Lack of Education Blamed for Poor Housing Standards

These poor children are exposed to dangerous diseases

By RUSSELL S. BROWN

As Japanese Mathematicians formulate a new and improved curriculum for Honduran students, the vast majority of the population still lack any basic form of education which, according to the National Institute of Statistics' 29th Survey of Permanent Homes of Multiple Purposes, is to blame for overcrowding and lack of access to services such as clean drinking water, energy and rudimentary sanitation.

The report estimates that the country's 1,396,884 homes harbor some 7,000,011 people, giving an average of over 5.0 people per home in just 3.3 rooms, 1.8 of which are used for sleeping. By definition, overcrowding is taken to mean three or more people per room and, as such, 83% of Honduran homes are classed as overcrowded.

Cramped and crowded conditions give rise to poor hygiene by providing places for vermin to breed and transmit diseases, such as Chagas disease, via fleas ticks and other vectors. Poor hygiene leads to food and water contamination, poor air quality leads to respiratory problems (burning wood, charcoal and dung gives off particularly harmful chemicals), poor lighting leads to eyesight problems and poor housing and poverty in general leads to stress, depression and illness.

As expected, rural homes, which constitute 52.6% of Honduran residences, were found to be larger than urban ones (an average of 5.3 and 4.7 inhabitants respectively) and one of the determining factors in whether or not the residents have access to basic services.

In Honduras 17% of homes do not count on an adequate service of water. The low access levels are attributed to the fact that public utilities cover only 6% of rural areas, meaning 61% of residents count on a collective private service, i.e. a single-source, communal supply. However, of the 73% of people who have access to water, 20% utilize natural sources such as rivers, streams and lagoons.
Basic forms of sanitation were also highlighted as a problem with 21% of Honduran homes not counting on adequate systems of sanitation. This increases to 28% in rural areas due to a greater reliance on latrines with simple wells and no form of waste elimination. In urban areas 58% of the population have access to toilets connected to some kind of drainage system, increasing to 86% in areas such as San Pedro Sula.

With infectious water-related diseases, such as E. Coli, Giardia, Cryptosporidium, Hepatitis E, Rotavirus and Legionella, being a major cause of morbidity and mortality, access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation is paramount and, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), the contribution expanded access can make to poverty alleviation is immense.

Both educational background and income level is said to be the root of such problems. Only 0.7% of people who lack any formal education have any kind of sanitation system and 28% of the poorest homes are classed as overcrowded. In contrast, 66% of the richest quintile have access to a toilet connected to a network of drains and 11% have a toilet connected to a septic well. Furthermore, the results show that overcrowding is greater when the leader has no educational level (23%), over a secondary level (7%) or higher education (1%).

The health and socioeconomic benefits of improving access to safe water and adequate sanitation are as immense as they are economically-rational. According to the WHO's economic evaluation study, US$1 invested would give an economic return of between US$3 and US$34. Achieving this target would require an additional investment of around $US11.3 billion per year over and above current investment levels and the benefits would include an average global reduction of diarrhoeal episodes of 10% and a total economic benefit of US$84 billion.

In 2003, 1.6 million deaths were attributable to unsafe water and inadequate sanitation, including lack of hygiene; 90% of this burden is concentrated on children under five. With 1.1 billion people in the world without access to improved sources of water and 2.4 billion without access to improved sanitation, maybe the national curriculum should take a practical stance - sacrifice long division for health awareness? With volunteer and international aid organizations working around the clock to bring water to some of Honduras' poorest villages, their efforts will come too late for many Hondurans. As political debates focus on whether or not to sentence the people of an impoverished nation to death for crimes of desperation, the honest, hard-working farmer still doesn't know not to defecate in his kitchen.

Dear Editor,

This is in response to the article by Larry Knowlton, I am a retired American citizen living in Honduras. I prefer Mexico and the Mexican people, but don't take me wrong. There are many wonderful people in Honduras and I am happy living here. It's just a matter of preference. Maybe it is because I visited and traveled through Mexico on several occasions with my former wife.
I disagree with your comments concerning the Honduras government welcomes only the wealthy retirees. All of the Americans I know and am in contact with dirt poor to comfortably set. I don't know any wealthy Americans in Honduras.

