Honduras This Week Opinions and Editorials

Editorial

New foreign minister
After having had many conflicts in the performance of his job, Fernando Martinez has been asked to resign his position as the head of the Foreign Relations Ministry. President Flores said "Fernando Martinez is a friend of mine, and I will miss him, but I have been aware that he has had difficulties in the performance of his job."

The new minister, Roberto Flores Bermudez, is an experienced diplomat who has been the Honduran ambassador to Britain and the United States, has served admirably despite his youth (he is 49 years old), and has established a quality record of service. The various sectors of the society have expressed enthusiasm for the appointment.

One of the objectives of the new minister is to give strong support to the national reconstruction project following the hurricane, and to express gratitude toward those countries who have so generously supported us in this situation. He wishes to do this in a very personal manner, traveling to each country to convey directly the gratitude of the Honduran nation.

The government of Honduras is in a very vulnerable situation because of the hurricane. The normal obligations and expenses of the country already place a great strain on the budget, but these have been increased dramatically by Mitch, and reconstruction understandably must take priority over other things.

We have not been able to locate clearly defined objectives in the statements and policies of the departed minister, and there has been an obvious lack of communication and unity between the president and his friend Martinez. It is very difficult to maintain a coherent policy under these circumstances.

The foreign relations of our country are very important, and we need to protect them as we would a child, watching over the smallest details, because these are expressions of the substance and goals of the government.

The new ambassador understands that he is being presented with a great challenge, and knows that his highest purpose at this time is to create within his department a team of people with the capacity to address the future, and to re-orient our efforts toward the development of our economy so we can take advantage of the opportunities offered to us in the coming millennium.

Perspective

For sale: nation, divisible, with liberty and justice for some

Article 107 -- reform or surrender?

By W. E. GUTMAN

There are those who argue with dialectical sophistry that repeal of Article 107 of the Honduran Constitution is an act of patriotism designed to safeguard the natural patrimony and preserve national sovereignty "in a manner consistent with Honduras’ economic development." Some would also have us believe that mortifying the flesh is good for the soul...

Rammed down the nation’s throat during a hastily convened late-night nearly unanimous Congressional vote, "reformed" Article 107 is also a monument of ambiguity and obfuscation. As such, it opens the door to untold corruption, favoritism and legal pirouettes designed to reward or protect the moneyed and the powerful.

While the letter of the doctored law appears to give Honduran natives the sole right to possess and acquire government and private land, it also effectively gives foreign investors carte blanche to "develop" pristine ecosystems and ancestral domains. Planned for these areas are hotels, resorts, casinos and exclusive private estates that no Honduran can ever hope to patronize, let alone own.

The caveat that these developments must first be "approved" by the Executive Branch makes a mockery of the original constitutional mandate in that many sites now being eyed by speculators have already been sold to foreigners. Much of the land on the Caribbean shore belongs to U.S. citizens. Entrusted to the Smithsonian Institution for "safekeeping", most the of the habitable islets of the Cayos Cochinos, an archipelago consisting of 18 cays traditionally settled by the Garifuna, are being grabbed by German, Italian, Swiss and U.S. land developers.

An increasing number of Americans have also built or taken over existing hotels, guest houses and restaurants ever so close to the Guatemalan and Salvadoran border, much to the horror of the Maya-Chorti and other groups whose way of life has already been seriously compromised and whose ancestral lands are under constant threat of expropriation.

According to a well respected Honduran attorney who spoke on condition of anonymity, the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa is alleged to have asked the Honduran Government for guarantees that land and establishments owned by Americas be granted a "dispensation."

Foreign investors are also exonerated of any tax liability for the first five years. Such incentives, alas, are not available to Honduran investors, no matter how well endowed they might be.

While the reform is apt to help raise well in excess of $500 million -- mostly in hotel and resort construction -- one feels compelled to ask how much of this investment will actually benefit the average Honduran. And while investments may offer some employment to a lucky few, salaries are not expected to rise from their current slave-wage level.

