The Horcones Massacre (Masacre Los Horcones) was a series of killings centered on the Los Horcones ranch in the department of Olancho, Honduras, in June 1975, in which up to 15 religious leaders, campesinos and students were killed, by the military, in a backlash against peasant land grabs in this frontier region.
Contents
Major Jose Enrique Chinchilla, Lieutenant Benjamin Plata, Manuel Zelaya and Carlos Bahr were convicted for involvement the massacre. Manuel Zelaya is the father of Manuel Zelaya, later president of Honduras.
Events
Among those killed were Father Iván Betancourt, a visiting Colombian priest working in areas where agrarian reform cooperatives were organizing, and Father Michael Jerome Zypher (Padre Casimiro), a priest visiting from Wisconsin, United States, who was killed during an interrogation.
The bodies of five farmers were burned alive in a bread oven. The bodies of two priests were castrated and severely mutilated. Two women were thrown in the well alive before the shaft was dynamited.
According to journalist and author Wendy Griffin, "The Massacre of Los Horcones was seen as a clash between the interests of large landowners and the social activism of the church of the time." After the bodies were found, the federal government ordered all priests, monks, and nuns to leave the area for their own safety.
One of the victims was Máximo Aguilera, the father of Christian Democratic Party congressman Lucas Aguilera.
Convictions
José Manuel "Mel" Zelaya, a rich landowner and father of later President of the Republic José Manuel "Mel" Zelaya, had allegedly provided a .22 Magnum and a car. He also allegedly gave a $2,500 reward for killing the Colombian priest.
The provincial army commander Major Jose Enrique Chinchilla, Lieutenant Benjamin Silver, Manuel "Mel" Zelaya and Carlos Bahr were sentenced to 20 years in prison. Zelaya Jr. visited his incarcerated father often, sometimes sleeping on the prison floor, according to Victor Meza, Zelaya's former interior minister.
The murderers were favored by the amnesty decree, on military crimes, of the Constituent National Assembly on September 3, 1980. They had spent a little over a year in prison when released on September 11.
Today
According to the Guardian newspaper, everyone in the town remembers the slayings.