Honduran ex-President Juan Orlando Hernández was found guilty of drug trafficking in New York on March 8. The conviction concluded two decades of criminal activity. During the trial, witnesses testified that Hernández used the power of the presidency to solicit millions of dollars in bribes from drug cartels and subverted state institutions to protect traffickers and their shipments.
Members of the Honduran diaspora celebrated the verdict outside the courtroom, and current President Xiomara Castro published a statement in which she described Juan Orlando and his accomplices as a “gangster elite.” She also said that it was “imperative to dismantle the criminal organization that continues to operate” in Honduras, referring to Hernández’s co-conspirators.
SEE ALSO: Juan Orlando Hernández Declared Guilty on Drug Trafficking Charges
That is easier said than done. Hernández’s trial highlighted, not for the first time, just how entangled the Honduran state had become with criminal organizations. Three former presidents were implicated in accepting drug money, including Castro’s husband, Manuel Zelaya. Drug traffickers also testified to bribing any political party that could win, underscoring how illicit financing in Honduras is a systemic challenge and not just limited to Hernández.
As the trial concluded, InSight Crime spoke to Lester Ramírez, professor at the Central American Technological University (UNITEC) and researcher for the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) to learn more about what Hernández’s guilty verdict means for Honduras and what might change after the trial.
InSight Crime: What does Hernández’s guilty verdict mean for Honduras?
Lester Ramírez: Beyond the sensational news headlines, I fear that the message of this trial is not going to come through.
I think politicians will try to create a narrative that this was a very atypical case, something that happened to one person but is not representative of a systemic problem.
We have an election coming in a year and a half. In that election, I don’t think Hondurans will fully forget this trial, but I do think they may tolerate this kind of corruption. Politicians are unlikely to make any major reforms to the political system. It’s a system they live by; it’s their modus operandi.
IC: What do you think the consequences will be for the politicians currently in power implicated by testimony from the trial?
LR: The fact that politicians from several parties were mentioned makes things easier for them to keep the status quo because reputational damage will be shared widely. If everyone receives drug money, and that’s the rules of the game, what motivation is there to change it?
If there’s going to be pressure to clean up the political system, it’s got to come from citizens. But the demand for change is not really there at the moment, and I don’t see it materializing any time soon. This trial has eroded trust in the political system as a whole. It’s hard for Honduran voters to find politicians that are 100% clean. There’s always going to be that doubt in our heads.
Legally, leveling prosecutions against politicians will always be difficult in Honduras. We don’t have the institutional capacity or the judicial independence that make prosecutions like this possible. The Attorney General’s Office has announced that they would investigate those named in the trial, but I fear this will be more of a circus or whitewash than anything substantive.
There might be further investigations by the US government, however. There will also be a greater effort to try and avoid the reputational risk — US representatives will not likely want to be photographed again with crooked politicians, as they were with Juan Orlando.
IC: How much blame should the international community take for the crimes of Hernández?
LR: Juan Orlando was definitely leveraged by the international community, and certain foreign governments turned a blind eye to his efforts to concentrate power. During his presidency there were also many crises: with gangs, with extortion, and particularly with migration. Many people believe that the US empowered Juan Orlando in part because of these crises, and so he was allowed to continue.
The case also highlights how the various parts of the US government are not on the same page. We had the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on one hand investigating Hernández since 2013, but they did not share this information with the embassies or the ambassadors here. And also there was some degree of sensitivity with the case. If the United States started publicly accusing Hernández of being a drug trafficker during his period in office, it could be easily interpreted as the US wanting to destabilize another Honduran government.
IC: What can be done to fix Honduras’ political system?
LR: Many people think that the political system in Honduras doesn’t work. But it does work. It works for the most powerful. I don’t think that anything will change to address these institutional weaknesses we have — the system is designed to create and guarantee impunity, particularly for politicians.
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Because the system is rigged, perhaps the biggest impact this trial will have is in the court of public opinion. But to produce a change, we’re going to need a big shock to the system from different sources; in political science they call it a “critical juncture.” But I don’t think the shock we’re seeing with Juan Orlando is strong enough. There are vested interests who profit from the way things are. For that, Honduras is going to remain vulnerable to the type of bribery and corruption we saw in this trial.
IC: Is Honduras still a narco-state?
LR: I define a narco-state as a situation where a country’s leadership is involved in drug trafficking and production, and top-down policies are implemented to support these activities.
Honduras was a narco-state in the sense that the president and his inner circle were profiting from drug cartels. Government officials worked for cartels; providing protection, assassinating the competition, and winning elections, which required narco money. However, the prosperity generated was not shared with the population at large. It did not contribute to the country’s GDP or create sustainable jobs. The only spillovers went into real estate bubbles, laundering money through the financial sector, and paying for political campaigns.
We saw current politicians mentioned in this trial. We will have to see where that goes, but I don’t think I would call Honduras a 100% narco-state now that the National Party is out of office. I think you could say Honduras continues to have narco-influenced politics. The traffickers we saw in the courtroom will have been replaced with new players, who almost certainly still receive political protection.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Featured image: Protesters call for the extradition of those involved in drug trafficking in Honduras. Credit: Kena Betancur / AFP