Journalists and other socially conscious cynics are not the only ones expressing doubt about 107. Predictably, the people who comprise Honduras’ indigenous and Black minorities -- the Lenca, the Misquito, the Pech, the Garifuna, the Xicaque and the Maya-Chorti -- have characterized the reform as being "worse that Hurricane Mitch." They also called National Congress President Rafael Pineda Ponce, the architect of the reform, an "ethnocide," and declared him persona non grata in their respective communities.

Such expressions of revulsion and frustration are creditable indicators of the probity and rationality of the reform. Because they are few, visible, and highly vulnerable, only the minorities appear to have both a sense of destiny and a destination. Sharpened by painful self-awareness, it is this instinct that drive their arguments.

In a commentary entitled, "107 -- or lessons not learned," published in El Heraldo, Isolda Arita Melzer, director of Guaymuras Editorial, writes that the Honduran people "have been condemned to carry the same millstone around their necks century after century while the ruling class has neither the ability nor the will to learn from past errors, or to take decisive steps to avoid future ones.

"For over one hundred years," she continues, "our nation has encouraged foreign investment, a largesse that has culminated in all sorts of inauspicious new laws. One can safely bet that if the country wasn't yet sold [to foreigners] it is because no one has yet made an un-refusable offer!

"Learning from past mistakes takes good will and creativity. Sadly, these virtues are lacking in most of the members of Congress. Final ratification of 107 will further mortgage our future and deepen the errors of misguided reforms lacking in strategic vision and incapable of yanking the country from a deepening morass."

With a subtle poignancy and eloquence characteristic of those craving for dignity, a letter to President Carlos Roberto Flores drafted last December by the Confederation of Autochthonous Peoples of Honduras (CONPAH) concludes: "We who are most affected by the reform of Article 107 respectfully submit that this action contradicts and in effect rescinds covenants adhered to by the Honduran government through ILO's Treaty No. 169 on Indigenous and Tribal People; that it will deprive us of our ancestral lands and communities, and adversely impact the preservation of our cultural identity.

On a rare and stealthy journey to the capital, and speaking from a safe house in a soft voice that belies the intensity of his emotions, "Juan" [see Who Killed Candido Amador, HTW, 3 October 1998] summarized an all-too pervasive reality in Honduras. Said "Juan":

"So long as economic power is a stepping stone to political office, and political influence a springboard to plutocratic hegemony and immunity, there can be no justice for the exploited and the dispossessed."

Scheduled for Jan. 25, a mass demonstration by ethnic minorities is hoped to dampen prospects for ratification of revised Article 107. Honduras This Week will be there.

Online Reader's Forum

Dear Editor: I will be travelling to Honduras for three weeks, beginning Feb. 2, to work with Mercy Corps International (based in Portland, Oregon, the United States). I've found your publication to be very helpful in understanding the environmental conditions and the need for reconstruction in the wake of Hurricane Mitch. Not only is your publication very well written and informative, it's also well designed.

Joel Preston Smith
trolluptart@email.msn.com

EDITORIAL MISSES THE POINT

Dear Editor: With regards to your statements about President Clinton (Editorial, Jan. 2), it seems to me you've totally missed the point. I am retired from the U.S. military after spending 20 years in an army that is supposed to uphold the constitution, and hopefully guarantee EQUAL rights for everyone. I didn't spend 13 months in Viet Nam and watch dozens of my friends die to defend the idea that the rich and powerful are above the law. No one should be above the law, not President Clinton, not O.J. Simpson, and not the policemen who beat Rodney King.

If I committed perjury as he has, I would be in jail. To me it's just that simple, and is the basis of why I was willing to die for my country and for my way of life. He is the leader, and should lead by example. I would have been more than willing to forgive his indiscretions, but not his perjury.

You good folks at Honduras This Week do an outstanding job, and I very much enjoy reading your paper. Thanks.

