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NATIONAL NEWS |
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NATIONAL NEWS |
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| Monday, April 25, 2005 Online Edition 16 |
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| Rehabilitation Programs Struggle to Reinsert Gang Members
By WENDY GRIFFIN Several different types of rehabilitation programs exist in Central America. These include official government programs, programs sponsored by churches both Catholic and Evangelical, and non-profit organizations that have youth programs, notes the third book in the series “Maras y Pandillas en Centroamerica” (Gangs in Central America), published by the University of Central America in Managua. Differences exist between countries. In El Salvador the former gang members spoke positively of the prison education programs. Some young people really benefited from it, picking up two years of high school or learning a trade, or “oficio” as it is called in Honduras. The interviews with Honduran gang members showed that in one youth center in Olancho there were programs to teach a trade, but none of the people interviewed spoke of knowing anyone who had gotten ahead as a result of jail. Evangelical churches have important programs in Nicaragua and Guatemala. I have seen people collecting money for these types of programs in buses in Tegucigalpa. None of these programs were reviewed by the book for Honduras. In Nicaragua they found people left gangs for a while to join an evangelical church, but then they would abandon the church and go back to gang membership and the gangs welcomed them back. The main program surveyed in the book for Honduras “Existir” was of the Catholic Church in El Progreso. One part of the program was to erase tattoos. This is a painful process that takes up to six visits to complete and a year to complete. Over 2,500 people took part in this program. 7 out of 10 of the young people who erased tattoos admitted to having been gang members. This program also included accompaniment and recreational activities. A bus came and got the young people, helping them avoid gang members who might try to kill them. In the end the program died because while the participants reduced gang membership, they both continued to associate with gang members and to commit crimes on their own. They also continued to use drugs and alcohol. In fact, they often use more drugs when they left the gang, since they did not have to remain as alert to fight rival gang members. To fit into society, the gang members had to change the way they walked, how they looked at people, how they talked, how they said hello, their friends, how they used their free time, and work time. These changes did not come easily. The young people continued to struggle with drugs and alcohol. There are very few rehabilitation programs in Honduras for this, although Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) groups flourish here. The calmed gang members claimed they now had no friends, since they left the gang. In gangs, they felt they had come to know the meaning of true friendship. The young people had to adjust to their families again and to spending time at home instead of in the street. One man talked about he had been a leader of the gang, “the big palabra” and he had traveled to Teguz, Ceiba, San Pedro getting arms. The former gang members are rejected by society. They find few opportunities here, which is partly why many decide to immigrate to the US. In Honduras many groups that worked to try to get gang members to leave gangs, found the people they worked with were frequently killed. The gangs in Honduras say there is permanent relationship with the gang. Trying to erase tattoos is to risk death. Honduras has a very forward looking law concerning the Prevention, Rehabilitation and Social Reinsertion of People who belong to gangs—Decree 141-2001. However, as of the printing of the book in 2004, it was not implemented and its contents to most people remain entirely unknown. There are non-profit organizations that work with youth that are planning important programs to deal with gangs, including working with jailed gang members. These programs appear to be concentrated in Honduras´ largest cities. Police and jail are the main response of Honduras in smaller areas.
Intermunicipal Organization (“Mancomunidades”) Project Agreed By ALEJANDRA PAREDES In an effort to fight poverty and support decentralization, Ministers Brenie Matute (Technical Cooperation Secretariat), Leoni Yu Way (FHIS - Honduran Social Investment Fund) and Michiyuki Shimoda, Mission Chief of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), signed an Agreement of Technical Cooperation to develop inter-municipal organization activities in western Honduras. Honduran and Japanese authorities expressed a positive attitude regarding the execution of this project, a first in Latin America for JICA, created in accordance with the goals of the millennium, where the main objective - to fight poverty - is to be carried out with the active participation of the communities involved. The ‘Project for the Strengthening of Local Capabilities in Western Honduras’ focuses on a zone plagued by low income and many social problems. The extent of the poverty indicators is such that efforts are being carried out not only by JICA but by a host of cooperating institutions, The project will be integrated with the rest of the cooperating efforts in a coherent way, so the right impact is guaranteed. The support of inter-municipal organizations existing in the region will be boosted with the intention to organize the different actors to achieve present and future sustainability. The signing
of the document formalizes the commitment from local government
institutions, and includes the participation of two of the 54 inter-municipal
organizations (“mancomunidades”) existing in Honduras.
