Recovering a stolen car

According to statistics from the Honduran insurance companies, Honduras lost approximately 76 million Lempiras during 2005 due to car theft, representing 215 insured vehicles. Because of corruption and bureaucracy it can take owners about three or four years to recover their cars.

Car thieves often drive the robbed vehicle out of Honduras, using documents falsified by corrupt notaries, or they dismantle the vehicles and sell the parts.

Similarly, cars stolen outside of Honduras are introduced to the country through customs where, with the help of dishonest customs officials, they are naturalized and given a number, a sales contract from a made up local business. Then they are registered as the property of any random, unknowing, Honduran citizen and later sold to a bargain price.

There are several circumstances that make it difficult to recuperate a stolen vehicle. First, the state authorities and laboratories are painfully slow delivering the necessary reports for the legal system and the police to do their job, including returning the car to its owner. Second, the Ministry of Public Affairs many times publishes lists of serial numbers that have been altered by the robbers and if the owner does not recognize it the cars are declared abandoned and passed on to state officials. Third, the police often charge the owners a parking fee and if they can't pay it they fail to recuperate the car. And these are just some of the problems.

In order to come to terms with these irregularities, several reforms are needed.

The state laboratories examining stolen cars need more and better-trained personnel.

The return of a vehicle to its owner, once identified, needs to be accelerated.

The authorities should only publish correct serial numbers, recovered by laboratories, so that the owners can identify them - not the numbers altered by the robbers.

Honduras should cooperate with other Central American countries in order to avoid falsifications, facilitate investigation, avoid double registration within the region and exchange information.

Finally, the import of vehicles should only be permitted through the more advanced customs in for example Puerto Cortes and El Amatillo.

These measures will make it more difficult to import stolen cars to Honduras and also make it easier for the owners to recuperate them. By being creative and ingenious we can put an end to this situation.

Dear Editor,

I' m a beginner in stamp collecting. I'm interested to obtain an envelope with cancelled stamps of two countries (my country and other country). I'm also interested to obtain envelopes from around the world. Therefore I would like to ask your assistance here if you don't mind. Could you help me with my project to get a cover with cancelled stamps of Malaysia and Honduras on it?

I'll send one envelope to you. I hope you just resend me back the envelope just adding required postage stamps.

If you are so generous of also wanting to donate some free stamps, I'll be glad to accept it. If you wish to exchange stamps just include the stamps inside the letter and I'll exchange it with the same amount of stamps. I prefer 25 stamps per exchange, but if you put more than that I'll match it - if not I'll send a letter with the stamps exchanges and the rest of stamps that I didn't take. If you are not interested in exchanging simply return the envelope.

If yes please give me your address. My address is:

Wan Ahmad Kamal Wan Mustaffa
10-1, Jalan Opera D-U2/D, TTDI Jaya, 40150 Shah Alam, Selangor

Malaysia

Kamal
Via Internet

Dear Editor,

I can not understand why so many North Americans and Europeans get so obsessed about the black people in Honduras -- a small minority that is not native / autochthonous. The whole country and most of its good people have just as many problems, if not more, than do the Garifunas. It seems that these observers and commentators have very little concern or care about the INDIAN-based 'mestizo' majority of Hondurans. I simply do not understand their obsession, and tend to ignore their literary effusions. The first Garifuna/black political participation, during the Federation, was to actively oppose Morazan. I care about everyone but I do not like focusing too much on small groups while ignoring others with just as many problems and travails.

Adelanto,
Your friend,

John C. Moran
Via Internet

Dear Editor,

A friend of mine apparently died in Honduras on February 15. His name was George Milton Purvis. Do you know what happened to him?

Thanks,

Wesley E. Pitman
Via Internet

Voices of the ignored

Young people have always been one of the least cared for sectors in Honduran society. But there are those who do care - like the NGO Medicos Sin Fronteras. The people who turn to them for help lack attention but what they do have is interest and dedication. They all use different forms of defence mechanisms, such as aggressiveness, impulsiveness, and obsessions. These are many times the result of drug abuse but also of an uncaring society.

These persons have few places to turn with their problems. There is no space for them in the classrooms since our teachers aren't prepared to care for them. Even the greatest teacher would have a difficult task meeting their needs.

