text: SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
  
      This Act may be cited as the ``Berta Caceres Human Rights in 
  Honduras Act''.
  
  SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
  
      Congress finds the following:
              (1) The Honduran police are widely established to be deeply 
          corrupt and commit human rights abuses, including torture, 
          rape, illegal detention, and murder, with impunity.
              (2) The New York Times revealed documents on April 15, 
          2016, indicating that top officials of the Honduran police 
          ordered the killings of drug-crime investigators Julian 
          Aristides Gonzales and Alfredo Landaverde in 2009 and 2011, 
          respectively, with the subsequent knowledge of top police and, 
          evidently, high-ranking government officials. The Times 
          suggested in a subsequent article that the revelations were 
          being manipulated by the President of Honduras for his own 
          corrupt purposes.
              (3) Individuals in the police with documented records of 
          having committed gross human abuses with impunity continue to 
          be appointed to high positions within the police.
              (4) International human rights bodies have reported that 
          the Honduran military and police commit human rights abuses, 
          including killings, with impunity. The Associated Press has 
          documented death squad activity by police. Human Rights Watch 
          reports: ``The use of lethal force by the national police is a 
          chronic problem. Investigations into the police abuses are 
          marred by inefficiency and corruption, little information about 
          them is made public; and impunity is the rule.''.
              (5) The Department of State's Honduran Human Rights Report 
          for 2016 reports: ``Impunity remains a serious problem, with 
          prosecution in cases of military and police officials charged 
          with human rights violations moving too slowly or remaining 
          inconclusive.''.
              (6) Repeated efforts to clean up the Honduran police have 
          largely failed. A recent commission to clean up the police 
          reports that it has separated a number of police. However, to 
          date there has been minimal and only token progress in 
          effectively prosecuting members of the police involved in 
          corruption and human rights abuses, and the reported 
          separations have not been independently verified. Moreover, 
          long-lasting, fundamental reform of the police still needs to 
          be enacted.
              (7) Rights Action documented the Fifteenth Battalion of the 
          Honduran Armed Forces allegedly participated with police and 
          private security forces in some of the killings of over 100 
          small-farmer activists in the Aguan Valley beginning in 2000. 
          In 2015, Human Rights Watch confirmed that the killings of 
          Aguan farmers were met with no consequences. To date there has 
          been one confirmed conviction of a private actor. 
          Assassinations of key activists continue. In October 2016, Jose 
          Angel Flores, the president of the Unified Campesino Movement 
          of the Aguan (MUCA), and Silmer Dionisio George, another MUCA 
          member, were assassinated.
              (8) Further examples abound of human rights abuses by the 
          military: in July 2013 members of the Armed Forces shot and 
          killed Tomas Garcia, a Lenca Indigenous activist, and injured 
          his son while they were peacefully protesting a dam project; in 
          May 2014, nine members of the Ninth Infantry reportedly 
          tortured and killed Amado Maradiaga Quiroz and tortured his 
          son, Milton Noe Maradiaga Varela. The cases remain unresolved. 
          In a recent emblematic case, on December 27, 2015, the Honduran 
          Navy reportedly killed Joel Palacios Lino and Elvis Armando 
          Garcia, two Garifuna Afro-Indigenous men who were engaged in 
          digging a car out of the sand on a beach. The case remains in 
          impunity over a year later.
              (9) The current Government of Honduras has expanded the 
          military's reach into domestic policing, including the creation 
          of a 3,000-member Military Police in clear violation of the 
          Honduran constitution and with disastrous results, including 
          the killings of a 15-year-old boy, Ebed Yanes, in 2012 and a 
          student, Erlin Misael Carias Moncada, in 2014, after they had 
          passed unarmed through checkpoints, and the January 2, 2017, 
          killing of 17-year-old Edgardo Moreno Rodriquez. Since the 
          creation of the Military Police ``allegations of human rights 
          abuses by the military have increased notably'', reports Human 
          Rights Watch. In 2016 the creation of two new battalions of the 
          Military Police was announced.
              (10) The Honduran judicial system has been widely 
          documented to be rife with corruption. Judges, prosecutors and 
          other officials are interconnected with organized crime and 
          drug traffickers, contributing to near-complete immunity.
              (11) The Department of State in its 2015 Human Rights 
          Report for Honduras reports ``corruption, intimidation, and 
          institutional weakness of the justice system leading to 
          widespread impunity.''.
              (12) Summarizing the situation, Human Rights Watch reports 
          in 2016 that ``Rampant crime and impunity for human rights 
          abuses remain the norm in Honduras . . . Efforts to reform the 
          institutions responsible for providing public security have 
          made little progress. Marred by corruption and abuse, the 
          judiciary and police remain largely ineffective.''.
              (13) The March 2, 2016, assassination of prominent Lenca 
          Indigenous and environmental activist Berta Caceres, world-
          renowned recipient of the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize for 
          her work defending Indigenous land rights against a 
          hydroelectric dam project, illustrates the human rights crisis 
          in Honduras, and the deep complicity of the Honduran 
          government. Caceres, the leader of COPINH, the Council of 
          Indigenous and Popular Organizations of Honduras, had reported 
          to authorities 33 threats previous to her killing, but none had 
          been investigated, and the government had failed to provide 
          adequate protection measures as mandated by the Inter-American 
          Commission on Human Rights, with protection by Honduran 
          security being withdrawn the day of her death.
              (14) As of February 2017, eight suspects, four of whom have 
          ties to the Honduran military, have been arrested in the 
          killing of Caceres, one of whom is a current officer in the 
          military and three others are former military. These arrests 
          raise serious questions about the role of the Honduran military 
          in her assassination, including the chain of command within the 
          military as well as the identity of the true authors of the 
          assassination.
              (15) The Government of Honduras continues to unduly limit 
          legally mandated access by Ms. Caceres' family to the case 
          file. In late September 2016, the original case file was 
          allowed to leave the Public Ministry and was stolen.
              (16) Despite calls from 62 Members of Congress, members of 
          the family of Berta Caceres, COPINH, leaders of the European 
          Union, the Vatican Pontifical Council on Peace and Justice, and 
          many others, the Honduran government has not permitted the 
          Inter-American Commission on Human rights to conduct an 
          independent investigation of the case.
              (17) In this context of corruption and human rights abuses, 
          trade unionists, journalists, lawyers, Afro-Indigenous 
          activists, Indigenous activists, small-farmer activists, LGBTI 
          activists, human rights defenders, and critics of the 
          government remain at severe risk; and previous human rights 
          abuses against them remain largely unpunished.
              (18) The May 2, 2016, shooting of prominent opposition 
          journalist Felix Molina illustrates the continued risk facing 
          activists. Hours before he was shot, Molina had posted 
          information potentially linking Caceres's killing to a top 
          government official, members of an elite family, and one of the 
          prosecutors in the case.
              (19) The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016 allocated 
          approximately $18,000,000 to the Honduran police and military, 
          in addition to the National Defense Authorization Act for 
          Fiscal Year 2016 authorizing additional funding. The 
          Administration's funding request for fiscal year 2017 also 
          calls for an increase in security funding for Honduras.
              (20) The Inter-American Development Bank in 2012 lent 
          $59,800,000 to the Honduran police, with United States 
          approval.
  
