In the 1970s and 1980s, Honduran state agents perpetrated grave human rights violations against civilians as part of a clandestine United States-backed war against a perceived communist threat in Central America.

In 1986, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights started a case against Honduras concerning the disappearance of Saúl Godínez Crúz and Angel Manfredo Velásquez Rodríguez. In both cases, the court found that the state had violated the fundamental human rights of the two men as part of its anti-communist campaign. (Read more about the Inter-American Court of Human Rights cases.)

In 2002, dissatisfied with the degree of accountability and compensation to victims provided by the government, victims of state violence brought a civil case against Juan López Grijalba, a commander of a notorious intelligence unit in the Honduran army, in a United States district court. In 2006, the court ordered López Grijalba to pay US$47 million to the six plaintiffs. (Read more about Reyes v. López Grijalba.)

In June 2009, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was removed from power and expelled from the country by a group of conservative politicians backed by the military and led by Roberto Micheletti. The international community condemned the coup and Honduras’ membership in the Organization of American States was suspended. The coup was followed by widespread violence in Honduras and human rights abuses by the military and the police against demonstrators opposing the coup. In an effort to resolve the conflict, peace talks were held between the ousted and the new government, which resulted in the Tegucigalpa-San José Accord, signed on 30 October 2009.

The accord provided for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to examine and report on the events that took place before and after the coup. Although Zelaya has since declared the accord void because of the newly elected, conservative Lobo administration’s failure to fulfil all of the accord’s provisions, in April 2010, the government established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It had already adopted a decree offering blanket amnesty for political offenses in January of the same year. The commission has been criticised for its lack of transparency and bias in favour of state agents. (Read more about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.)

In response to calls for an independent truth commission, the Human Rights Platform of Honduras launched an alternative commission in June 2010 that aims to document, particularly though countrywide interviews with victims, the human rights violations that occurred before and after the coup. The civil society-supported Commission of Truth was established as a more transparent and comprehensive alternative to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. (Read more about the Commission of Truth.)