OPINIONS & EDITORIAL

Monday, August 30, 1998 Online Edition 121

As the messages about the growing epidemic of crime and lawlessness swarm around us, it is important to keep some perspective. One way to do that is to visit the famous market in Comayaguela, which is actually made up of a number of markets. This might seem a strange place to go in quest of something so elusive as perspective. It is noisy, hot, dirty, smelly, and over-crowded. It overwhelms the senses, and the nectar of its ambience is not sweet.

The first instinct of the gringo upon entering the market is to hunch the shoulders, clutch the wallet tightly, and look warily about. The feeling is one of being surrounded and vulnerable in a strange and hostile environment. But then, unless one is hopelessly paranoid and unresponsive to what is going on, it is hard not to begin to notice the smiling faces, and to discover that this is very far from being a hostile environment. On the contrary, it is animated by a spirit and an energy which is gentle, embracing, and sometimes in the wild, unregulated manner of Honduras, loving.

The market of Comayaguela is not, of course, an example of a well-organized and efficient Capitalism. One wonders what kind of bookkeeping procedures exist, and how carefully profit and loss margins are calculated. Certain it is that most sales take place only after some serious bargaining, and that prices for things are not exact, but rather fall within a certain negotiable range. It is certain as well that part of what gives the market its spirited quality is exactly this quality of negotiation, which alters the entire relationship between buyer and seller and makes them in some curious sense almost partners; colleagues and actors on the eternal stage. But most of all, what is certain is that this is an economic system which works, and does so within the ancient traditions and rhythms of the Central American folk.

There is something in the Honduran character and personality that is liberated in the Comayaguela market, and which suffers in a huge and modern capitalistic edifice. Recently, this writer was shopping in one of the large super-markets of Tegucigalpa. I noticed two young women employees who seemed very uncertain as to whether or not they should be friendly with the customers. As it happened, I was walking in the aisle behind these two, when much to my surprise and delight, the one girl suddenly reached out and fetched the other one a lusty smack on the backside. I made a comment which was heard by the two, and was rewarded by a sudden sauciness and friendliness from the girls that was reminiscent of conduct in the market. But it was quickly contained and repressed because it didn't fit the context.

For the most part, the Honduran personality, so playful and spontaneous, does not flourish within the sterile and plastic halls of consumer capitalism.

The history of Honduras consists of the effort to absorb the people into systems that are instinctively resisted, albeit passively. It is not just the poor or the indigenous who are involved with the culture of passive resistance, but nearly the entire population in some manner. It is part of the heritage of the Conquest, and it continues. Hondurans are perennially in the condition of being conquered. But in the Comayaguela market, there is a different spirit, the existence of something natural and free, in touch with the indigenous.

There is, it would seem, something important to be learned from the economies and sociology of the market. It is a system that works, and for all its apparent chaos and confusion, it has an internal order and logic. No doubt there are elements of economic exploitation to be found, but it generates a spirit of equality, and is not dependent on an economy that creates vast distances between people.

Economic development within a nation like Honduras needs to follow the pattern suggested by the markets of Comayaguela, instead of being imposed upon by economic systems that are successful in the United States and other countries with vastly different cultures and histories.

Recently, two English-language weekly newspapers went bankrupt in Guatemala, despite the fact that there is a much larger expatriate population in Guatemala than in Honduras. Honduras This Week, in its 9th year of publication, struggles to survive the impact of inflation, and the high costs driven by the fact that all materials used in the publishing of a newspaper must be imported. While many people assume that HTW must be a highly profitable enterprise, the truth is that it has never done much more than break even. And even this has come at a cost.

The editor and his family work on and for the newspaper without pay, while other staff and writers work for wages that are uncompetitive, and inadequate for living in an increasingly expensive country. As a result, the newspaper finds it difficult to employ and retain experienced and talented people. Further, possibilities for increasing the coverage, substance, and scope of the newspaper remain unexplored because of financial limitations.

The reality is that from the beginning this newspaper has been more a labor of love conceptualized as a service to Honduras and its friends than as a money-making operation. A great many people have given of their talent and energy far beyond the limits of any monetary reward they might expect. It is for this reason that HTW has become what it is, a unique and widely admired newspaper that has received 14 awards on the Internet, and which has in its printed edition received three international awards. It is a newspaper with a real function, and serious purposes, a newspaper committed not to fantasy, but to speaking and reporting the truth.