When I came to Honduras, I was allowed to bring my automobile, tools, and household goods duty free. That has changed since the latest president has taken office. Upon receiving my residence status in 1996, I was required to exchange $600 into lempiras every month. Another resident informed me Americans currently becoming residents are required to exchange $1,500 lempiras per month. I do not know whether this is true or not.

Honduras is a free country (in fact, too free). The government enacts new laws, but does not enforce them except for the most severe crimes.

If you can meet the changing of dollars to lempiras requirement, and desire to live here, by all means do so. I would suggest you do not live in Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula, Comayagua or Olancho, because those are the most dangerous areas to reside. Siguatepeque is a very quite, tranquil community in which to settle. I think you'd like it.

The Honduran islands in the Caribbean are heavily populated with Americans that have dollar ruined the community. It might be too costly for you.

Sincerely,

Jorge J. Cota-Weber

Dear Editors:

I felt I should weigh in on the side of Mr. Nisco in his ongoing mining debate with Mr. Gutman. All too often, we forget that our products are extracted from the Earth; we are cynical if we pretend that even the most environmentally-correct among us tread lightly. Our civilization is built of metals, plastics, and fibers. I was born and raised in the Appalachians, and can attest to the mistakes made in the past by mining companies (not to mention logging companies, hydroelectric companies, and etc.), but ultimately I can also sympathize-as an environmentalist-with ecologically-sound resource extraction. Again and again, in Honduras, we witness /political /failure interpreted as inherent /maldad/ on the part of engineers and resource extraction industries. The reality is that environmental degradation and ecological destruction result from a complex synergy of forces, none of which can be characterized with the blanket designation "evil." What we too often confront is a breakdown in dialogue between industries and communities, as private interests on both "sides" forget their stake in the common good. If done correctly, mining can cause minimal damage-certainly far less than Hurricane Mitch which, thanks to decades of resource abuse by a constellation of actors, ripped away mountainsides with wild abandon.

For that matter, small hydroelectric projects can be equally benign, particularly when they protect fragile cloud forest watersheds from the incursions of the deforestation frontier. And logging, of course, is a matter of adequate /scientific /management of forests; within a well-functioning legal framework, logging for private gain can be highly beneficial to the public good. In essence, it is all a matter of degrees and of open dialogue.
Sincerely,

Dr. Mark Bonta, PhD
Professor of Geography, Delta State University
Dear Editor,

I write in response to your remarkably incoherent and dangerously ill-informed Editorial ("Death by Crime", September 11 2004) which argued in favour of reintroducing the death penalty in Honduras. Setting aside your extraordinary use of language (I am disturbed that you think the death penalty is a "romantic and decent subject") I would like to outline what I consider to be ten of the most forceful arguments against your position, as follows;
There is no sure way of eliminating the possibility of wrongful conviction for a crime. Therefore no criminal punishment should be irreversible, as the death penalty is. In the UK, the notorious cases of the "Birmingham Six" and the "Guildford Four", "terrorists" who would have been executed had we retained the death penalty, but were later cleared, illustrate this.

It is well known that most murderers commit their crime while in a state of extreme mental agitation, partially or completely unaware of the consequences of their actions. As a result, it is now well established that they are unaware of and undeterred by any prospect of punishment, including execution.

As, extraordinarily, you admit yourself, the death penalty has no effect on levels of violent crime. In fact, societies which do not execute their own citizens tend to be less violent than those which do. Notably, levels of violent crime in the USA, which employs capital punishment, are far higher than in the countries of the EU, which do not.

Contrary to your argument, it is not cheaper for governments to execute criminals than to keep them in prison, for the simple reason that legal fees for prosecution in capital cases are far greater than in normal trials. In any case, to base a decision which determines the life or death of a human being on monetary calculations is palpably immoral.

In countries where the death penalty is currently in use, it is consistently passed against a disproportionately high number of people with mental disabilities, those from ethnic minorities and those with economically disadvantaged backgrounds. As a result the death penalty acts not as an instrument of justice but rather as a means of unjust government repression against vulnerable minorities.

In cases of murder, it is now widely understood that the pain of grieving families is not reduced by the execution of the murderer. Families in the USA who are sometimes able to watch such executions by video link report not relief but increased feelings of bitterness and anger.

