Battalion members received training and support from the United States Central Intelligence Agency both in Honduras and at US military bases,[3] Battalion 601 (including Juan Ciga Correa), who had collaborated with the Chilean DINA in assassinating General Carlos Prats and had trained, along with Mohamed Alí Seineldín, the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance.
[1] Beginning in 1982, Battalion 3-16 agents detained hundreds of leftist activists, including students, teachers, unionists, and suspected guerrillas who were then disappeared.
Armed with Uzi sub-machine guns or pistols, they surveilled their victims, abducted them, and then sped off in double-cab Toyota pickup trucks with tinted windows and stolen license plates.
[7] In 1982, according to requests for US declassified documents by the National Commissioner for Human Rights in Honduras,[2] or in 1984 according to COFADEH,[1] its name was changed to the "Intelligence Battalion 3–16".
Although during training sessions, the agency emphasized psychological torture, the CIA adviser referred to as "Mr. Mike" told 3-16 agent Florencio Caballero that electric shocks were "the most efficient way to get someone to talk when they resisted".
[7] A former prisoner of the 3-16, Ines Murillo, claimed in an interview that during her captivity she had often been tortured in the presence of the CIA adviser, "Mr. Mike", and that he at one time submitted questions to ask her.
"[1] Seven former members of Battalion 3–16 (Billy Joya, Alvaro Romero, Erick Sánchez, Onofre Oyuela Oyuela, Napoleón Nassar Herrera, Vicente Rafael Canales Nuñez, Salomón Escoto Salinas and René Maradianga Panchamé) occupied important positions in the administration of President Manuel Zelaya as of mid-2006, according to the human rights organisation CODEH.
[15][16][17][18] Using freedom of information laws, efforts were made by various people to obtain documentary records of the role of the United States with respect to Battalion 3–16.
For example, on 3 December 1996, members of United States Congress, including Tom Lantos, Joseph P. Kennedy II, Cynthia McKinney, Richard J. Durbin, John Conyers and others, asked President Bill Clinton for "the expeditious and complete declassification of all U.S. documents pertaining to human rights violations in Honduras" and claimed that "The U.S. government ... helped to establish, train and equip Battalion 3–16, military unit which was responsible for the kidnapping, torture, disappearance and murder of at least 184 Honduran students, professors, journalists, human rights activists and others in the 1980s.