We are sharing this message in part because we think our dedicated readers deserve to know something about the realities under which we work, but also because it occurs to us that there may be ways in which you can help us. These could include helping us with distribution, locating advertisers, writing for the newspaper, AND working with us to create an endowment which would help us enter creatively and aggressively into the new century. In a very real sense, HTW is your newspaper.

Monday, August 24, 1998 Online Edition 120

Time to rise to the challenge
Honduran President Carlos Roberto Flores has asked the international press for their understanding concerning internal problems suffered in the country. The fact is that while it is somewhat easy to control and manipulate the press locally, the international media are much more difficult to deal with, and what they report is likely to have an objectivity and a perspective hard to come by in a small country.

This is the case with the kidnapping of Tania Facusse last Tuesday (Aug. 18), the niece of the President, which has disturbed much of the Honduran society. Compounding this outrageous crime, we are also informed that the blackguards of the Bustillo Brothers Gang (escaped convicts who were incarcerated for the kidnapping murder of another young victim), had the gall to call a well-known radio station, in order to warn police they will commit acts of violence if law enforcement agencies don't stop looking for them. They even went so far as to threaten the father of their murder victim.

The crudity of Latin American violence is notorious worldwide. The heritage of the Cold War and the violence that plagued Latin America society is everywhere evident in the abundance of weapons, the cruelty and desperation of the growing criminal class, and in the sophistication and cunning of the criminal operations that are being carried out all over the region. Clearly, our recent history has effected the human substance of our people, and out of our beleaguered culture has emerged the human predator, a nightmare figure out of the lower depths of the human range.

Recently HTW campaigned to support our National Police Force due to the fact that they lack the necessary equipment to stop this wave of criminality. Fortunately, we received an excellent response to this editorial, and through generous gifts from subscribers, we were able to provide for approximately 10 percent of the helmets and bullet-proof vests needed by the police.

The private sector is insistently demanding more police action and crime prevention. Unfortunately, few if any citizens have gone out of their way to support their local police force. Some businessmen refuse to support local law enforcement. They refer to the fact that in some cases crime originates within the police force, an argument we find ridiculous since the issue here is not the support of individuals but rather that of an institution. Instead of denigrating the police as they currently exist, we must make a very strong commitment to improving them by paying decent salaries, and creating a tradition of pride within the force.

We regret these events that continue occurring in the country, while embittered businessmen express attitudes and supposed solutions that contribute to the problem. We Hondurans have to make things work in this country, precisely because it is our country, and if we do not defend it nobody will. Criminals wish for nothing less than the control of the country, but if we rise to the challenge and accept responsibility for our destiny, we can isolate the criminals of whatever kind, and move toward a less violent and more tranquil future. We must not fail to defend ourselves and our nation from the many evil people and forces who work to destroy our internal fabric. It is a time for heroes and for working together.

There is still less crime in Honduras than in other Central American countries. But this does constitute a call for complacency, or excuse our lack of effective law enforcement. It simply means we have been benefiting from the comparatively benign legacies of our past.

Tegucigalpa:
A small town?

By ERLING DUUS

"Tegucigalpa is a small town" is an often repeated expression. But how can a city of a million people more or less be considered small? How indeed. But nevertheless, it is so. In some magical way Tegucigalpa is a small town.

In any city of a million people in the States, you can enjoy near total anonymity. Rarely, unless you may be passing through a neighborhood where you live or do business will you see anybody that you know. If you do it is rather a shock, pleasant or not depending on the person. But casual friends or passing acquaintances are generally out of your life for good.

In Tegucigalpa, however, things are very different. Rarely a day passes when you don't encounter someone you have not seen for awhile. And this is almost always a pleasure.

Because I have been a teacher in this city and country, I regularly encounter former students. It may be two years or more since I have seen them. They have changed, grown up some, and I have to study their faces to try to place them. I, apparently, have not changed so much. Their eyes widen, showing disbelief. They thought I must be living in the United States. "Mr. Duus, what are you doing here." I may have some recollection of having had some disciplinary problems with them, but they uniformly seem happy, even thrilled to see me. I gaze into their faces and try to cut through the fog which shrouds memory.

