2,000 soldiers and police officers will be assigned there to seize drugs and illegal weapons. The government says the Aguan River region is being targeted by drug traffickers in increasing numbers, as they try to move their products to the United States. The police and military will be there to search vehicles and pedestrians, and pursue suspects.

The National Popular Resistance Front claims that by the Honduran government moving the fourth battalion from La Ceiba to the Aguan region, they are purposefully intimidating the almost 3,000 farm workers who are squatting on the commercial African palm plantations there.

The workers have been camped out on 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares), and Lobo’s administration has attempted to negotiate with the squatters by offering each worker almost five acres (two hectares) of land elsewhere, along with financial assistance, if they agree to leave. The farmers, however, have remained, and are demanding greater amounts of land.