MEXICO CITY - More than a dozen conspirators gathered at the headquarters of the Honduran National Police just after 9:30 p.m. One of them clicked open a briefcase, and bundles of American dollars were distributed among the police officers - payment for the next day's hit job.

After everyone else filed out of the room, the three highest-ranking officers stayed behind to make a call.

"Keep watch over the news tomorrow, sir," one of them said, according to case files gathered by Honduran investigators. "We'll do it all in the morning, good night, sir."

[continues 1549 words]

MEXICO CITY - The U.S. government has ceased providing Honduras with radar tracking information out of concern that a new policy allowing its forces to shoot down aircraft suspected of hauling narcotics does not have enough safeguards to prevent error.

A statement from the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa distributed Tuesday said other U.S.-financed counternarcotics programs would not be affected, but that Washington already has ceased sharing certain types of information and assistance with Honduras.

A policy to shoot down drug-laden aircraft has come into favor and fallen out of favor in the past in Latin America, depending partly on the mood in Washington.

[continues 661 words]

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - The Honduran Air Force pilot did not know what to do. It was the dead of night, and he was chasing a small, suspected drug plane at a dangerously low altitude, just a few hundred feet above the Caribbean. He fired warning shots, but instead of landing, the plane flew lower and closer to the sea.

"So the pilot made a decision, thinking it was the best thing to do," said Arturo Corrales, Honduras's foreign minister, one of several officials to give the first detailed account of the episode. "He shot down the plane."

[continues 2530 words]

WASHINGTON - A U.S. agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration shot a man to death in Honduras during a raid on a drug smuggling operation early Saturday, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Honduras said on Sunday. The man who was killed had been reaching for his weapon, the official said, and the U.S. agent fired in self-defense.

The shooting brought further attention to the growing U.S. involvement in counternarcotics operations in Central America. Commando style squads of DEA agents have been working with local security forces in several countries and have been present at several firefights in Honduras in which people died in the past 15 months.

[continues 289 words]

WASHINGTON -- A commando-style squad of Drug Enforcement Administration agents accompanied Honduran counternarcotics police during two firefights with cocaine smugglers in the jungles of the Central American country this month, according to officials in both countries who were briefed on the matter. One of the fights, which occurred last week, left as many as four people dead and has sparked a backlash against the U.S. presence there.

It remains unclear whether the DEA agents took part in the shooting during either incident, the first in the early hours of May 6 and the second early last Friday.

[continues 545 words]

WASHINGTON - A commando-style squad of Drug Enforcement Administration agents accompanied the Honduran counternarcotics police during two firefights with cocaine smugglers in the jungles of the Central American country this month, according to officials in both countries who were briefed on the matter. One of the fights, which occurred last week, left as many as four people dead and has set off a backlash against the American presence there.

It remains unclear whether the D.E.A. agents took part in the shooting during either episode, the first in the early hours of May 6 and the second early last Friday. In an initial account of the second episode, the Honduran government told local reporters that two drug traffickers had been killed and a large shipment of cocaine seized; he did not mention any American involvement. Several American officials said the D.E.A. agents did not return fire during the encounter.

[continues 1086 words]

TULTITLAN, Mexico - After giving up trying to find a job in his native Honduras, metalworker Maynor Gutierrez decided to try to get to the USA. He never made it past a shelter for illegal immigrants in Mexico.

Poverty, crime and corruption have overwhelmed Honduras, a fledgling democracy engulfed in political chaos and designated the murder capital of Latin America.

Little has improved under President Porfirio Lobo, who took over after his predecessor was removed on charges of subverting democracy. The turmoil has prompted many Hondurans to flee north.

[continues 737 words]

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) -- The United States has no interest in setting up an anti-drug base in Honduras, President Ricardo Maduro said Thursday in the wake a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

"Honduras will not lend its territory as an anti-drug base for Washington," Maduro told the Associated Press, though he noted that the two countries do cooperate.

"Honduras is on the drug route between Colombia and the United States, which greatly affects us, but there will not be a greater U.S. military presence here," he said.

[continues 196 words]

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (Reuters) -- The Honduran Congress has ratified an anti-drug pact with Washington that will allow U.S. forces to patrol Honduran waters and airspace, a legislator said Thursday.