The face is familiar, very familiar. I used to see it before me every day. I have, or had, a relationship with that person. We were involved with each other, as teacher and student always are. Old feelings in connection with that person rise up in me. The same thing is happening to the young person, once my student. They are remembering whether they hated or loved me, or were never sure, what they learned and what kind of grade they got. And so, with memory rushing through like halting rain, we stand smiling at each other.

"Now let me see" I say, "You were in the 8th grade, but what is your name? I remember that you sat toward the front on the left, but I can't remember your name." They don't like this. They think I should remember, so they tell their name somewhat resentfully. "Oh yes," I say, smiling more broadly, "oh yes" and then I repeat the name slowly, thoughtfully, fumbling through the mists for some clear memory, some event, some interaction that will give me more than the vivid impress of a face, a personality. Something personal and concrete.

But usually that is all there is. The students who stand out boldly in a teacher's memory, those few amongst the hundreds or the thousands, were exceptional for some reason, good or bad. They remain vivid, but most are forgotten, until, that is, one sees their face.

So we stand there on the street and in the shop smiling, happy to see each other, to have this little bit of the past brought out from its lost place. But as we smile at each other, we also realize that our business with each other was in the past. This meeting in the small town of Tegucigalpa, however sweet, is between two people whose connection to each other is from a day and time now vanished, which has been consigned to the kingdom of memory, and we are to each other almost like ghosts.

And so we blink, and smile, shake hands, and pass on a little sadly, wishing, perhaps, for a way to be involved again, but glad for the past, and glad without saying it that Tegucigalpa is a small town, and Honduras a small country where the past is never completely dead, or old friends finally gone. For just around the corner, or in the next block, who knows who you may see.

Open Letter to Supreme Court President Oscar Armando Avila

Esteemed Presidente:

Since your diatribe against the United States congress, for suspending $4.1 million dollars in aid to Honduras was carried in the public press, on Tuesday, August 4, I have decided to respond similarly.

Your chief allegation was that the United States is trying to blackmail Honduras into "freeing a murderer". I would remind you that, at the time the money was put in suspense, Mr. Gus Valle, a United States citizen, had been imprisoned for more than five (5) years, but had never been formally charged nor tried. In the absence of "due process", nobody is in a position to declare the nature of his crime, if any. Not even the Presidente of the Honduras Corte Suprema de Justicia.

You are quoted in an Associated Press story as saying, "``I will not traffic in the nation's justice due to pressures from the United States, which respects its own laws but does not do the same with the rules of other nations,''

You are, without doubt, the individual in Honduras most qualified to define "the nation’s justice". However, most fair-minded people support the idea that imprisonment for several years without charges or trial in a court of law falls far short of even the most minimal requirements of civilized law. In view of this infamous departure from anything approximating appropriate judicial handling, the funds that had been earmarked for judicial reform in Honduras, were placed
in suspense until the long-pending Valle case was definitively dealt with.

Perhaps you are unaware of the level of publicity this judicial outrage has received in the United States. The particulars of the Valle case have been thoroughly aired on national television, radio, and in the print media. Beyond this, an avalanche of mail from concerned private citizens has gone to Congressmen and Senators. In virtually every instance, those messages have been in firm opposition to any more funds being lavished on a country that demonstrates such high disregard for the basic tenets of common law, logic, and basic human rights.

Your essential outage seems to be prompted by what you perceive to be a lack of   respect for Honduran judicial procedures. This is an opinion that you are entitled
to hold, by virtue of the lofty position you occupy in the judicial hierarchy. As a well-traveled and experienced journalist, however, I can tell you that the rest of
the civilized world is not much impressed by hollow claims to law-abiding status, when the pose is not supported by some degree of parallel performance.

Claims of sovereignty, assisted by poor or no communications links to the rest of the world has long allowed rogue "sovereign" nations to pursue their chosen
courses in the dispensation of whatever kind of drumhead "justice" best served their national purposes. The same statement may be safely made as concerns human rights. While such behavior may still be indulged, these guilty procedural secrets can no longer be hidden. Global communication is a fact of 1998 life.

