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Honduras Public Security Force
Unavailable
Figure 10. Organization of the Public Security Force, 1993
Source: Based on information from Jane's Intelligence
Review, [London], February 1993, 90-93; and World
Encyclopedia of Police Forces and Penal Systems, 1989, 162.
The Public Security Force (Fuerza de Seguridad
Pública--Fusep),
the fourth major component of the armed forces, is
responsible for
maintaining public order and protecting private property.
Police
units were first created in Honduras in 1882, and a
traffic
division was established in 1933. When the PLH, led by
President
Ramón Villeda Morales, came to power in 1957, a Civil
Guard was
created to assume police functions. The Civil Guard,
however,
appeared to military leaders to pose a direct threat to
their
political influence and interests. After the 1963 coup
that brought
López Arellano to power, the Civil Guard was disbanded and
replaced
by an army-dominated Special Security Corps, which took
over all
major police functions. The Special Security Corps was
organized
into small detachments throughout the country with
responsibility
for regulating transit, patrolling the border, and
investigating
criminal activities.
Once they had gained control of police functions by
absorbing
the Civil Guard, the armed forces attempted to restore to
police
units a certain measure of independence. Although army
officers
controlled the Special Security Corps and later Fusep,
which
replaced the Special Security Corps in 1973, political
reasons led
the armed forces to distance themselves from the police.
During the
1970s, military leaders such as López Arellano benefited
from the
perception among peasants that the armed forces were
progressive
and bent on implementing land reform.
Although Fusep continued to be controlled by army
officers and
was formally subordinate to the Ministry of National
Defense and
Public Security, by the early 1980s it had its own general
staff
and separate organizational structure. Fusep had
regular-line
police units and an investigative unit that is now called
the
Directorate of National Investigations (Directorio de
Investigación
Nacional--DIN). DIN was formed in 1976 and became heavily
involved
in the campaign to quell internal subversion and unrest.
Fusep came
to be viewed by the armed forces as the primary instrument
for
dealing with internal security problems. However, some
military
officers felt that Fusep was staffed with unsophisticated
and
sometimes brutal personnel, and they worried about the
effect on
their national image of too-close an association with
Fusep.
In 1993 Fusep was made up of 5,500 active-duty
personnel, making
it the second largest service branch after the army. It is
organized under a director general with commands for
counternarcotics, traffic police, treasury, logistics, and
the DIN.
The DIN is made up of departments for criminal
identification,
intelligence and immigration, and a police laboratory. The
traffic
command is responsible for vehicle registration and
inspection,
licenses, traffic control, and investigation of accidents.
A
directorate of operations controls two special services
squadrons
(El Machen and Casamata); the Morazán signal squadron;
police
stations; and a technical and tactical police department,
which
includes an elite counterinsurgency battalion, the Cobras.
In
addition to their anti-guerrilla activities, the Cobras
have also
been used against labor unions, populist organizations,
and student
activists. The infamous Battalion 3-16, which was created
in the
early 1980s to function as a clandestine countersubversive
force
and which has been linked to the disappearance and
extrajudicial
execution of hundreds of Honduran civilians, is believed
to be
under Fusep authority
(see
fig. 10).
Data as of December 1993
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