In cases where the person facing execution is a member of a criminal gang or has some political significance there is a danger that they will be viewed as a martyr, acting as an example to others and inciting further violence.

The death penalty is a violation of the right to life, as declared in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
The death penalty is condemned by Amnesty International as a form of cruel, degrading and inhuman punishment.
By its very nature, the death penalty invites corruption and abuse within the judiciary, police and prison services.
It incites members of the prison services to commit violent, cruel, barbaric and degrading acts against those facing execution. Furthermore, as graphically illustrated by televised capital trials in the USA, the death penalty has the potential to poison and degrade the entire public life of a country.
As such I would urge you to accept that the death penalty holds no answers to Honduras' problems, and has no place in a civilised world.

Yours sincerely

Matthew Williams (Durham, United Kingdom)

Of Cretins, Killers and Kleptocrats

By W. E. GUTMAN

Social scientists tend to interpret history as an evolution from bestiality to cultural refinement. Chroniclers of the here-and-now, journalists are less sanguine. In the aggregate, their accounts demonstrate that, in fact, human society seesaws wildly between states of stagnancy, feverish creativity, uneasiness and chaos. While these oscillations can be blamed on history's cretins, killers and kleptocrats, they are hastened, prolonged and fossilized by national torpor and idleness.

CRETINS
Educated, painfully shy, ill at ease with court life and hopelessly disconnected from the masses, King Louis XVI of France was a cretin. A ruler who spends his time tinkering with clocks, tending his rose garden and chatting with God - MUST be a cretin.

So was czar Nicholas, a spineless party-going autocrat who played dominoes, ate caviar and drank champagne while his people starved and his wife made goo-goo eyes at the sinister Rasputin.

KILLERS
Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and the shah or Iran were killers. So was Cuba's Fulgencio Batista and his intellectual cousins - Chile's Augusto Pinochet, Guatemala's Generals Romeo Lucas Garcia and Efrain Rios Montt, Honduras' Gustavo Alvarez and Peru's Alberto Fujimori. They all resorted to murder - indiscriminate or selective - as a means of wresting control and ensuring blind submission from the people. And, as the people passively danced to their executioners' song, inertia, fed by fear, helped prolong the suffering.

KLEPTOTRATS
Kleptocrats - a term that aptly describes most Latin American heads of state - specialize in purloining net wealth from commoners and transferring it to the upper classes into which they were born or to which they aspire to ascend. (Some kleptocrats have also been cretins and/or killers - Honduran General and chief of the Army Luis Alonso Discua Elvir comes to mind).

The archetype kleptocrat - he stole millions of dollars from the Fondo Petrolero - was Honduran President Rafael Leonardo Callejas. In Honduras, a kleptocrat's success is measured by just how large a percentage of the tribute he extracts from the masses is retained by the elite.

Despite claims that most Hondurans embrace an egalitarian system of government, Honduras remains a partial democracy. It is one thing to espouse an ideology on paper. It is quite another to put it to work. While social scientists wrestle with statistical abstractions and theoretical models, journalists working in the region have long since diagnosed the problem with overt but seemingly fruitless candor:

1. On an empty stomach, democracy is an empty slogan.
2. Democracy does not work in a vacuum; citizenry must vigorously take part in the process. Failure to do so empowers cretin/killers such as Congress President Porfirio Lobo to agitate in favor of the death penalty.
3. It takes a real leader to eradicate hunger and instill civic pride.
Like his predecessors, President Ricardo Maduro, heir to a long line of Honduran klepto-cretin-killers, has done nothing to involve his compatriots in the democratic process. On the contrary, his failed policies have led to grave and mounting social unrest that threatens the very core of democracy. He has spent his term in office looking statesmanlike in tailor-made Italian suits; he has traveled far and wide - generally to beg for money - made promises he knew he could not keep and promulgated unpopular edicts. He continues to give sumptuous receptions while the vast majority of Hondurans are asked to survive on 50 Lempiras a day.

According to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, "alarming levels of gang and government violence continue to plague Honduras as President Maduro's superficial and crow-pleasing anti-violence rhetoric and measures are becoming increasingly counter-productive and controversial." Already one of the most corrupt countries in all of Latin America, and with a court system notorious for its venality, the Council concludes that the Maduro administration has failed to either seek justice or harness it.

