Inside the world's deadliest country: Honduras
December 31, 2012, 12:20 AM
Inside the world's deadliest country: Honduras
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras Every Saturday morning, one of my taxi drivers pays about $12 for the right to park his cab near a hospital, about two blocks from a police station.
But it's not the government that's charging.
An unidentified man pulls up in a large SUV, usually brandishing an AK-47, and accepts an envelope of cash without saying a word. Jose and nine other drivers who pay the extortionists estimate that it amounts to more than $500 a year to park on public property. During Christmas, the cabbies dish out another $500 each in holiday "bonuses."
Meanwhile, Jose pays the city $30 a year for his taxi license.
"Who do you think is really in charge here?" Jose asked me.
It is an interesting question, one I have been trying to answer since I arrived here a year ago as a correspondent for The Associated Press. Is the government in charge? The drug traffickers? The gangs? This curious capital of 1.3 million people is a lawless place, but it does seem to have its own set of unwritten rules for living with the daily dangers.
Jose, who did not want his last name used for fear of reprisals, says his extortionists are from "18th Street," a powerful gang that started in U.S. prisons. The taxi drivers don't bother to report the crime, he says, because they suspect police are involved in the racket. In the first six months of 2012, 51 taxi drivers were killed in Tegucigalpa — most of them, Jose's colleagues believe, for failing to pay extortionists.
More:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57561301/
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