Saturday, January 25, 1997 Online Edition 39


Opinions & Editorial

¿Immunity

from what?

As President Reina put it in the local press this week, "immunity does not exist to protect criminals." Immunity is a word we've heard a lot about in recent months. Not immunity from disease; immunity from legal action -- as in the law that protects government officials and congressmen from having to stand trial.

The immunity clause was added to the Honduran constitution to protect officials from persecution by opposing factions, to prevent the opposition from tying up an official's time by filling his agenda with insignificant lawsuits and other legal proceedings rather than allowing him to carry on with the job for which he was elected.

Immunity is nothing new in the international community. Most countries grant it to their own highest officials and concede it to the foreign diplomats that reside within their borders.

And immunity usually does exactly what it's supposed to do: protect our leaders.

But its has become an unfortunate trend in Honduras for those guilty of crimes to seek government offices so that they can enjoy this immunity and never be brought to trial. Former President Rafael Leonardo Callejas and his Transportation Minister, Mauro Membreno, for example, have been accused of abuse of authority and misuse of public funds. No one is saying they're guilty or innocent; we just want them to go to trial so the court can do its job of finding out.

It's a reasonable enough request. But neither Callejas nor Membreño can be brought to trial because they have immunity -- Callejas as a member of the Central American Parliament and Membreno as a current congressman.

Immunity in the wrong hands becomes a shelter for the guilty, individuals who have committed crimes and who should rightly pay for them.

Government officials enjoy many perks. In addition to immunity they receive special privileges that allow them to import certain items, for example. The basis of these rights is a good one. But we can't just grant them and let them run free. We also need a special congressional committee to oversee the use of these and other rights. We need to make sure the individuals that immunity is protecting deserve to be protected. We need to make sure that special import rights are not sold to ineligible parties. We need to make sure that the privileges of our leaders are honored, not abused, just as we expect our leaders to honor, and not abuse, us.

ONLINE READERS' FORUM 

KEEP UP GOOD WORK

Dear Editor:

I enjoyed reading your online newspaper/magazine very much. I visited Honduras two years ago and your paper brought back many fond memories. I was dismayed to read about plans to put an oil refinery at Trujillo. I was also unaware of the problems the lempira was having. We don't get much Central American news here in Canada. Keep up the good work: I look forward to reading future editions.

Brian Smith brain8@msn.com

ORIGIN OF THE WORD GRINGO 

Dear Editor:

Over a period of many years, I have read in this paper letters to the editor that have addressed the subject of the use of the word gringo as used by Latin Americans to describe North Americans. I would like to add what I believe to be an accurate explanation of the origin of this word.

Almost all countries have their nicknames for foreigners. Just as we from the United States sometimes call Canadians "Canucks" and we are called "Yanks" by them.

If an American who crosses the line into Mexico from Arizona to Nogales, Agua Prieta or any other border town will listen closely he will occasionally hear the word gringo and while he may not realize it, quite often, it is to the visitor himself that the word is being applied.

In former years, the term gringo was often used by the Mexicans in a derogatory sense as applied to Americans or other English-speaking persons. But as turismo brought more free spending Americans to the border towns, the word became more of a friendly term for an American.

During the several years that I have traveled and worked in Mexico and Central America, I have heard the word gringo many times, occasionally applied to myself. Even before living in Latin American countries, I had found the term in books of travel and adventure and had assumed it was referring to citizens of the United States only, and in a derogatory manner.

However, after traveling a few years in Mexico and Central America, I found that it also applied to some other foreigners, particularly the English, and sometimes to the French, Germans and Italians. The Spaniards were sometimes called Gachupines.

While the word gringo did not necessarily have a slurring implication, yet I found that it was sometimes used in a derogatory sense, as in ¡Que gringo tan bruto! Translated roughly into "What a stupid gringo!"

One rather far-fetched story says gringo was derived from the song, "Green Grow the Rushes, O" by Scottish poet Robert Burns, as it was sung by English sailors in Mexican seaports. Many of the explanations and interpretations of this word have used this "Green Grow the Rushes, O" theory or slight deviations of it. I am saying that all of this is bunk and not supported by any real evidence. An article in the University of Arizona historical quarterly "Arizona and the West," by Charles E. Ronan S.J., of the Department of History of Loyola University of Chicago, discredits that origin. It gives many examples of the use of the word gringo, but does not find any positive source from which it is sprung.

To quote from Father Ronan's article:

"The word gringo was mentioned in Spanish literature as early as the eighteenth century. In his famous Diccionario, compiled some time before 1750, Terreros y Pando, a Spanish historian states that gringo was a nickname given to foreigners in Malaga and Madrid who spoke Spanish with an accent, and that in Madrid the term had special reference to the Irish. The pertinent passage in the Diccionario reads:

"Gringo in Malaga, what they call foreigners who (have) a certain kind of accent which prevents their speaking Spanish with ease and spontaneity; in Madrid the case is the same, and for some reason, especially with respect to the Irish."

"Another instance of its early use is in Bustamante's 1841 edition of Francisco Javier Alegre's Historia de la Companis de Jesús en la Nueva España, in which he explains that the Spanish soldiers sent to Mexico in 1767 by Charles III were called gringos by the Mexican people.

"Between the late 1760's and the early 1830's, however, the word apparently was rarely used, for no mention of it during that period has been found.

"Beginning in the 1830s, there are numerous references to the word gringo in the New World travel accounts, in dictionaries, and in Spanish-American literature. For example, two early 19th century travelers, the German Johan Jakob von Tschudi and the Frenchman Arseve Isabelle, both testify to the use of the word. In his travels in Peru during the years 1838-1842, Tschudi recounts how the Peruvian women 'prefer marrying a Gringo to a Paisanito, or (native).' In this 'voyage,' Isabelle complains about the insulting names, such as gringo, that travelers were called in South America. As for dictionaries, two, Diccionario (1846) of Vicente Salva y Perez, list gringo as a nickname given a foreigner who speaks an unintelligible language. Interestingly enough, the word is not incorporated into Diccionario de la Real Academia until the 1869 edition. In Spanish literature, gringo appears in Manuel Breton de los Herreros Elena, a drama presented for the first time in Madrid in 1834. Que es eso? Contais en gringo? (What is this / Are you using gringo language?)

Scholars are not in agreement about the correct use and origin of this word. According to one opinion, gringo is a corrected form of griego as used in the ancient Spanish expression hablar en griego, that is, to speak an unintelligible language or "to speak Greek."

What I think is very evident from all of this is that this word was used long ago before any English-speaking calvary soldiers were riding and singing near the Mexican border as has been suggested by some in previous reports.

Please let us lay this debate to rest and conclude that this word was in dictionaries and daily use in the Spanish language in the 18th and 19th centuries. It will continue to be interpreted by all of us in many different ways.

J.H. Coffman

Scottsdale, AZ