Tegucigalpa. A lawyer was appointed as Honduras’ new defense minister on Sunday amid a scandal over alleged ties to drug trafficking that led to the resignations of a nephew and brother-in-law of President Xiomara Castro from the government and Congress.
The scandal erupted after Castro on Wednesday cancelled an extradition treaty with the United States that allowed the imprisonment of some 50 Hondurans linked to drug trafficking, including powerful politicians, fuelling suspicions that members of the leftist government were linked to drug traffickers.
“I want to announce the appointment of Rixi Moncada,” a 59-year-old lawyer, to the post of Secretary of Defense, Castro announced in a speech at the opening ceremony of the Central American independence celebrations.
Castro’s nephew, José Manuel Zelaya, resigned as defense minister on Saturday, shortly after his father, Carlos Zelaya, resigned as a congressman and secretary of Congress after admitting that he met with drug lords in 2013.
Moncada, who is close to the presidential family, was minister of labor and energy in the government of Castro’s husband, Manuel Zelaya, who was overthrown in a coup in 2009.
The lawyer is seen as a favorite to be the presidential candidate of the ruling Libre party in the 2025 elections.
End of the treaty
The president said she cancelled the treaty, in force since 1912 and applied since 2014, to prevent the United States from using it against military personnel loyal to it and facilitating a coup attempt.
Castro made this drastic decision to condemn the “interference” of the US ambassador in Tegucigalpa, Laura Dogu, in Honduran affairs.
The diplomat had criticized the fact that Minister Zelaya and the head of the Armed Forces, General Roosevelt Hernández, had met with a Venezuelan minister sanctioned by Washington for drug trafficking.
Dogu, who attended the event led by Castro on Sunday, said he maintains “daily contact with the Honduran government.”
“This is my role as a diplomat, to maintain relations with the government and they are in contact with us,” she told reporters, without mentioning the resignations or the end of the bilateral treaty.
“We are here every day working on all diplomatic, economic, political and military issues, and we will continue our activities,” he added.
The end of the extradition treaty “is a step that benefits no one,” analyst Roberto Herrera, a former Honduran ombudsman, told AFP on Sunday.
The cancellation of the treaty with Washington suggests that there are Honduran government officials “linked” to drugs, sociologist Pablo Carías told AFP on Friday.
Mentioned in court
On Saturday, Castro’s brother-in-law Carlos Zelaya, brother of former President Zelaya, announced his resignation from Congress to face an investigation into ties to drug traffickers.
Shortly afterwards, his son resigned from his post as head of the Ministry of Defence.
Carlos Zelaya was mentioned last March in the trial in which former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández (2014-2022) was sentenced to 45 years for drug trafficking in New York.
Honduran Attorney General Johel Zelaya, who took office last November, sent a team to listen in on the hearings in Hernandez’s trial in New York and to investigate any Hondurans who were mentioned.
“We will continue our investigations, we will not rest until the truth prevails in Honduras and justice is served to the Honduran people. Whoever it may be!” said the prosecutor after the statement by deputy Zelaya.
Last August, the prosecutor – who has no family ties to the members of the government, despite having the same surname – announced that he would call to testify some 36 people who were mentioned in the case, one of them Carlos Zelaya.
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– 2024-09-02 01:21:45
