Last week, in the midst of a political campaign that has focused heavily on public security, authorities in Honduras deployed 1,000 military police as part of an effort to address drug violence and organized crime in this Central American country, home to the highest homicide rate in the world.
Honduras is nearing its November elections, when voters will determine whether the same two parties will continue to dominate the political scene, or whether a new party will upend the election.
The deployment of the newly created military police unit is another step in a 10-year process in which the Honduran government has militarized domestic security, according to Mark Ungar, a Latin America expert and professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center.