Josef Wells
josefw@usa.net

Dear Editor: Your editorial comment that President Bill Clinton's transgressions should be treated as a "traffic ticket" stunned me. He has lied under oath, obstructed justice, suborned perjury, etc. I imagine HTW would be outraged if a Honduran judge, police official or army officer did these things to cover up to his behavior. Or, falsely accused a citizen as part of a personal vendetta.

It is true that many Americans want this to "go away." We have, and hopefully will continue to have, the rule of law, not of current opinion polls in the U.S. If we succumbed to the polls, illegal immigrants would fare far worse than they do under the rule of law. Partial birth abortion would be outlawed and school prayer allowed if the polls trumped the law.

In the end it appears that your wish will be granted, Clinton will barely be slapped on the wrist by Congress. This outcome will not give me the same joy I imagine it will give your editorial writers.

Bruce Karlson
Navarre, Florida

Are we children of God, or nothing more than producers and consumers?

It's a law of life...that one does not die until one must. -- Laurens Van Der Post

By ERLING DUUS CHRISTENSEN

It is one of the narrow streets behind the cathedral. The heavily used sidewalk is no more than four feet wide. So when the old lady who more or less lives on that sidewalk stretches out, she forces most of the pedestrian traffic into the street. In the course of a few hours many hundreds of people walk past, most of them appearing not to see her. But they do see her, of course, and seem to accept her presence there. She is part of the normal scenery and activity of downtown Tegucigalpa.

Her age is impossible to guess. She looks to be very old, easily into her 80s, but it is likely that she is younger. Her features are good, and there is a faint suggestion that once she was pretty. Her expression is hard to read as well. But there is in the set of her jaw and a glint in her eye a suggestion of anger and resentment. She is heavily clothed in long colorful skirts and jacket made of a heavy material. These serve as a protection from the cold and the hardness of the sidewalk.

Sometimes she sits holding out her cup silently to the passing throng. Sometimes, she lies on her back, pillow-less, but in passing one sees that her eyes are open, and she is looking up with a gaze which is alert and troubled. Maybe it is not so much anger which smolders there, but fear. Who knows?

And, who cares. Seemingly, nobody. These are hard streets that expose an unceasing bazaar of human misery. The rawness of this exposure of degradation and suffering is so powerful and ubiquitous, that people have clearly anesthetized themselves. They see, but they are not involved. They have their own problems. To get involved in not alone seeing but also caring would inevitably lead into a pit of frustration and despair. It is better not to know, and there is nothing to be done, in any event.

Nevertheless, some questions are too insistent in the mind to entirely ignore. They begin not with the old woman, but with the city itself. Why is she allowed to lie there blocking an already inadequate sidewalk? Does the city, or the Catholic church, or some other organization not have a decent shelter where an old abandoned woman could get some care? Do over five centuries of Christianity in this nation not mandate such elemental charity? Why do people tolerate passively such outrageous inhumanity in their common life and culture?

Once begun, there are questions without end. Who is this woman? How did she get here? What disastrous combinations of fate led her to this narrow and filthy sidewalk? Why does she tolerate this life? Can it have any sweetness for her of any kind? Why does she not throw herself off a bridge, or just stop eating? Does she have any family at all in this family-oriented culture who looks after her in some way, or is there some fraternity of vendors and beggars who keep an eye on her, know her name, extend a friendly hand? Does some expression of shared humanity lighten the darkness of her existence?

No doubt, we who pass her on the street feel more irritation than compassion. The many beggars of this city, old and young, are so insistent on their right to live and to make an appeal to the rest of us, to inconvenience us, placing themselves rudely in our path, disturbing our peace of mind. They think we owe them something, owe them life; they exploit our pity, expect it, and are often contemptuous of it as well. Our charity is so thin and paltry. People without legs or arms excite more sympathy; we recognize their handicap, but for the able bodied we retain the bias that says they are lazy and could be working at a job. For this old woman, however, the irritation must be that she stubbornly clings to life, that even in such extremity she supposes her life has some worth, justifying some demand on our money or concern.

