The Iron Hand Of The Women's Honduras Brush Bandit, Prepares New Prisons For 20 Thousand Criminals

Honduras President Xiomara Castro/PHOTO via Instagram @xiomaracastraz

JAKARTA - After a month of implementing an "iron gun" policy aimed at fighting rampant drug crimes and gangs, Honduras police confiscated hundreds of weapons and arrested suspected gang members.

With a hard-handed approach aka mano duro' in Spanish, Honduras President Xiomara Castro used emergency powers to designate gang members as terrorists and send security forces into a crime-packed environment.

He plans to imprison more than 20,000 people in the new big prison.

This strategy is a lighter version of the tactics of neighboring El Salvador. There, President Nayib Bukele has also suspended constitutional rights, implemented mass trials, and jailed about 2 percent of the adult population and thousands of minors.

In Honduras, there are widespread doubts as to whether the government will be able to emulate the results achieved by El Salvador, where crime rates have drastically decreased and life has changed.

"Unfortunately they have extended (emergency) measures to get results, but we ask ourselves: What results are the police really expecting and what results are residents expecting?" said security lawyer and analyst Saul Bueso.

They said the massacre had been reduced, attacks in various places had declined, but when we read the newspaper, we saw massacres and killings continued," he added.

People who have seen previous governments fail with hardline tactics are still uncertain.

"An iron handle? Don't believe it," said Normana resident in the capital Tegucigalpa, where routine patrols are carried out.

"In terms of murder, death, crime, in many ways we suffer and today, God is the only thing that supports us," he said.