Editing Battalion 316 (section)

===Connections with the United States===
In early 1984, agents from Battalion 3-16, working closely with CIA agents, rounded up hundreds of leftist activists, including students, teachers, unionists, and suspected guerrillas. Unit members disguised themselves with clothes and sometimes with masks, wigs, and fake beards and mustaches. Armed with submachine guns Uzis, they watched over their victims, kidnapping them and taking them away in double cab paila cars with painted windows and stolen license plates, often in broad daylight, in the presence of several witnesses. Those captured were taken to secret prisons where they were stripped naked, their hands and feet bound and blindfolded, and where they were psychologically and physically tortured. His practices included electroshocks, immersion in water and suffocation.

The most notable case was that of Inés Murillo, who in 1983 and at the age of 24 was kidnapped and tortured for 78 days,  and, according to what she recounts, frequently in the presence of the CIA adviser, the '' Mr. Mike'', who had asked him questions. In his June 1988 testimony, Richard Stolz, then deputy director of operations, confirmed that the CIA had visited the prison where Murillo was being held. Stolz, along with former members of the battalion, also confirmed the training of members of the battalion, headed by a CIA agent known as ''Mr. Bill''. An informant who defected from Battalion 3-16 also stated that Father James Carney was executed on the orders of General Álvarez , in the presence of CIA officer ''Mr. Mike''. 10 years later, a seasoned State Department official privately admitted the role of the United States in the disappearances: "The green light was kill a communist," "all they winked and nodded," he said.

The United States ambassador at the time, John Negroponte, met on multiple occasions with General Gustavo Álvarez Martínez. In the summary of declassified US documents showing the telegrams sent and received by Negroponte, the National Security Archive states that ≪reporting of human rights atrocities≫ committed by Battalion 3-6 is ≪conspicuously absent from the cables traffic≫ and that ≪the Negroponte cables do not reflect no protest, or even discussion of these issues during his many meetings with General Álvarez, his deputies and the president of Honduras  Roberto Suazo. The released cables also do not contain any report to Washington about the human rights abuses that were taking place.≫ Likewise, Negroponte affirms that there was no government policy of human rights violations and that he never looked to Battalion 3-16 involved in activities of [[death squad|death squads]].

Efforts have been made through freedom of information laws to obtain documentation related to the role of the United States with respect to Battalion 3-16. On December 3, 1996, members of the United States Congress asked President Bill Clinton for the "complete and expeditious declassification of all documents pertaining to human rights violations in Honduras" and assured that "the United States government helped establish, train, and equip Battalion 3-16, a military unit that was responsible for the kidnapping, torture, and murder of at least 184 Honduran students, professors, journalists, and human rights activists, among others in the 1980s.”
[[Category:Honduras]]
[[Category:Latin American Villains]]
[[Category:Organizations]]
[[Category:War Criminal]]
[[Category:Supremacists]]
[[Category:Kidnapper]]
[[Category:Torturer]]
[[Category:Misogynists]]
[[Category:Terrorists]]
[[Category:Xenophobes]]
[[Category:Rapists]]
[[Category:Dissolved Organizations]]