Christians, however, with any familiarity with scripture are likely to be disturbed by the words of Jesus "even as you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it to me." Some few of them may even organize their lives in obedience to what is implied in those words. But what is finally clear is that modern society is unable to find any worth to individuals it cannot rationalize as either producers or consumers. It is a mistake to imagine that they have merely fallen by the wayside. That image is far too benign. No, they have been cast aside, used and thrown away. Society finds itself unable or unwilling to affirm the fundamental ethic of the Judeo-Christian tradition, which is that each human being is in essence a child of God.

Meanwhile, the Christ of Picacho raises his arms above the city, and the old woman clings to her sidewalk home. Between those two poles, a vast discordance afflicts the city.

Editorial

A New Year brings new hope around the world
One of the fundamental human characteristics is the capacity to dream. People dream of things which are in many cases impossible to attain. So we strive to achieve an inner equilibrium between those things which are, and those things we hope for, but cannot reach.

What impossible dreams beckon at the beginning of this new year? Perhaps, that all of the earth's inhabitants might eat three meals a day, and that everyone has a job. Or that beggars and prostitutes find a more useful, less demeaning way to survive. We dream also that God is worshipped in the churches and not the power of money, that good healthy fun can be found in every corner of the earth, that politicians have values and that teachers are creative spirits who love children. And much much more...we dream and dream..but men also cry because things are not as they should be.

Justice is cloaked, and there are things that become ridiculous, as in the case of US President Bill Clinton, an unhappy man being judged by everyone but his own wife. A party of blind legalists are judging not the politician but his underwear, forgetting that he was elected for his capabilities. What has happened to the will of the people upon which democracy is supposedly based? We believe that this case should have gone no further than a traffic ticket, but instead many wish to remove the American president from an office in which he has worked with great talent and dedication, bringing increased stability to his country and the world.

And we also do dream about morality, not judicial morality but the morality felt by every human being in the depths of his soul. If this morality fails to flourish, and if laws cannot be applied in a manner that is productive of justice, it is because the judicial traditions have not advanced towards a wisdom equal to the human need.

I always see Santa Claus in pamphlets and wrapping paper, but this North Pole legend has never brought a present simliar to the stones Moses received at Sinai.

As we enter the New Year, we should meditate on this because the future is today. What are we going to offer our children if we don't begin working today for a better life.

A new century is upon us; we are a just a year from the new millenium and all that is seen are almanacs beginning new series and computers fighting a life and death struggle because geniuses forgot to include the next century.

In the grasp of fresh and inspiring ideas, and seeking further than morality itself, may our souls be pure with our fellow man and may the peace of the universe be ours.

State of the world

By W.E. GUTMAN

UNICEF predicts 16% world illiteracy rate will rise (Subhead) Called a "boomerang calamity," illiteracy is linked to poverty, overpopulation, infant mortality and political repression.

UNITED NATIONS -- Nearly one billion people -- or one-sixth of the world's population -- can neither read nor write. So says the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in a report published in early December.

The study further predicts that illiteracy rates will grow exponentially in the next century because only one out of four children in the poorest nations is currently attending school. More than half those denied an education are girls, UNICEF points out in its annual report, "The State of the World's Children 1999."

Apart from deepening divisions between rich computerized societies and those without even the most basic tools of knowledge in developing nations, the report says, illiteracy bears a direct relationship to important health indicators and fertility rates. Because it denies people a voice and bars them from any meaningful participation in their nations' political process, illiteracy also impedes democratization, a phenomenon amply exploited by totalitarian regimes.

The largest number of illiterates are found in countries with rapid population growth, such as India and Pakistan, where better education for women and children could significantly reduce other problems, the reports says.

"A ten-percentage-point increase in girls' primary enrollment could decrease infant mortality by 4.1 deaths per 1,000. A similar rise in girls'secondary enrollment would reduce infant mortality by another 5.6 deaths per 1,000."

Fertility drops sharply as education rises, UNICEF insists. In parts of Central and South America, illiterate women are apt to produce an average of 6.5 children, whereas mothers with a secondary-school education have an average of 2.5 children.