FOR THE RECORD
Here are some questions Hondurans may want to ponder. Under President Maduro:

• How many campaign promises were actually realized?
• What reforms, if any, clearly benefited the country?
• What presidential edicts, if any, helped improve the lives of the poor?
• What statutes helped reduce crime and violence?
• Why is, say, Venezuela's political life so vibrant and demonstrative, and why are Hondurans as flaccid as molasses? Why do Venezuelans engage in passionate rhetoric and fiery demonstrations, and Hondurans sit home nursing hangovers and producing more kids?
• What is the difference between a poor 18th century Frenchman and a poor 21st century Honduran as far as daily life and expectations are concerned? What traits distinguish a relatively small band of Frenchmen, who managed to galvanize national support and overthrew a hated monarchy, from the vast Honduran masses who continue to get screwed by successive dynasties of inept, corrupt and indifferent regimes?
• What will it take to awaken Honduras from its torpor? What will bring the people to their senses, lead them into the streets and give them the courage (or ignite the exasperation) to demand justice at last?

The answer lies in how Hondurans rationalize their own misery because that's the very key to their unending problems. They know that Maduro is an abject failure.

The fact that this kleptocrat is still in power and that the next kleptocrat will pick up where Maduro leaves off, speaks volumes about the moral fiber of their subjects and explains their unceasing torment.
___________________________

W. E. Gutman is a veteran journalist on assignment in Central America since 1991. He lives in southern California.

Paying the Price at the Pumps

By RUSSELL S. BROWN

A $50 price tag looms ever closer as oil supplies become popular targets for those seeking their revenge on the West, but what does this mean for the average consumer?

The obvious effect is on the price of gas. The impact is likely to be more pronounced for American drivers as tax constitutes a smaller percentage of the overall price than it does in Europe. However, with prices in Honduras already above the regional average the question is whether any further increase will be absorbed by the government or simply passed on to the consumer?

Yet another hike in prices will lead to higher business costs, which in turn affects profitability. Many businesses, such as airlines, will seek to pass this onto the consumer, cutting in to household income and decreasing levels of disposable income. Macro-economically, rising oil prices are often a precursor for negative economic growth, particularly for countries that are heavy oil importers. As prices rise, consumers turn cautious and profits fall, the countries' exports decline and trade deficits rise. A sustained rise in prices could lead to aggressive wage demands, again pushing inflation higher.

Where will it end?
As much as 80% of the rise in prices can be attributed to growing demand, but given that vehicle manufactures are producing ever more efficient vehicles on top of bi-fuel, hybrid vehicles, where is the demand coming from and where will it stop? Admittedly, the American housewife driving her over-weight, fast-food-eating children five minutes up the street to school in her six-litre sport utility vehicle does very little to help, but the answer, according to many critics, lies in politics. To solve the problem, 'one must question the entire political footing upon which our continued use of fossil fuels is based'. Oil has become the centre of modern politics and a commodity upon which world economies are predicated. The underlying question is whether world governments will consent to forms of substitution given the trillions of dollars of tax revenue they earn from oil.

For the average Honduran, rising fuel prices will come as a tough blow. As taxi drivers queue at the pumps to hand over more of their hard-earned Lempiras to the rapacious corporate elite, the word conspiracy jumps to mind as does the question 'how much more will we endure before taking a stand?'

htw-3
For the average Honduran, rising fuel prices will come as a tough blow

Hello all...

I want to take this opportunity to extend my personal thanks to my friend Mario Gutierrez Minera, who is the founder, chief editor and publisher of Honduras This Week (www.hondurasthisweek.com). For many years now, Mario has graciously provided projecthonduras.com and the Conference on Honduras endless amounts of free publicity in his weekly English-language newspaper, both in terms of advertisements and articles. I know also that Mario has tirelessly promoted our network and conference within many circles in Honduran society. Our "unconventional movement" would not have grown nearly as fast or developed as strong a reputation had it not been for Mario's efforts. This is excellent teamwork. Gracias Mario!

Via Internet

LITTLE EXTERNAL DEBT AND HER COUSINS

The important thing, to those who have money, is to create a working capital, among the needy, that demands their services and while reaching the lack of satisfaction of the debt, squeeze the indebted where it most hurts.