  SEC. 3. SUSPENSION AND RESTRICTIONS OF SECURITY ASSISTANCE EXTENDED TO 
                REPUBLIC OF HONDURAS UNLESS CERTAIN CONDITIONS HAVE BEEN 
                MET.
  
      (a) Suspension of Security Assistance.--No funds may be made 
  available to provide assistance for the police or military of the 
  Republic of Honduras, including assistance for equipment and training.
      (b) Loans From Multilateral Development Banks.--The Secretary of 
  the Treasury shall instruct United States representatives at 
  multilateral development banks to vote no on any loans for the police 
  or military of the Republic of Honduras.
  
  SEC. 4. CONDITIONS FOR LIFTING SUSPENSIONS AND RESTRICTIONS.
  
      The provisions of this Act shall terminate on the date on which the 
  Secretary of State determines and certifies to the Committee on Foreign 
  Affairs of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign 
  Relations of the Senate that the Government of Honduras has--
              (1) pursued all legal avenues to bring to trial and obtain 
          a verdict of those who ordered and carried out--
                      (A) the March 2, 2016, murder of Berta Caceres;
                      (B) the killings of over 100 small-farmer activists 
                  in the Aguan Valley;
                      (C) the December 27, 2015, killings of Joel 
                  Palacios Lino and Elvis Armando Garcia; and
                      (D) the May 3, 2016, armed attack on Felix Molina;
              (2) investigated and successfully prosecuted members of 
          military and police forces who are credibly found to have 
          violated human rights, and ensured that the military and police 
          cooperated in such cases, and that such violations have ceased;
              (3) withdrawn the military from domestic policing, in 
          accordance with the Honduran Constitution, and ensured that all 
          domestic police functions are separated from the command and 
          control of the Armed Forces of Honduras and are instead 
          directly responsible to civilian authority;
              (4) established that it protects effectively the rights of 
          trade unionists, journalists, human rights defenders, 
          Indigenous, Afro-Indigenous, small-farmer, and LGBTI activists, 
          critics of the government, and other civil society activists to 
          operate without interference; and
              (5) taken effective steps to fully establish the rule of a 
          law and to guarantee a judicial system that is capable of 
          investigating, prosecuting, and bringing to justice members of 
          the police and military who have committed human rights abuses.
target: Berta Caceres Human Rights in Honduras Act This bill prohibits funds from being made available to Honduras for the police or military (including for equipment and training), and directs the Department of the Treasury to instruct U.S. representatives at multilateral development banks to vote against any loans for the police or military of Honduras, until the Department of States certifies that the government of Honduras has:   prosecuted members of the military and police for human rights violations and ensured that such violations have ceased;  established the rule of law and guaranteed a judicial system capable of bringing to justice members of the police and military who have committed human rights abuses;  established that it protects the rights of trade unionists, journalists, human rights defenders, government critics, and civil society activists to operate without interference;  withdrawn the military from domestic policing; and   brought to trial and obtained verdicts against those who ordered and carried out the attack on Felix Molina and the killings of Berta Caceres, Joel Palacios Lino, Elvis Armando Garcia, and over 100 small-farmer activists in the Aguan Valley. 
feat_title: Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act