UNICEF and other groups that work with children say education should be guaranteed under the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. But the intentions of the treaty are diluted by a host of problems, including socio-economic crises, ethnic strife and armed conflicts. Widespread ethnic conflict has made refugees of millions of children and destroyed their schools at a time when international aid for educational projects is decreasing. Uprooted children are often turned into soldiers by military forces. Many are often sold into sexual and other forms of servitude by destitute parents. Large numbers are cast out by their families and turn to the streets for survival.

Education competes with more urgent needs such as food and shelter. Experts agree, however, that the most effective way of creating a sense of belonging, stability and normalcy for displaced, orphaned or homeless children is to establish classrooms, however rudimentary.

Schooling is also habitually denied young people because governments do not give education a high priority or offer families the incentives to send their children to school.

"Often, when we interview street children they say they wound up in the streets because they were kicked out of school," says the children's rights division of New York-based Human Rights Watch. "Free education is not always compulsory, and sometimes there are costs -- books, uniforms, shoes, transportation, meals -- that are beyond the reach of many families, thus consigning education to a very low ranking."

Bruce Harris, executive director of Casa Alianza, the eminent children's rights advocate in Central America and Mexico, sees illiteracy as a "boomerang calamity" whose socio-economic repercussions are not immediately perceived. "Society reaps what it sows," Harris warns. "If 75% of our children are out of school, it will be just as easy for them to learn to beg or steal as it would have been to be taught how to read and write. Which do we want? If inaction saddles society with the former, then let's not blame the casualties 20 years from now when the recoverable street urchin has graduated to irredeemable adult behavior."

The UNICEF document concludes that educational levels are "in free fall" wherever persistent poverty, inflation, unpaid or poorly paid teachers and crumbling infrastructures prevail.

Perspective

The Christmas that wasn't

by Erling Duus Christensen

I'm hoping that sometime during the holiday I will pick up some Christmas spirit. Teachers usually have a few days off before the holidays which allows for the leisure, the amiable hours which allow for reflecting and appreciating. But because of Mitch we worked right up to Christmas.

I have a notion the problem is not just mine, however. There was a story in the newspaper about how full the airport is these days, because more Hondurans than normal are going to the States for Christmas, wishing for some relief from the depressing conditions in their country. That is not hard to understand. When you can picture yourself walking around in the gay and splashy malls of Miami or Houston, seeing mostly well-dressed and well-fed people, and if you can afford the trip, why spend Christmas in Honduras where the grime and wreckage from the hurricane is always around the next corner waiting to remind you of things which cannot readily be incorporated into Christmas cheer.

There is no getting away from it, things are pretty depressing for Christmas this year in Honduras. People attempt to carry on in the normal manner, but normality has been overwhelmed.

Still, it is worthwhile to remember that Christmas has little to do with shopping malls anyway. It comes at the darkest time of the year, on a dark night. The wisemen and kings who attended the birth attracted by a strange star were no doubt hoping that it would lead them to a palatial hall with dancing girls, and lavish foods and furnishings. It didn't. Instead, it led them to a rude stable, where the smell of animals and their fodder was strong. One would like to imagine the freshness of newly mown hay in the manger, but more likely it was old and musty.

The Christmas story teller chooses his details carefully. The wisdom and the wealth of the world must be present at the birth, but it must not be on their ground or on their terms. They must come to a place where the over-whelming power of what is simple and fresh can be revealed in its miracle brilliance, without the distractions which normally poison both mind and perception. What is crucial to the story then is that what blazes forth is not something extraordinary, not a great event. Nothing here for Larry King Live, or CNN. The international money exchanges will not register so much as a blip. It is just the simple and very old story suddenly seen with eyes that have been opened.

So maybe I will catch a little Christmas spirit yet. Its possible. And maybe Honduras after the hurricane is not such a bad place to be, if you are looking for the miracle of sight. An old Danish Christmas hymn sings in this manner.

Sight is given to the blind,
And the mute shall listen,
Zion shall at last draw near
Words of life the deaf shall hear,
Roses bloom in Sharon.

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