The tasks of honoring a debt and protecting the country are simply parallel to each other…you can never comply with both of them. When rich people in poor countries have no corruption, they create it themselves to continue the economic blackmail.

International financial institutions made up by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Club of Paris and the Group of the Eight creates the environment of the external debt. These entities are tyrants whose chess plays reside in their hope of recollecting more and more money for the hand that feeds them.

Up to this point, not even the replies of the Catholic Church have been enough, nor Christ's tears will be. They are already used to the colored ribbons in their bedrooms, to choose who they are going to sleep with that night.

The most ruthless killers in history are those who, protected by their religion, in petroleum, in the casino, in the drugs, in the booze or in their poverty, justify atrocious crimes.

The relief of the external debt implies an automatic improvement in the investment and so the Gross National Product. The temporary budget will be substituted by a real goal. Our level of necessities has been manipulated to foresee the interests of others.

Our complaints are many, evidently we are not in the border of salvation…we are in front of the abysm and a calamity is heading our way. We can only save our aspirations by creating a team with vision and wolf skills or simply by converting ourselves into and associated state, but…who will adopt us?

We are lacking resources to continue with this miserable patriotism…it is not politics anymore, it is economy and our country is not that skillful in that area. If our defeat is that open and unlucky…what do we have left? That is our job.

There has been talk about a sustainable human development. What seems to be a simple return to a fair society, inside the evolution of our country, is nothing less than a social revolution. Ours is a democratic point of view and we reject cruel dialectic socialism that has been historically a liar.
We continue guessing that we can handle the debt precisely when are demand is to look for more resources to reduce the levels of poverty in the country.

Central Americans will never understand each other, we all have the same illness…it looks like are economies, all together, have no future. According the Nicaraguan proposal, we will start seeking for opportunist opportunities such as that of imposing imaginary sanctions.

We have never considered that our solutions are inside our borders; therefore, we have to wait for a Northern country to adopt us and then plan together a future for our exhausted population.

Death by Crime

Urging the opinion of all sectors of the Republic National Congress, has put into national discussion a romantic and decent subject; the death penalty. The main obstacle to the national discussion is the church. It seems general opinion is what is known as one against all. "Many innocent people have been hung" claim the opposition, who see their own necks on the rope of the strangled. They suspect that Honduran justice has not reached proper levels of respect.

But the truth is that the warning personally launched by the president of the national congress, Porfirio Lobo is bravely facing the reasons behind the presumption that this kind of penalty is necessary in this country. Parallel to this is the popular accusation that society bestows unjust privileges upon those who rape and kill children or the mentally ill. The person who rapes and kills the innocent for the simple pleasure of his mortal will wins, but to take and give life is not a compromise with anybody.

Nothing obligates or stops those doing this, its is simply a social compromise that gives a larger punishment to those that view other peoples lives with less respect than their own. It is not negotiable to have the right to take someone else's life. Yet it is not difficult to understand that we live in a difficult society and time. As difficult as in New York and London, but with the additional aggravation that hunger is a bad advisor, but nothing justifies a crime.

The intuitive is launched again and against everybody by Pofirio Lobo. His initiative is one that does not seem unpopular, besides the fact that he has brought up the subject in front of the nation demanding our opinion. For sure this is not the period of its approval but it seems that we will keep maintaining vile criminals in our prisons with the money that we should be dedicating to fight poverty. Little has been changed in countries that still keep the death penalty, such as Guatelmala, but it is important to notice that in the face of the fear of being executed, delinquents have put on the brakes of their criminal activity. What would happen in Guatelmala if this penalty would not exist.

Hidden death is not sorry to come to you, because the pleasure of being dead returns me to life .

Dear Sirs,

Regarding Mr. Gutman's tirade against me, I have never seen such hate expressed in writing! Yet, Mr. Gutman, you know nothing of me and, it seems, very little of anything!

I shall quote briefly a couple of examples of how cheap and self-serving I am:

1) I came to Honduras in 1989 for exploration and development of some areas of interest. In 1991 we tried producing from a vein deposit but found the gold was tied to arsenopyrite. "Just burn the concentrate" local luminaries said. Well, I'd seen results of this to the ecology in Northern Canada and, other than buying very expensive equipment, there was no alternative. So, I shut down the mine at a personal loss of some $30,000; the corporation lost about $250,000.