The inter-municipal organizations selected for this effort are the
Chortí and Higuito communities, that, with support from the
Honduran Social Investment Fund (FHIS) will seek to strengthen local
capabilities in a total of 26 municipalities. The chief of JICA’s mission, Michiyuki Shimoda, said that “Honduras is a country much loved by JICA, and there is a special satisfaction to work on the decentralization process, something necessary for overall manageability and for people to live better.”
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Diesel Alternative Oiling the Wheels of Change By NICK CARSON With Honduras still shouldering the highest gasoline prices in Central America, it could be time to consider a more ecologically and economically friendly alternative: Palm oil. The price of diesel in Honduras continues to rise. The national average for March was $2.60, up fifteen percent from last year’s average. And recent protest strikes are just one example of the public dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs. Of course, with no facilities for processing crude oil internally, all of Honduras’ gasoline is imported - around ten million barrels per year - with prices largely dependent on other countries’ export rates as well as the tax levied by the Honduran government. But there is an alternative. Once converted through a simple process known as transesterification, the oil of the African palm - one of Honduras’ major existing natural resources - can make an efficient biofuel to run diesel engines without the need for any modifications. In fact Rudolph Diesel demonstrated over a century ago that the engine he had invented could run perfectly well on peanut oil. Research in Malaysia in 2003 concluded that while it can be comparatively difficult to start a standard diesel engine on palm biodiesel owing to its high viscosity, once up and running there are no problems. Crude palm oil, of which around 250 million kilos will be produced in Honduras this year, is thick and dark red. When it is refined the biodiesel produced is pale yellow, has no odor, smells like frying potatoes when it burns and creates very little smoke. And even more importantly for a country crippled by the price of its gasoline, it could prove up to ten percent cheaper than its non-renewable counterpart. It’s also considerably better for the environment. “Burning diesel produces large amounts of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide,” says Omar Riera, a chemical engineer at Dinant Corporation owned by Miguel Facusse and located in Tegucigalpa. ”Biodiesel may not be 100 percent emission free, but there’s a reduction of up to 90 percent.” With access to a supply of palm oil, methanol, and sodium or potassium hydroxide as a catalyst, basic transesterification is theoretically simple enough to be done at home. A given quantity of crude palm oil will produce almost exactly the same quantity of biofuel, and the equivalent amount of methanol necessary for the reaction - roughly ten percent of the total - comes out as glycerin, a common ingredient in a wide variety of medicines and cosmetic products. “This is one of the most efficient of all chemical processes, and it can work with palm oil; coconut oil; vegetable oil, whatever,” adds Riera. Malaysia and neighboring Indonesia currently produce 80 percent of the world’s palm oil between them, with two million hectares of agricultural land dedicated to the African oil palm in each country. In Europe, biofuel is produced primarily from the more prevalent oilseed rape and sunflower crops. Resources in Latin America may seem modest when compared with their Asian counterparts. Honduras can boast the largest plantations in Central America with 70,000 hectares. In Brazil, where around 100,000 hectares are given to cultivating African Palm, it is already used to generate electricity in stationary diesel engines - another potentially influential factor in Honduras. So despite having a population some thirty times that of Honduras, Brazil has little more palm oil at its disposal - but they are exploiting its potential. Per capita Honduras is at a massive advantage, with a valuable resource on our doorstep to fight the gasoline crisis internally rather than continuing to rely on foreign imports. The Honduran oil palm industry has a somewhat checkered past. Back in 1923, United Fruit (UFCO) controversially laid waste to huge tracts of local agricultural land in order to set up vast plantations. By 1990 almost 20 million kilos of oil were produced annually, most of which was retained and used internally. In 1999, after Hurricane Mitch had battered the banana industry, some 30 million kilos were exported as palm oil took over as one of the country’s major resources. In 2005, according to Dinant Corporation, approximately 250 million kilos of palm oil will be produced in Honduras. It has been argued by the World Rainforest Movement that African palm plantations are ruinous for the environment as well as for local communities. A study by Ricardo Carrere in The Bitter Fruit of Oil Palm proposes that “the problem is not the tree itself, but the plantation model under which it is grown.” In many cases, he claims, agricultural land is replaced by endless rows of identical palms for the profit of a select few multinationals while rainforests are cut back, leading to soil erosion and the destruction of local wildlife habitat. But with the industry already established much of the damage has already been done, and it could be time to consider using the resulting natural asset to support the national economy, as well as preserving another aspect of the environment. According to Omar
Riera, research into the possibilities is already under way. “We
already have some experience in making methyl ester [biofuel] from
the African Palm raw material through transesterification.” In El Salvador,
Riera points out, some vehicles already run on biodiesel: The practical
solution, he argues, is to stop thinking nationally and start thinking