This is being called the "Information Age". Some of the most crucial information that is presently being shared, has to do with the kind of lop-sided law and institutionalized abuse offending governments are imposing on their citizens. Sovereignty no longer confers blanket authority for political impunity and public exploitation. Countries that continue to insist on their "divine right" to abuse the powers of government, without regard for international opinion will pay an
increasingly high price for the privilege. By virtue of the informational explosion, all governments must learn to operate in a veritable fish-bowl. It may now be safely assumed that everyone knows everything!

Honduras may beneficially consider the Gus Valle case a wake-up call. The almost automatic infusions of money that Honduras has been receiving from the United States, since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s "Good Neighbor Policy", are at an end. The citizen-voters of the United States will no longer permit it. And when the voters speak in the United States, officials listen - especially in an election year.

If Honduras wants the continuing financial support its big neighbor to the north, it is going to have to begin deserving it. Noblesse oblige is no longer enough, all by itself. The Gus Valle case is just a preliminary example of what can happen when absurd "legal processes" outrage the moral sensibilities of American taxpayers, and from whom Honduras seeks financial assistance.

In a nutshell, Honduras, as a sovereign nation, enjoys the prerogative of conducting its affairs as it sees fit. By the same token, your American benefactors have the prerogative of turning off the money valve, when your cavalier disregard for reasonable behavior exceeds what they consider to be acceptable limits.

It is unlikely that you will ever receive a letter of this sort from a member of the United States diplomatic corps, or a first-rank American politician. Their "messages" come couched in soft phrases and carefully tailored diplomatic parables. This letter should be much more easily deciphered and understood. I offer it as a fair reflection of the American public attitude in the area of international relationships.

It’s time for Honduras to wake up and sample reality. Times are changing, and Honduras has no choice but to change with them.

Most Sincerely,

Lorenzo Dee Belveal - Correspondent
http://www.goodfelloweb.com/lorenzo/  
lbelveal@foreigner.class.udg.mx

Monday, August 17, 1998 Online Edition 119

Let us get beyond the selfish and self-destructive philosophy that says in effect, "Let's consume everywhere we can today and let tomorrow take care of itself."

mack@rocks.sparks.nv.us

For the prophet, it is not the beds of ivory, the sounds of the harp, the drinking of wine in bowls, or the anointings with fine oils that are evil. It is that "they are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph."

Monday, August 10, 1998 Online Edition 118

Tainted milk
It was at the Prati Hotel in Rome located just 400 meters from the Vatican Basilica. It was in the fullness of the Italian autumn. One of the guests, a 40-year-old bearded gentlemen from Poland, tall and thin, would often nod to us when we met around the hotel, and would sometimes greet us. On one occasion he was sitting alone in the same restaurant where we were dining. He apparently had gained sufficient confidence in our relationship to accept my invitation to join us at our table.

He began to tell me that he was a ship captain whose cargo had included radioactive material. There had been an accident and he had been exposed to the radiation. He was in Rome for medical treatment. As it happened, this was just a few months after the nuclear catastrophe in the Soviet Union, at a obscure place in the agricultural region of the Ukraine now known to all the world as Chernobyl.

The Italian press regularly informed the people about Chernobyl. We were informed that we should abstain from drinking milk, or eating any dairy products at all because it was feared that they would be contaminated. This, despite the fact that Italian cows and Italian pastures were located a long distance from the Soviet Union. The quarantine lasted for about three months.

Of course the Chernobyl story received a good deal of coverage in the international new media, but people quickly lost interest, as indeed did the international media. In Hollywood, Steven Spielberg was releasing a new block-buster, and people in their daily lives were preoccupied with other things.

There was much discussion about the satellite positions of the United States and the Soviet Union, and about their functions and capacities. A lot was going on in the world at that moment, and much of it seemed to be related to the events at Chernobyl, and the Polish captain at our hotel.

The situation in Europe was chaotic. Communications moved quickly from place to place, while diplomacy continued to be slow and cautious. Espionage, meanwhile, was being carried on almost brazenly. There was very little news coverage of the talks between Reagan and Gorbachev. The Pope was involved in liberating Poland, using both faith and Vatican money, and then suddenly the world suffered the greatest ecological disaster recorded by history.