It is easy to look down upon the behavior of drug addicts, especially since we tend to have an elitist outlook on society, but before we define the people on the bottom of the ladder we should first try to get to know them.

Recently Medicos sin Fronteras and the French Alliance in Tegucigalpa organized an exhibition where young people from the streets of Comayagüela gave us the chance to get to know them through their artwork. Here are some of their thoughts, scribbled on the wall of their Comayagüela workshop:

"We can do better than what we are doing at the moment - it all depends on whether we get support. I would like to study, stop taking drugs and learn something useful. I have a one and a half year old daughter and she is very important in my life but if I don't do nothing, what can I give her?" Dany, 22 years.

"On the street I have friends that defend me when someone wants to hit me. In the future I want to work with anything  but not in a brothel." Wendy, 14 years.

"I am honest, people know I've never stolen anything. I want to learn to play the drums, to be a performer. I know I could learn something, use my brain." Walter, 16 years.

"I ask people not to be afraid of me and that they don't treat me bad. I'm just a clown, but not the clown of the devil." Jazmin, 20 years.

"I love people that don't walk the streets since they help us keep our hope alive." Luis Alverto, 23 years.

This is what they tell us and this is what we need to know. Yes, they are fragile and every morning they wake up to a world of problems. But their hopes and expectations still shine through.

We know the causes behind the tragedy they live and while we look for financing for more projects like SuperArte, which you can read about in this week's issue, we cross our fingers and hope that tragedy is not the solution to their problems.

Dear Editor,
 
Perhaps you could put a clarification in this next week's paper stating what Manos Extendidas really does. Manos Extendidas is not an ecological organization, but actually started working mostly with street children.

The solar ovens fit in because of Manos Extendidas' mission, which is to help especially children out of poverty. Where the ovens have been placed, the parents (most often just the mother) begin having a regular income, and this hopefully will prevent children from going to the streets.
 
Vicki Parsons
Via Internet

Dear Editor,

Honduras has the problem that young adults, mostly male, who do not go to school and who do not have a job usually wind up in doing something delinquent, and they do it in gangs, known as "maras".  They are usually described as young men with no hope for the future, with no life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Maras give them a sense of belonging, even though the future is probably a jail sentence or death.

 In the U.S. in the 1930´s, they created the Citizens Conservation Corp or the CCC.  The young men were housed in tents or barracks, much like the military.  They would be marched out or bussed to various job sites.  They would clean highways, rivers, cities: or plant trees, build parks, fields for sport activities and various other civic endeavors - all under supervision.  Ideally, they could be divided into groups, like A B C or D, or into teams, like, red, blue green or yellow.

 In the morning, the A and C group would go to their areas of work, while the B and D group would go to classes, where they would be taught carpentry, plumbing, painting, electrical, mechanical, furniture manufacturing and agricultural pursuits, etc. In the afternoon, the groups could switch their assignments. Each month the teams would additionally switch their assignments from morning to afternoon, so that no group always worked in the mornings and were schooled in the afternoons.

 Wednesday afternoons, the various groups or teams could compete in such events, as soccer, baseball, basketball, or any other recreational activities they chose.  On Saturday afternoon, they would be allowed to go home to their families and be sure to return to the camp for 7 p.m. on Sunday evening.

They would be paid a minimum wage with step grades, increasing as they became more pro-efficient.  A responsibility of the administration would be to constantly look for employment in the various trades, being taught and recommend the students when they are capable of holding a job.

It would be the responsibility of the administration to keep close surveillance on the campuses, so that there would be no drug or alcohol use. 
 Any young man seen sitting in the parks at 10 a.m. or hanging out on a street corner or any other location, as a vagrant, would be subject to induction into the CCC camp.  Any young man who has committed and has been arrested for a misdemeanor should be given the option of going to the CCC camp or the PC.

Just as Honduras is being loaned monies for re-construction of roads, bridges or drainage, it is a positive idea that some monies could be used for re-constructing the lives of its young men who could very well be the future of the country.  This re-construction would give them the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Happy to be living and growing in and with Honduras.
 
James Mickey McCarthy
Gringo-Olanchano  

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