Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Hi. I'm holding the phone, because I'm not sure where the sound is coming from.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I don't have a copy of the entire law in translation, no. I can ask if I can find it. I myself don't have it, and I haven't seen it in English. I would assume it has been translated, because there has been so much attention to it in the international business press.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, it was Paul Romer, although he has detached himself from it and says he doesn't support it because of the issues with lack of oversight. Also, there are two laws I want to underscore. There was a law passed last year that was ruled unconstitutional by the Honduran supreme court, and a new version of it that was passed in late December or early January.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I haven't seen the actual supreme court ruling. I certainly saw newspaper reports about it, which were huge. There were a number of things, but my sense—albeit I'd have to go back and confirm it—is that it was because it did not in fact have jurisdiction for the Honduran constitution.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Well, they would be specifically about that law, but I think the people in civil society are extremely alarmed about the idea of ceding Honduran territory to outsiders, and in particular outside corporations, who would then be free to exploit workers at whatever level they wanted.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thanks to all of you for caring about Honduras, because it means an enormous amount to me personally. Thank you.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think so. I mean, it's a little dangerous. I can certainly speak about it; it's a letter that I personally received. But yes, I can do that. He has admitted this in other contexts as well. So yes, I can forward that.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think the situation of the media and media freedom is very alarming. I have given a conservative estimate of the number of journalists who have been killed, but beyond that, the journalists who are in opposition to the federal government, and not just them but some of the people who have criticized local government as well, or spoken about drug trafficking, have been killed or threatened.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  These complaints include... I haven't seen the entire 10,000 and I want to [Technical difficulty--Editor]...government itself has given the same figures. So this is not just COFADEH, which is very upstanding, but the Honduran government itself. I would also underscore the statistic from the government itself a few weeks ago saying that 80% of all crimes are an impunity.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I'm not aware of every case. There's the U.S.-funded and -trained major crimes task force. I haven't seen significant results of all this. There have been a few token prosecutions—for example, the conviction of a member of the military police, who broke the camera of a journalist some time ago.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Oh, no, I think the suspension of Luis Rubi, the attorney general, who's an alleged drug trafficker, from what I've heard, was a very good thing. Also, Danelia Ferrera, who was the top of the prosecutors, recently resigned because she was going to be suspended or asked to resign.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think it would have to be an act of disengagement. I think what we actually need, and here I want to support the testimony of Karen Spring, who said the same thing [Technical difficulty--Editor]...the United Nations high commission on human rights to intervene. I think the only way forward, really, is to have a commission like the CICIG in Guatemala, with authority above the Honduran government.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  No, I don't think there's anything that I know of in terms of his brother being killed. That was part of the pattern of campesinos being assassinated in the Aguán Valley. But I'm sorry, I don't have information on that case.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, thanks so much for asking because there has been an enormous amount of international attention in the human rights community to the situation in the lower Aguán Valley. The land there has a history of land reform. It's where land reform historically took place in Honduras in the 1970s and 1980s.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I would disagree with that very certainly. Let me first speak of the police cleanup and then Lobo's role in that. There have been three successive commissions, and most recently the CRSB, the commission for the review of security, the so-called Meza commission. Victor Meza, the original head of that commission, said very recently that the system was broken and that the police were not being cleaned up, that the police cleanup had failed.