Last Dec. 29, César Silva, a social communicator committed to the Honduran people's struggle against the coup, was kidnapped by unidentified men and savagely beaten and tortured. Although they weren't in uniform, Silva is certain that his captors were members of the military or the police. According to Honduran human rights organizations, this is only one incident in a wider repressive strategy carried out by the de facto government in connivance with the country's military and police forces with the aim of sowing terror among the population and any media that refuses to join the coup forces.

César Silva has shot extensive videos and photos since the June 28 coup, and his work, along with Edwin Renán Fajardo's (killed on Dec. 22 when he was just 22 years old), has been invaluable material to communicate to the world the tragedy that the Honduran people have suffered under the de facto government. It has also been used by the Resistance movement as input for training and awareness-raising activities organized in different neighborhoods and communities in the capital and throughout the country.

Silva was seized in the streets of Tegucigalpa, and taken blindfolded somewhere outside the city. For the next 24 hs he was interrogated by his captors, who demanded that he tell them where the Resistance was allegedly hiding its weapons. He was brutally beaten and tortured, stripped naked, and nearly choked to death. Then as quickly as he had been seized, he was released. He fared better than human rights advocator Walter Tróchez, who was murdered a few days after being kidnapped.

Sirel traveled to an undisclosed site, somewhere in Central America, to meet with César Silva, who decided to leave the country with his family as soon as he was released, following advice from friends who feared for his safety.

-Can you tell us how it happened?

-I was just coming back from southern Honduras, where I'd gone to distribute some audiovisual material to peasant networks, and when I reached the capital, I hailed a cab to take me home. I didn't know it then, but they were listening in on all the calls I made on my cell phone, and knew exactly where I was going.

When we got to the outskirts of the city, a van drove up close to the taxi and its occupants drew their guns at us, forcing us to pull over. First I thought they were thieves, so I told them to take my equipment, but their response was blunt: “We're not after that shit; it's you we want, you bastard. We're here to take you with us.”

They pulled me into the van, threatened the cab driver to keep his mouth shut, and drove away. They forced me to put by head between my legs and then when I couldn't stand it any longer, they put a hood over my head. After about an hour we stopped in the countryside somewhere, and they threw me into a pitch-dark room. That was when the interrogation began.

-What happened then?

-My interrogators got rougher and rougher as the hours passed. There was always one captor who would treat me decently, but I knew that was just a tactic. They asked me where we were hiding our weapons, how we had smuggled them into the country, how many groups I was in charge of, and who my international contacts were.

I didn't understand what they wanted and I kept repeating that I was a journalist and that I didn't know anything about any weapons. They got impatient and started beating me brutally, hitting me on my face, stomach, back and testicles. They made me strip and threw water on me. Then they threw me on the floor, shoved water up my nose, and pressed a chair against my windpipe, choking me.

They knew perfectly well who I was, and at one point they even mentioned the work I'd done with Renán Fajardo, and they talked about him. When dawn came, they tried to frighten me even more, talking loudly about how they were going to kill me. But in the end they decided to release me. They put me in a vehicle and drove away. After driving for some time they kicked me out into the street.

They left me lying there and as soon as I could get up I decided to go to COFADEH (Commission of Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared in Honduras) to report what had happened so everyone would know what's happening in Honduras.

-Did you ask yourself why they had kidnapped you?

-They stopped cracking down daily on mobilizations, and instead they've started this tactic of selective kidnappings. In my case, I think the work I did with Renán when Radio Globo and Cholusat Sur-Canal 36 were closed down did a lot of damage to the coup perpetrators, because our material was seen everywhere and it helped to break the isolation and the disinformation that the de facto government wanted to impose.

We were covering everything that was happening in the country, reporting on the repression, the murders and the violence, and we distributed the material we shot so the Resistance could use it to inform the people, who had lost all reliable media, as it had been closed down by the government.

We eventually had to suspend our work because people were being searched and repressive actions were spreading. Several of the Resistance leaders who organized these activities in neighborhoods and communities were murdered.

-Why do you think they decided not to kill you?

-I think there was never an order to kill me. They meant to use me as an example, to sow terror among my Honduran colleagues, whose efforts are really hurting the coup perpetrators. They wanted to send out a message: if they could do this to me, they could do it to any other journalist at any time. What they want is to shut us up.

What concerns me is the large number of journalists who have joined the coup powers, who have sold themselves for a few coins and are trading on the blood of their people just to secure a job.

-Why did you decide to leave the country?

-After I was kidnapped I knew that they could come to my house and murder me at any time. Besides, human rights organizations and several of my friends told me that they didn't want to see any more victims and urged me to leave the country. I hope this is only temporary, because my greatest wish is to go back to Honduras and continue with my work.

I'm not afraid; but I have to be more careful, I can't just give my life up so easily. If they want to kill them, they're going to have to fight a little harder.