The convention will allow the U.S. Coast Guard to board ships in Honduran waters suspected of smuggling drugs. It also allows for joint air and land patrols, said the head of Congress's Foreign Affairs Committee, Ramon Villeda.

Since losing its Howard Air Force Base in Panama last year, Washington has been seeking other regional solutions to monitoring and interdicting boat shipments and planeloads of Colombian cocaine heading to U.S. consumers.

[continues 77 words]

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - Glue Addiction Is Rampant Among The City's Youths, Robbing Them Of Their Health And Senses

When Cesar Ulices Padilla beds down on the streets of Honduras' capital, he lulls himself to sleep sniffing from a baby food jar tucked under his nose.

The jar contains industrial-strength shoe glue, and like nearly all the 1,500 street kids in this hilly city, he is addicted to it.

``There would be no way to make it through a night without it,'' the 18- year-old says. ``That's why we live now. We live for the glue.''

[continues 929 words]

Recruited Dealers Choose To Seek Asylum In Vancouver 'Because They Give You Welfare'

EL GUANTILLO, Honduras - No one in this obscure village of coffee growers speaks English, but a remarkable number understand the meaning of the words "welfare" and "refugee."

Nestled high in the red-clay hills of poverty-stricken central Honduras, El Guantillo has become so notorious for its role in Canada's drug trade that the town's teens eye foreigners warily, reluctant to have their secrets exposed. They parade around the garbage-strewn streets in flashy gold chains and baggy cholo, or bandit pants, testament to their peddling of crack cocaine in Vancouver.

[continues 1242 words]

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (Reuters) - Honduras will sign an agreement with the United States in January to allow U.S. agents to board Honduran vessels suspected of carrying drugs, an official said on Monday.

``The negotiation phase is complete and we expect to sign an agreement not later than January,'' Minister of Exterior Relations Roberto Flores said.

The agreement would allow U.S. authorities to board foreign boats in Honduran waters and boats flying the Honduran flag anywhere in the world.

Some 34,000 boats fly the Honduran flag and many have been found in various parts of the world carrying drugs and illegal travelers.

The Atlantic coast of Honduras is an important trade route for Colombian cocaine on its way to the U.S.

[end]

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, - The United States and Honduras will sign a deal next week allowing U.S. drug agents to search suspicious boats in Honduran waters, officials said on Tuesday.

The bilateral treaty on fighting drug trafficking, which has been negotiated for months, will be signed in the Honduran capital on March 9 during U.S. President Bill Clinton's visit, Foreign Relations Minister Roberto Flores told reporters.

The minister said the treaty would allow U.S. drug agents to act in joint operations with Honduran agents.

[continues 79 words]

(Reuters; 12/03/98)

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Honduran police have stumbled on the biggest marijuana plantation found in the past decade in the Central American country, an official said on Thursday.

Police spokesman Hector Mejia said five peasants were captured and accused of planting 203,000 marijuana plants in the region of Urrutia, 50 miles (80 km) east of the capital Tegucigalpa.

"We seized 203,000 marijuana plants, 31 sacks full of drugs, 75 pounds of seed," Mejia said.

Honduran anti-drug officials say many impoverished peasants are turning to marijuana cultivation and away from traditional corn and bean planting because of higher prices for the drugs, some of which is exported to neighbouring countries.

- --- Checked-by: Mike Gogulski

[end]

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - Honduran officials said Monday drug traffickers had taken over an airstrip built by the United States in the 1980s to support Nicaraguan Contra rebels.

The disclosure came as police said a senior anti-drug official had escaped an assassination attempt. The target had handed a list of suspected traffickers and accomplices to the government just days before.

"We had information that the El Aguacate airstrip was being used, we sent personnel to the zone (and) took soil samples, and we found cocaine residue," Honduras' chief anti-drug official, Fidel Borjas, told reporters.

[continues 350 words]

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (Reuters) - The United States will fund and support the training of a crack unit of Honduran police to combat drugs trafficking, the U.S. ambassador to Honduras said on Monday.

``We are going to support the creation of this unit, training its members in techniques of tracking and detecting drugs trafficking,'' ambassador James Creagon told reporters.

Honduras wants a special police task force to clamp down on drugs smuggling along its Caribbean coast, especially around the Bay Islands tourist area.

[continues 141 words]