what Washington called a
support network of Central Amer-
ican leftists for guerrillas fighting to
overthrow the U.S.-backed govern.
p
squa
s.
oner interviewed in Mexico said, The number of suspicious disap.
however, that men they believed to pearances dropped substantially af-
be Americans seemed to be aware ter Alvarez was deposed, but rights
of the abuses and did not stop them. groups have reported recent bomb-
Caballero, 29, said he served in ings, threats and a few deaths.
military intelligence units from In two lengthy interviews, Cabal-
1979 until 1984 and was trained by lero said he believed Battalion 316
Americans and other foreigners in was directed by Alvarez. He said it
interrogation techniques. Americas kidnaped suspected leftists, took
Watch, a human rights monitoring them to secret detention centers,
group, arranged for Caballero to be tortured them and eventually killed
interviewed in Toronto. most of them. Caballero said he was
Caballero said the American ad- involved in kidnaping "six or seven"
visers did not participate in inter- persons, including German Perez
rogations or torture, but did advise Aleman, a Salvadoran union official,
the secret unit on whom to put un- and Felix Martinez, a leftist Hondu-
der surveillance and what questions ran professor. He said both were
to ask those who had been detained. killed.
Caballero said the American advis- As an example of the methods
ers tried to persuade the Hondu- used by Battalion 316, Caballero
rans to use pressures, said he saw other soldiers tie an
A member of an intelligence unit
of the Honduran Army who recently
fled the country says the unit com-
mitted kidnapings, torture and mur-
ders of leftist Hondurans and other
Central Americans.
The former sergeant, Florencio
Caballero, said the unit, known as
Battalion 316, was trained and ad-
vised on intelligence matters by
Americans but that the Hondurans
disregarded American advice about
not using physical torture to elicit
information from prisoners.
Both Caballero and a former pris-
a
declined to comment on Caballero's rc until to being a guerrilla.
July 1984, much of that time incom- When Duarte agreed, Caballero
account. municado. In a recent interview in said, he was coached on what to
The former sergeant's charges Mexico City, Murillo, who was a say, then was flown to Guatemala
about the activities of Battalion 316 student activist who worked with where he gave a news conference
and its predecessor, the Director- peasant groups, said she was seized saying he was a member of a guer-
ate of Special Investigations, are in Choloma in northeastern Hondu- rilla group called the Lorenzo Ze-
consistent with other reports by a ras. lays movement. While she was de-
former Honduran officer and by Murillo said that during the early tained, Murillo said, "I learned that
Honduran and international human stages of her detention she was 'Mr. Mike' was coordinating the
rights groups during the tenure of manacled naked, suspended in the press conference of Efrain Duarte."
Gustavo Alvarez Martinez as head air and suffered "sexual abuses" and Murillo was released after inter-
of the national police and later chief electric shocks. She said that later, national human rights groups and
of staff of the armed forces. Alva- in a secret military installation near the West German government in-
rez, who was reputedly the most Tegucigalpa, she underwent "psy- terceded on her behalf. Her mother
powerful man in Honduras in the chological torture" and was doused is German.
early 1980s, was removed by other
officers in 1984 and went into exile.
Caballero is the first member of
the unit to describe its activities
publicly. His account was confirmed
in part by a woman, Ines Murillo,
who had been detained by the unit.
Alvarez could not be reached to
comment on the allegations.
A Honduran human rights activ-
ist and Americas Watch said Bat-
talion 316 is still functioning, but it
has not been directly linked to any
new abuses. In a report to be re-
leased May 7, Americas Watch
states that "human rights monitors
. believe the unit [Battalion 3161
still carries out clandestine activ-
ities ty
ical of death
d
"
with ice water so she could not
sleep. At that time, she said, a for-
eign man whom other prisoners and
her Honduran captors identified as
"Mr. Mike" visited the clandestine
jail often.
Caballero said "Mr. Mike" was
the name used by an American who
worked at the U.S. Embassy and
supervised the activities of Battal-
ion 316.
Murillo added that when "Mr.
Mike" came to visit the detention
center, she was allowed to wash and
her cell was cleaned. But, she said,
"he should have known what torture
I suffered. It was obvious."
A Central American official con-
firmed that Honduran military in-
telligence units receive training
from Americans. But "they tell the
interrogators to treat prisoners
well," he said. "They say that if you
mistreat the prisoners they will just
tell you what you want to know."
A Honduran human rights group
has listed 147 disappearances of
people thought to have been de-
tained by groups connected to the
military between 1979 and 1984.
Human rights activists say they
presume these people were killed,
but Honduran authorities have sug-
gested that they left the country or
assumed new identities.
Caballero said he and other mem-
bers of Battalion 316 were taken in
August 1980 to a facility he be-
lieved was in Texas and were
trained by Americans for six
inner tube around Perez Aleman's months in surveillance, interroga-
face until he fainted. He said the tion and other intelligence tech-
prisoner also was submerged in wa- niques. Later, he said, American
ter with his hands and feet bound. and South American advisers con-
Ines Murillo, the former detain- tinued the training inside Honduras.;
ee, gave a description in a separate Both Murillo and Caballero said
interview of her experiences that that "Mr. Mike" supervised the in-
coincided in many details with Ca- terrogation of another prisoner,
ballero's account. Efrain Duarte, a lawyer seized in
According to Amnesty Interna- Tegucigalpa who later was released
tional's 1986 annual re
t
M
ill
por
,
ur
o on condition that he publicly confess
A State Department spokesman was held from M
h 1983
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000706080001-3