2) 1998 -in the mountains of Misoco, I am now farming.

Mitch comes along. A village further up the mountain is wiped-out by slides and 67 men, women and children descend on us; we provided shelter and food for them 'till August 1999. Meanwhile, raising some $30,000 through friends and relatives (all abroad) and the Roman Catholic Church, I organized building a new village. We built 13 houses (5 with 4 bedrooms each, 3 with 2 bedrooms each) with their own pila, shower, kitchen and running water. We further bought 18 manzanas for them to crop and built a little church-cum school. The new village was dedicated August 3rd.,1999, nine months after Mitch.

And, Mr. Gutman, what 'self-serving' projects have you organized? I'm quite sure you're top of the list of no-no's when it comes time for you to want anything with metal in it.

God forbid, you should want a car, heater, cooler, food cans, cans of anything, pots and pans, any electrical appliance, telephone...everything reliant on open-pit mining. Coal? Heating or electricity...even flying is no-no (planes are mostly aluminum, from open-pit mines of bauxite. Even oil is being open-pit mined, so, Mr. Gutman, no 'gas' for you! And, you should know that some of the very worst polluters of waters are underground mines (see Leadville Colo., W.Virginia, Pennsylvania and many others!).

Self serving? Being paraplegic I am eagerly waiting for the Good Lord to take me. I have no axe to grind other than once more wonder how the world can survive when supposedly educated people cannot talk civilly! But, then, it (the world) is really not surviving very well, is it?

Mr. Gutman: I no-where advocated opening the door to any tom-dick or hurry for open-pit mining: as for drinkers, some will - if not regulated - become drunkards Unfortunately everything has to be carefully, strictly regulated: highway driving, underground and open-pit mining; more so in a country like Honduras where so much graft does take place!

Sincerely
John Nisco.
Via Internet

A Big Problem And A Clever Solution

BY DON PEARLY

For years and years now the pidgins of San Pedro Sula have called the Grand Sula Hotel their home. Anyone who has eaten A meal in their outside cafe will testify to the fact that the birds are colorful and cute, but do sometimes get a little aggressive when they see your order of toast arrive.

Some people are scared of them and some just think it is unsanitary their being so close to the food service.

So, Mr. Tom Jacobson, General Manager of the hotel put together a plan. Step one, string invisible fishing line across the entire pool and eating area. Going in both directions they formed an impenetrable barrier for the pidgins, and yet did not interfere with the natural light and periodic breezes. Step two, they began feeding the birds in another location behind and away from the guest area. It worked beautifully and the birds still have a home, still get their meals served by a first class hotel, and everyone is happy. Hats off to Mr. Jacobson and his staff for finding a humanitarian remedy to a unique situation.

ANACONDA
IN SEARCH OF THE BLEEDING AND LOUSY HONDURAN

To the authorities, international organisms, and Honduran magnates the Honduran is a stoic being, bleeding, brainless, uneducated and without a reason for living due to its tendency of destroying nature and other unimagined punishments.

This smuggled human being serves as an example of super poverty to our society and gives us the impression of being a lowlife swallowed by a hundred meter anaconda. Could this beastie creature know it was eating our middle class?

After destroying our weak skeleton, many are the petitions demanded by the financial organisms who direct our fiscal policies without any success due to the clumsiness of our politicians and the particular pretensions of the demanders.

Swallowing this poor country is not easy…badly fed, stale because of the football, naughty, smelly, negative and pensive; our "catracho" is not only and exquisite dish…it is an intruder in the marshland.

Sometimes we think we have adopted this conduct to be avoided by the world community. The truth is that our weaknesses are many and we have no hope of rectifying our economy because this was systematically destroyed by the kamikazes of the Honduran politics.

Ruin and poor, we only have the hope that a scary animal like this embraces our body and chokes on out horrible skeleton and the skin of the common Honduran. What Latino male? We already are walking skin, crazy because of malnutrition or inheritance.

Whichever alternatives this damned anaconda has, the truth is that the countries who learn about the weaknesses of the others are strangled. They should choose to live a real and decorative survival plan where there is a place for ours.

We can propose that for every extremely poor country there is, the rich and specially the international organisms stop eating for two day so they can feel in the flesh the whip of misery and poverty.

