Jeff Dunsavage's Blog (589)

The U.S. State Department tells my family we have to go through the broken-to-nonexistent Honduran "justice" system in order to get a finding that my brother (who disappeared at sea off the Honduran island of Roatan) can be declared dead. This after my family personally funded an exhaustive search/rescue operation (with belated and begrudged U.S. government assistance) and an in-depth into my brother's background and those of his business partner. At great personal expense and pain, we did…

Please watch this piece about the disappearance two years ago of John Parks in Matamoros, MX, and share it widely.

http://www.krgv.com/news/few-answers-2-years-after-man-disappears-in-matamoros

These cases get precious little media coverage and scant attention from our government. Maybe if more people begin to know and understand the underlying issues we will begin to see policy…

Even before the tour bus comes to a stop, the women rise from their seats and wait in the aisle to exit. In their arms rest rolled-up flags of the Central American countries they come from. Large laminated photographs of missing loved ones hang by lanyards from their necks. They descend the stairs to a gaggle of waiting press photographers. This is their moment of hope, stirring once again the possibility of putting to rest years of uncertainty and desperation.

Maybe someone has seen…

A 34-year-old conservation officer with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in B.C. has been shot dead on the island of Roatan in Honduras. Tim Vallee, who worked for the DFO Pacific Region, was on holiday in Honduras this past week when he was robbed at gunpoint and shot in the head Wednesday.

Read more: …

Three years after his disappearance in Costa Rica and the Dixon family is no nearer to finding out what happened to their son.

Michael was last seen leaving his hotel in Tamarindo, Costa Rica on 18 October 2009.The British and Costa Rican response to the incident has been bugged by incompetence and false hope from start to end.

The Foreign Office did not tell the…

Days after the Mexican Navy announced it detained an alleged leader of the Zetas drug cartel who is suspected in the 2010 killing of American David Hartley on a lake near the U.S.-Mexico border, the victim’s wife said she's hopeful the suspect could provide answers to what happened to her husband.

"Maybe he knows where David’s remains are, or where he's located," Tiffany Hartley, the victim's widow, said.

Tiffany Hartley said she was with her husband riding Jet Skis on Falcon…

Another conversation with another mother (in this case, a mother -- could be a father, daughter, son, sister, brother, friend...) of a person missing in a foreign country, her own government (and mine) unwilling, unable to provide meaningful guidance, support, advice. I'm happy to be able to provide a bit of moral and practical advice and a connection with someone in her state who has been through the same ordeal. Then I'm on Facebook and see a guy who is scheduled to move in a couple weeks…

Check out this story about the Costa Concordia disaster. And, if you're going on a cruise, make sure to read the fine print on your agreement that limits your right to sue.

This story is about a month old -- wish I'd learned about it sooner. Reproduced below, it is a letter from the victims of the attack to the U.S. Ambassador in Tegucigalpa. Please remember if you travel in that part of the world that you have entered a lawless realm without legal recourse -- and, if you are an American, this fact is likely to hurt you more than…

...you might want to spend some time with this FaceBook group consisting of expats living there.

Article worth reading, from The New York Times.

The Zack Shahin Case -- U.S. citizen jailed without due process in Dubai -- gets a bit more coverage; not nearly enough, so please share widely.

This article in Salon asks the perplexing question: Why, if cruise-ship crime is a growing problem, did the FBI at the last minute push through language in cruise safety legislation that makes it MORE DIFFICULT for tourists to make informed choices about what line to cruise on or whether to cruise at all?

U.S. citizen Zack Shahin has been held for 4 years in "pre-trial detention" in Dubai. Amid allegations of corruption against various directors and officers of the company he'd previously worked for, Shahin has been  singled out as having participated in draining the company of equity. He has been imprisoned without trial by the Dubai Government under inhumane conditions for over four years, suffering violations of his due process rights under the laws of Dubai.…

Writing in his blog Cruise Law News, maritime lawyer Jim Walker reports that, while cruise lines sell an idyllic image of care-free tropical vacations, in reality they know or should know that there are dangers on shore awating their passengers. In particular,…

Ever since Kendall Carver's daughter mysteriously disappeared on an Alaskan cruise in 2004, he has dedicated his life to holding the cruise-line industry more accountable for passenger safety. The retired Phoenix businessman believed he succeeded in 2010 with the passage of federal legislation that was supposed to reveal the full picture of the deaths, sexual assaults, thefts, missing persons and other crimes reported on cruise ships.…

Thousands of people have been marching in cities across Honduras in protest at a wave of violence against journalists. More than 20 journalists have been murdered over the past three years.

None of the murders has been solved, and it is not clear whether the victims were targeted because of their profession.

Honduras has the world's highest…

Jason Puracal is an American who's right now fighting for his life in a Nicaraguan prison called La Modela -- known to be one of the world's most dangerous jails -- after being convicted of crimes many people say he didn't commit. 

Just four years earlier, in the same Nicaraguan courtroom, another American named Eric Volz was also convicted of a crime he didn't commit. He…

A Brownsville, TX family is offering up to $10,000 for information that helps them find their son, who has been missing since the beginning of March. Family members said Chris Garcia was last seen crossing into Mexico on March 7. Watch the report.

The children mentioned inthis article do NOT appear to be the ones referenced in the blog post below. The article does make clear how dangerous Honduras is:

The grave, found outside La Ceiba ,"is the third clandestine grave found in the first months of this year. The first was found in San Pedro Sula on February 13 and the second was found in Tela, on February 17."…