In Honduras, however, we have a merchant who allegedly imports milk from the Chernobyl area. A documentary on the subject reports that the contamination of Chernobyl will last for 5,000 years. So we must hope that the milk being purchased by this merchant is for his own consumption, and that of his family, and that he is not making a fat profit by selling the milk to unsuspecting Hondurans. If he himself should be consuming the questionable milk, which is preferable certainly to selling it, which would constitute a very serious crime, then we must hope that so much free atomic energy is being produced in his home that it will illuminate his brain. That, at least, would be something positive.

I would like to highly commend Honduras This Week for its recent editorial about over population. It takes a lot of nerve to address a topic which goes against the church, especially here in Honduras. Not only do few newsman have the nerve to delve into this arena, you would be hard pressed to find any politicians talking about the biggest problem of the world today.

danger@netwiz.net

Monday, August 3, 1998 Online Edition 117

Country must be promoted properly

The need to develop this country in a manner to combat the extreme misery and poverty seen in some sectors is imperative. Globalization, as we have previously stated, is an economic system that requires moving directly forward as quickly as possible, without thinking of particular groups or problems. It is not concerned with social problems, and in its nature cannot afford to be.

A tremendous step backward at all levels has been taken in the development of this country. Some organizations in charge of promoting our industrial sector, like the Foundation for Investment and Development of Exports (FIDE), instead of promoting our country in the most serious outside circles, has dedicated itself to fostering the national economy through dubious publications. To be specific, the promotion of Honduras that is being done through a publication owned by the Unification Church. This is a sectarian publication, and underscores that the matter of economic development is not getting the serious attention it deserves.

This phenomenon and the country's need to promote itself are not isolated incidents; they are symptomatic of a disgraceful situation that exists throughout the country where unqualified people occupy important positions, in government and out, because of who they know, and to whom they are related. Nepotism and cronyism are rampant.

The need to promote our commerce and industry is born of the need to develop our country. We need to move forward with a strong diplomatic corps well trained in the financial sector, comprising an economic team that can orient the country in production and promotion of its businesses and industries. President Flores should create an economic cabinet, and give them the power to work with the diplomatic corps and with all sectors of the community.

Our poor presence at international fairs, compared with countries like Argentina that even has a small itinerant fair, should change. There should be a team of people and with them Honduran products traveling all over the world.

A while back after Honduras This Week published a list of national exporters, we were practically reprimanded by some of them because they no longer had exportation capacity having run out of resources.

Institutions like FIDE and any other in charge of promoting this country should be urgently submitted to a total revision of their personnel as well as their style of work.

May I congratulate you on the forthrightness and great good sense you reflect in your Editorial titled "Time To End Compulsory Party Contributions." An official deduction from federal salaries defeats the basic concept of "popular government," in favor of a government structure that feeds like a parasite, on the flesh of its own employees.

Government employees should be free of any imposed requirement except the tests of honesty, national loyalty, and professional competence. The imposition of a political party stamp on the currently incumbent administration guarantees mediocrity and fosters petty corruption. Only when "public servants" in government offices see service to their fellow citizens as their highest duty, will public service become an honored and honorable profession.

Enforced political contributions, whether for the benefit of a political party, a labor union, or any other identifiable beneficiary invites political favoritism, "old-boy networks", and under-the-table arrangements. In turn, these clandestine links are the very antithesis of what government of the people, by the people, and for the people -- the tap-root of Democracy -- is supposed to promise.

Non-elective government employees need and deserve a fairly administered procedure in selection, hiring, classification, promotion, and pay scales, that completely insulates them from the push and tug of partisan politics. The utter neutrality of government staff employees is imperative, if fairness and honesty is to prevail throughout the ranks and files of "free and equal" Honduras citizens. Fairness, at every level of government service must be, like "the Queen's virtue, not merely above reproach -- but above question."

With this axiom as the test for government employees of all grades, there is no place for the Machiavellian motto, "Whose bread I eat, whose song I sing." Enforced political contributions prostitute political freedom and turns it into a hollow, hypocritical illusion.

It's time the shabby practice was stopped -- firmly and for all time.

lbelveal@foreigner.class.udg.mx