preservation of archives and other material sources of memory; commemoration of the
events, and educational policies for preserving memory and enshrining its value.
7.1 Enacting a law on historical memory
This law should guarantee access to justice for all victims of the enforcement of the national
security doctrine, and the development of public policies designed to rehabilitate and honor
the memory and the values of those who were victims of these practices of state terrorism.
It should satisfy the standard qualities of transitional justice, it should ensure investigation
of facts comprising serious human rights violations during the repression, it should meet the
requirements of truth and the right of victims to know, including both the right of access to
information, and the right to know the identity and whereabouts of the perpetrators of the
extrajudicial executions, acts of torture and sexual violence, and the whereabouts of the
people who were detained and went missing.
Specifically, this law should guarantee: truth, justice, reparation, guarantees of nonrecurrence, construction and preservation of historical memory, including a law for victims
and a program for comprehensive reparation of victims of the enforcement of the national
security doctrine.
7.2 Enacting a law for investigation of responsibilities along the entire chain of
command
A law making it possible to investigate persons in the chain of command who were involved
in the politically motivated crimes in the 1980s, and particularly the murder of Herminio
Deras, with the coordinated participation of various agents at different levels and
hierarchical structures who hold a variety of positions.
7.3 Amending domestic laws on torture
The current criminal code should be revised in its sentencing provisions for aggravating or
mitigating circumstances, to be consistent with Article 4(2) of the Convention against
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to guarantee
that justice is served in cases of extrajudicial execution, acts of torture, and cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment.
7.4 Policies to preserve archives and sites of conscience
For the purpose of preservation, the State can consider creating a document collection on
human rights violations committed from the 1980s to the present, identifying documents in
the possession of security forces and other public institutions concerning human rights
violations.
The development of this document collection would require the implementation of principles
of government transparency and access to information, including a declaration to repeal all
rules and regulations that could block declassification of information on human rights
violations. It should particularly stipulate that the concept of “national security” cannot be
used to block access to information on human rights violations.
The document collection must be open to receive donations from social organizations and
individuals, such as human rights defense agencies, victim groups, and the media.
7.5 Policies for education on memory
Primary and secondary education in Honduras must include multiple instances for teaching
the history of the periods of violence, using dynamic, pedagogically sound, creative
approaches. Instruments such as the report by the human rights ombudsman on forced
disappearance and the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission should be
incorporated into the educational curriculum, facilitating their adaptation and synthesis for
various formats and models, including school textbooks, comic-book format, short stories,
multimedia presentations, oral history, and the like.
On this basis, the Office of the Public Prosecutor will work with relevant institutions and
those that are empowered to enact laws, to foster the issuing of public policies and
legislation regulating these matters.
112. In view of all the above, the Court will now order the guarantees of non-recurrence
that the State must adopt.
F.1. National policy on historical memory
113. The Court will order the State to proceed, within two years, to design and implement
a national policy on historical memory 98 that guarantees that all victims of the enforcement
98
The representatives requested, as part of a comprehensive public policy to promote historical memory that
the State: (a) “adopt a public policy of memory to cover those citizens it acknowledges as victims and recognize that
processes have been pursued historically to ignore them, and offer them this recognition along with guarantees,”
and “including sufficient guarantees to protect victims so they can participate;” (b) adopt “active strategies for