This press release was issued several days after Dionisio's murder on December 4, 2006. 

Since that time, more staff of AJS's Honduran partner organization have been threatened and have received death threats.

A number of government agencies and officials are making determined, good-faith efforts to investigate Dionisio's murder and protect others who have been threatened.

But Dionisio's murderers have not yet been arrested or tried.

Association for a More Just Society (AJS)
1-800-897-1135
info@ajs-us.org
www.ajs-us.org

"Lawyer of the Poor" murdered in Honduras; Associates Threatened

Dionisio Diaz's Death Marks the First Murder in Many Years of a Human Rights Advocate in Tegucigalpa

Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Honduras is in mourning. On Monday, December 4, it lost a great ally in the struggle for social justice and a great defender of the poor: Dionisio Díaz García was shot to death in his pickup truck while driving to court by two masked gunmen on a motorcycle. The gunmen shot Díaz in the head and chest from close range. This murder was the first time in years that a human rights advocate has been murdered in Tegucigalpa.

Since early 2006 Díaz had served as the primary labor lawyer for and Association for a More Just Society-supported labor rights program which had been running since 2004.

Díaz had received numerous threats in the months leading up to the murder. On the morning of Thursday, December 7, Carlos Hernández, who as well as serving as director of Genesis and El Verbo Christian School is the president of the board of directors of AJS's Honduran partner organization, la Asociación para una Sociedad más Justa (ASJ), received a text mesage on his cell phone threatening: "you are the next."

Díaz was in charge of providing legal defense and representation for the labor rights of hundreds of security guards employed by 13 different private security companies that routinely violated the legal rights of their employees. His humble, honest, steadfast dedication to the impoverished workers he represented earned him the nickname "the lawyer of the poor." He was known among his coworkers for answering phone calls from distraught clients at all hours of the night and routinely skipping lunch and working on holidays to fit in more meetings with beleaguered workers or more Labor Court audiences on their behalf.

There are over 200 private security companies in Honduras employing some 40,000 security guards. They are, for the most part, unregulated. Security guards are among the worst-paid and worst-treated employees in the formal sector of the Honduran labor market. Because of illegal pay deductions and withholdings, they often earn less than Honduras' minimum wage requirement of approximately US$120 per month.

In the last three months thanks to Díaz's efforts ASJ succeeded in opening dialogs with the owners of several of these companies. But this was not the case with the companies Delta Security Services and Service y Seguridad Técnica de Honduras (SETECH).

Both of these companies (which are owned by the same individuals) refused at all times to accept citations for failing to respect the law. Instead they responded by undertaking a smear campaign against Díaz and ASJ.

Thanks to Díaz and ASJ's insistent efforts to achieve social justice for security guards, the Honduran Court of Labor placed an embargo on two vehicles owned by Delta and SETECH in order to guarantee about $10,000 in benefits these companies owed to a group of current and former employees, all of them impoverished security guards.

Díaz and inspectors from the Honduran Ministry of Labor also carried out numerous inspections of the areas in which guards employed by these companies worked. These inspections revealed that the labor rights of Delta and SETECH employees were regularly violated.

These violations of Honduran labor law included withholding of overtime pay and other benefits and forcing employees to sign letters of resignation—in Honduras, employees receive fewer severance benefits if they elect to resign than if they are fired by their employers.

As a response to these legal actions taken against them, on September 19, 2006, representatives of Delta and SETECH arrived at and attempted to forcefully enter ASJ's central office in Tegucigalpa.

Among the unusual visitors were Richard Swasey, owner of Delta; one of his legal representatives, Efrén Aguilar; Robert Fúnez, head of human resources for Delta; Roger Medina López, head of operations for SETECH; and three other individuals, including one woman, who claimed to be lawyers.

Soon after this encounter a Honduran news website ran a paid advertisement falsely claiming that ASJ did not pay social security for its employees and making other slanderous statements about the staff of Revistazo.com, ASJ's online investigative news journal, which had run numerous stories about Delta and SETECH's labor violations. The photo of several ASJ staff members published with the story appeared to have been taken from inside the car Swasey and his associates arrived in on their visit to ASJ's office on September 19.

From this date on, vehicles with tinted windows and no license plates began appearing frequently outside ASJ's office and following ASJ staff members.

Díaz received numerous threatening phone calls, and on Monday, November 27, 2006, a fellow ASJ lawyer received a text message sent from the internet to his cell phone warning that Díaz's life was in danger.

ASJ also has knowledge that SETECH and Delta hired private investigators to keep tabs on Díaz and other ASJ employees.

And several days ago Donaldo Burke, a former agent of the DGIC (Honduras' General Bureau for Criminal Investigation—analogous to the United States' FBI), arrived at ASJ's office insisting that he needed to meet privately and immediately with Díaz, supposedly to give him information about the location of a seized vehicle that had been put in Díaz's custody but which had mysteriously disappeared and about labor violations committed against security guards.

There are many links between Honduras' private security industry and its police and military forces. A number of security company owners are current or former army generals and police officials.

In response to being followed and threatened in various ways, and particularly in response to the robbery of the Delta vehicle that had been put in his custody, Díaz registered official reports with the DGIC and with the Office of the Public Prosecutor for Common Crimes.

Similarly, the Office of the Public Prosecutor patently ignored Diaz's report while proceeding swiftly to take legal action against him in response to SETECH's report.

For months ASJ has been soliciting the Ministry of Security to undertake an in-depth investigation of the legality of Honduras' private security firms in order to make sure they fulfill the requisites established by Honduran law.

ASJ has also requested the Office of the Public Prosecutor to investigate possible links these firms may have with various illicit activities.

To date, not one of these requests to government agencies has been met with a positive response, thus strengthening the impunity and illegality that put Honduras among the most corrupt countries in the world.

Paradoxically, government agencies continue to sign contracts worth millions of Lempiras with security companies reported to be routine violators of Honduran labor law.

ASJ confirms that in following God's call to seek social justice all of its employees are at risk to violence committed against their persons—as Díaz's murder shows, the enemies of democracy and the common good have begun a violent attack.

We profoundly lament the fact that in Honduras defending human rights continues to put one in danger and that the constitution does not protect those who do right.

ASJ expresses its sorrow and condolences for Lourdes Elvir, Díaz's widow, for his six-year-old son, and for the rest of his family. We pray that God will pour out his blessings upon them and that he will give them strength to bear this great loss.

ASJ also demands that the appropriate agencies investigate Honduras' private security companies to guarantee that they operate strictly within the limits defined by the law.

We call upon the president of the Republic of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya Rosales; the president of the Supreme Court of Justice, Vilma Cecilia Morales; the president of the National Congress, Roberto Micheletti; the Human Rights Commissioner, Ramón Custodio López; the Attourney General, Leonidas Rosa Bautista; and the minister of Security, Alvaro Romero, to clarify with the greatest speed possible the death of our beloved and unforgettable coworker and ally of the poor.

The murder of defenders of human rights like Dionisio Díaz García weakens and constitutes an attack against democracy in Honduras.

"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" —Micah 6:8

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For more information, contact:

info@ajs-us.org

1-800-897-1135

Or visit www.ajs-us.org

The Association for a More Just Society (AJS) is a U.S., Christian nonprofit dedicated to promoting justice in Honduras and elsewhere as well as to educating North Americans about justice issues. 

La Asociación para una Sociedad más Justa (ASJ) is AJS's Honduran partner organization.

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