continentally. Argentina has governmental incentives in place to encourage biodiesel production, and have made it exempt from tax. “As yet we’ve heard nothing from the Honduran government, but hope they will follow. I’d like to see a target of ten percent biofuel use by 2006.” Honduras currently imports just over 1.1 million tons of diesel fuel every year. Dinant Corporation statistics show that were all the palm oil from the 70,000 hectares in Honduras used to produce biodiesel, it would satisfy just over twenty percent of this national demand. To replace diesel fuel entirely, by Riera’s calculations, would require over 300,000 hectares of African Palm. This would give Honduras by far the largest crop in the whole of Latin America, and also exceed commercial plantations in several countries in the tree’s native Africa. Riera maintains that it could be feasible if the demand was there, but of course the environmental impact of such a massive expansion could be dramatic. Even if a small proportion of palm oil biofuel were mixed with the existing diesel supply harmful emissions would reduce significantly, but if Central America were to develop its own refining facilities the savings on transport costs alone would be considerable. It’s a proactive solution that many other countries around the world are beginning to consider; Honduras need not be left behind. http://www.asd-cr.com/
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| Monday, April 18, 2005 Online Edition 15 |
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| Strong Arm of the Law: Maduro´s Answer to Gangs
By WENDY GRIFFIN In the recent primary elections, the slogan of the Nationalist candidate Pepe Lobo was “Seguridad y Trabajo” (Security and Work). On his television commercials he promised to impose the death penalty, something that is currently illegal in Honduras. His opponent Miguel Pastor pointed out that this would be difficult to implement because of international agreements that Honduras has signed. In the end, this campaign of strong action against crime won Pepe Lobo the nomination of his party, in spite of legal arguments that his candidacy was illegal as there were laws which prohibit the President of the National Congress from immediately running for President. This is a repeat of what brought President Maduro to power. During his presidency the law known as the Anti Gang Law (Ley Anti-Mara) was passed. This is actually a reform of an article of the Penal Code of Honduras. The law allows people to be arrested for belonging to gangs, whether or not they are known to have committed another crime, such as robbery, theft or assault. The authors of the book “Gangs of Central America” (Maras y Pandillas de Centroamerica) claim this law is unconstitutional. It assumes people are guilty of a crime, instead of assuming their innocence. They argue to be arrested the person should be suspected of committing a crime for which there is a punishment in the legal code, and not be eligible for arrest just because they belong to a gang. In Honduras, security is a big business. The private security forces that are visible at every bank, mall, supermarket, and many private residencies outnumber the members of the National Preventive Police. The government has gotten tougher, for example militarizing the urban buses in Tegucigalpa that were frequently assaulted. There has been talk of militarizing the university, which in Central American prides itself on its autonomy from the military. Taking a Hedman-Alas bus in San Pedro the security with metal detector wands, photo ID, no large carry on allowed is almost as tight as US airports after 9/11. In some cities like Tela, the hotels have to pay for tourist police. In Honduras there always seem to be gaps between what people want to happen and what actually happens. The authors of “Gangs of Central America” and the Honduran media point to the Youth Center “El Carmen” as an example. It was constructed for one purpose, but since 1996 it has been the only center to hold male minors who break the law for Western and Northern Honduras. There are other centers for females who are in trouble with the law. The media highlights that the construction of “el Carmen” does not allow for tight security, as there are escapes, known as “fugas”. The book “Gangs of Central America” also points out that most youth are only held for one or two months, since they do not actually get to sentencing in their case. Thus they receive little or no efforts at rehabilitation. In adult prisons, prisoners from different gangs are held in different wings of buildings. Confrontations between rival gangs can be fatal. Both the youth center “El Carmen” and the adult centers have problems with arms and drugs being introduced into the centers, although there are attempts to stop this. Honduras has been accused of having people who are frustrated by the failure of the government to solve the problems of gangs, so each year many youths are murdered. Some are murdered by rival gangs. Some are murdered by their own gang if they are trying to leave or have their tattoos erased. Other murders are attributed to police or private citizens who have taken into their own hands the fight against gangs that plague Hondurans. These murders of youth have been strongly condemned by human rights organizations, but I have heard foreigners who live here applaud it. The book “Gangs of Central America” asks whether being in jail helped gang members leave gangs. In many cases, no. AS in the US, having been in prison adds status to the gang member. The gang member also has a chance to improve his technique by learning how to commit crimes by some of the professionals in the field. Solidarity of gang members is increased in jail as gang members outside the jail provide money to help gang members inside jails. Some gang members reflect when they are in jail, especially on the visits of their mothers or of their wives with their children. They see they are bringing sadness and problems to their family members. Family members offer to help them when they get out and some promise to start a new life after prison. Those who change are usually older, have 4 – 8 years in a gang, and to be married with children. They think I am setting a bad example for my children. I want to get ahead, notes a study El Salvadoran gang members. Other gang members see no other way to make a living, and so after getting out of jail continue to be delinquent. These people are sometimes recruited by organized crime which has become ever more complex in Central America.