The boa constrictor is there, in front of us…we are still alive, but without a marshland behind us…quite and still, because as soon as she knows we are there…BOOM!!!! Here comes the wild anaconda!

Honduras, land of the Mayas, land of the Pechs and the Tawahkas, land of the hoplessly poor and the dubiously rich …recently, there has been widely spread news on the seizure of endless leftover properties belonging to one Pedro Garcia Montes, allegedly murdered in Cartagena Colombia a few weeks ago…Now it turns out the assumed drug dealer was not only one of the wealthiest men in Honduras, but, according to some of his relatives, this is the third time he is presumed dead. This event, and the continuous seizure of cocaine, pot and heroine batches prove that Honduras has indeed been, or is, as American intelligence once pointed out, a Narcoestado (translates as Narcotics State). In the meantime, the glorious leaders of our country keep telling us "all's well", things are under control….they are "saving" Honduras….spot after endless ad spot plague the press, radio and TV air time, giving us all the "good news"… in spite of an Electoral Law, recently approved, that forbids presidential candidates and hopefuls from launching their electoral advertising campaigns until before the elections, they've figured it out quite cutely. The alternative? to launch "followup" campaigns for government institutions (all featuring close shots of the plump faces of the future candidates to electoral posts)…"60 hours working for the people!" claims one of these campaigns (only sixty hours?) …another contender to win the internal Nationalist party elections speaks on an extreme TV closeup shot of his face telling all "how well" he does...but the only thing clear after 30 seconds is the fact the man needs a dentist (or to stop smoking)…And how about a recent full color press campaign, paid for by one of the Ministers? The man gives himself credit for the solution of a deadly problem…it turns out a quite few countries and international institutions have been working their butts off …and the man does not mention, or even thank them!!…I mean, we are talking millions of dollars in technical cooperation and foreign up-close-and-personal love with the communities affected… time that is used and abused as a political campaign (no wonder some cooperation organizations feel like taking off)…in the meantime, the media keep baring their own butts, craving those badly needed advertising dollars to keep their bellies full. As things are bad, they say, they have no choice but to publish on their front pages the dead bodies of innocent children to make a few more bucks…in the mean time the people still need health care, the children still go hungry, the gas prices still go up….poor Honduras, land of the curiously wealthy, land of the hopelessly poor…

BECA - the corporate raider of third world schools

BECA, a foundation run by a New York City employee and the wife of a lawyer attached to the DA's office in New York City is staging an all out battle to destroy Cofradia's Bilingual School in the village of Cofradia, Cortes, Honduras. Originally established by Cofradia's Bilingual School in 2001, the current east coast based board members have decided it is not in their personal interests to fulfil the foundation's original intention.

BECA is now using the funds it raised by promoting the aims and ideals of CBS to destroy the very mother of its inception. Volunteer teachers are now being paid large sums of money (by local standards) to personally visit all the CBS parents to try to ensure that CBS starts this year with insufficient students to survive. It seems that BECA's new school must succeed regardless of the cost to the community and other people involved.

Money that has been donated to BECA in order to help support the poorer children at Cofradia's Bilingual School is actually being spent to establish a new private school almost next door. BECA's volunteer teachers are being used as high pressure door to door sales people and appear to be authorized by BECA to make whatever offer it takes just as long as they make sure that the majority of CBS's parents decide to move their children to a new school to be known as "San Jeronimo Bilingual School" which is still under construction a few yards further up the road.

BECA is claiming community support while it is effectively dividing the community and traumatising the children involved.

It is also claiming a partnership with the local Lions club when local information indicates that the only real connection here is that the President of the club and his wife (the new school principal) are partners in this new venture and the club is being used only to legitimise BECA's position and obtain free municipal land on which to build a new private school. BECA has even been using threats of criminal action (NY DA doing his part, I suppose) if CBS doesn't do as they are told and/or die quietly.

Cofradia's Bilingual School was established in 1997 to offer superior educational opportunities to the children in this growing community within commuting distance of Honduras's industrial capitol, San Pedro Sula. It has grown and evolved by bringing teams of volunteer teachers from all over the world to teach its growing number of students coming from all socio-economic levels in the local community. Ben Udy, a dual national (Australia-USA), and his wife Mirna, a Honduran national with a dream to help the poorer children of her homeland, currently operate the school strictly as a non-profit service to the local community.

BECA, a US 501(c)(3), was established at Ben's request by his family's lawyer in Ohio in order to have an organised, transparent and legitimate channel for the donations that were coming from CBS's many friends and associates in the United States. Jaime Tackett (now Mrs. Koppel) was at that time serving in a voluntary capacity as an administrative assistant at CBS. In recognition of her services and due to her professed desire to take on the responsibilities of chief fundraiser for the organization on her return to the US, she was offered a position on the board and elected as first President of the foundation.

The situation deteriorated drastically when Jaime decided to return to the US in the middle of the school year ostensibly to put all her energies into her fundraising efforts. Communications got so bad (Jaime's main ambition seemed to be micro-managing the school from New York instead of supplying the promised financial assistance) that Ben, Mirna and the lawyer who had established BECA decided that they would be left no choice but to resign from the board and operate the school without BECA's assistance if things did not improve by the end of the 2003-2004 school year. Jaime's visit in early 2004 did nothing to improve matters. It soon became apparent that if Jaime was not given the ability to call all the shots she was going to do everything in her power to make sure that Cofradia's Bilingual School ceased to exist all together.

Miss Tackett (now Mrs. Koppel) has done a good job in her school destruction efforts and if had not been for some incredible assistance from outside as well as within the community (yes, most of the poorer and less politically powerful parents support CBS), Cofradia's Bilingual School would not have been able to even open their doors on August 25 for the start of their 8th year serving the children of Cofradia. CBS is open this year due to many sacrifices made by our many friends although BECA's continued assistance to the small group of influential business people who have set up the competing school will make things much more difficult financially this year.

For additional information regarding CBS check our the website WWW.CofradiaSchool.com and anyone who is interested in helping support one or more of the really poor students should contact Mirna by email - Mirna@CofradiaSchool.com

I am a retired, U.S. citizen and currently reside in Mexico. I would prefer to be living in Honduras and spending my retirement check there. The reason I am not is because your government has apparently decided that only the most wealthy of retirees are welcome there. Also, your government has chosen to be non competitive with Mexico and other CA nations, such as Panama. I make reference to the facts, for example purposes, that U.S. citizens are allowed by Mexico and Panama, to bring in and use their, U.S. registered automobile, duty free, regardless of the year model or make. Your government says we must have an automobile that is newer than year model 1999 and if we are to keep it and use it there, long term, we must pay an import tax.

I believe your country could benefit from having a large number of retired U.S. citizens living there. Perhaps your government does not think so, or perhaps the people who make your laws simply do not realize that most North Americans have a love for their cars or trucks that is really special! It is also true that many of us are not super wealthy and can not afford to drive newer cars. Yet, if 100,000 or so, of us middle class U.S. pensioners were to move to your country this coming year, spending an average of 1,000 U.S. dollars per month for goods and services, your un employment rate would drop rapidly.

A very famous person is quoted as having said....as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he! The same person is believed to have advised us, one and all to.....rid ourselves of all prejudice. There are indeed, ugly gringos. Most of us , however are good hearted people with a built in desire to be of help when we can. The truth is that, typically, the most ugly of North Americans are the most wealthy. It saddens me to see that they seem to be the ones your government wishes to attract! the man I quoted earlier, also advised us to.....associate ourselves with the humble. I hope are changes are made which will attract the more humble of us Norte Americanos to your fine Country.
Thank you for publishing a very fine newspaper!

Sincerely,

Larry Knowlton
Texas, U.S.A

Dear Editor
The attached word document is a brief outline of an incredible battle which has been going on in Cofradia Cortes for control of Cofradia's Bilingual School. We have actually survived the Hostile take-over efforts of one of our ex-volunteers, however we are not nearly as secure in our long term ability to survive with the loss of a good percentage of our fee paying students to a new US supported private school. Unfortunately, it is actually a US based foundation that is fighting to control Bilingual Education in Cofradia and destroying fledgling relationships we have been struggling to build between parents from all social classes within the Cofradia community.

The real shame is that we created our own problem by creating the foundation in the US and allowing one of our ex-volunteers to take control of it.

Yours Sincerely
Ben Udy
Multi-Cultural communication and understanding starts with Education.

www.CofradiaSchool.com