By NICK CARSON “He has decided to come to America. And as a young, poor Honduran, he will come illegally. And I am going to help him.” So reads the mission statement of S. Gonzalez, an American citizen who chose to help his brother – born in Honduras, and a stranger to the opportunities that he had enjoyed from birth – to jump the United States border earlier this year. To offer a glimpse into the experiences, thoughts and emotions of an illegal immigrant and his family, he shared his story with Honduras This Week. Illegal immigration to the States from Central America is an issue of growing concern: US Office of Immigration statistics show that, after Mexico, Honduras provides the country with the greatest number of ‘deportable aliens’ – around 17,000 in 2003; almost 5000 more than El Salvador and a sizeable 41% of the Central American total. Setting out his reasons for swelling these statistics further, Gonzalez points out that he had a better quality of life than his brother only because of a “simple 8x10 piece of paper, my birth certificate.” Compared with the States, he argues, in Honduras “rights to assemble and free speech can be fragile at times.” And although his brother finished high school in his native country, “the public education he received was poor.” On graduation, his family gave his brother the choice between continuing as he was, and leaving his home behind to seek a new life in America. Like so many thousands of others each year, he chose the latter. “A nation has a right to make laws. The United States has the right to decide who may enter its land and who may not,” Gonzalez admits. “It is not unreasonable for a country to restrict immigration ... We are under no moral, legal or contractual obligation to open our borders to all who wish to enter.” But whilst maintaining that border patrols must do all they can to protect the country from terrorists and criminals, he draws attention to the many immigrants whose families are living in wretched poverty. “I was given privileges of citizenship, an education and a social safety net that will all but ensure a prosperous life. I did nothing to earn or deserve this. I cannot stand in the way of others who merely wish to obtain the same freedoms and prosperity that I have by the grace of God.” It’s certainly an attitude that costs the United States government. Back in 2000, Joe Banda - an INS Special Agent at the US Embassy in Tegucigalpa - told Latin American Press that it costs approximately $3000 to capture and deport one illegal Honduran migrant. By this estimate, the annual expenditure to deport 17,000 of them runs into millions of dollars for Honduras alone. Banda was discussing Operation Disrupt, a five-year programme that saw US immigration officials intercepting potential migrants before they even reached the border. During the eighth phase, known as Operation Forerunner, US authorities captured notorious Honduran coyote Jose Leon Castillo after he was re-routed to Los Angeles from Guatemala, instead of heading straight to Honduras. The operation – run across Central America – came under fire for largely targeting the migrants themselves rather than the people smugglers who act as a catalyst. Commonly referred to as ‘coyotes’ or ‘polleros’, they are for many an unavoidable part of the process. But the thousands of dollars that change hands have never been any guarantee of safety, and the massive risks involved are well-known across the world. A recent report in the Wall Street Journal stated that 36 people died in transit in Yuma County, Arizona last year alone. And given that a friend of their father’s had already drowned attempting to cross the Rio Grande, Gonzalez and his brother were only too aware of the potential dangers. The first coyote they encountered passed on by word-of-mouth from a friend also planning to migrate, quoted $6000. When the first attempt to smuggle their friend, Pancho, failed, the pair sought another quote: $2000 down-payment for a total cost of $4000. After this trip was delayed for several weeks they began to lose faith, but when a call from Pancho confirmed that he had made it to the States, they made the necessary arrangements to leave on 14th January with the original ‘pollero’. The trip would take two weeks. “The coyote came to the house early in the morning. My brother took three changes of clothes and a toothbrush. He cried as he said goodbye to his | |
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Mexican border with the U.S.