Honduras This Week Opinions and Editorials

EDITORIAL

Strikes: the legal limit

Workers of this country view striking as the only way to obtain their demands. They employ many motives to justify a strike, block roads and create disturbances. These methods are just their way of escaping the responsibility of negotiating with their employers or bosses within the terms spelled out by labor laws.

Our labor laws establish a methodology for reaching an agreement. Only after negotiations have been exhausted do workers have, as a last resort, the right to strike.

We understand that the economic crisis in our country appears to be endemic and feeds on itself, but we must also keep in mind that this crisis is imported.

An employee here has a different working environment than that of an employee in a developed country. In other countries, workers must labor for two shifts to be able to meet basic living costs. Here, not even working three shifts could a worker reach the status of those in developed country. The difference is that in developed countries strikes are less frequent.

But employers are negligent, too. Their strategies always seem to be to stall negotiations with their employees. Strikes not only affect employer-employee relations, but also affect our nation's progress and development. Communities where strikes occur always feel the negative after effects, not to mention the bad publicity for blocking roads and creating mayhem.

Hence, in our country, it is the obligation of both workers and employers to maintain and stimulate good relations, always taking into account labor laws as the best way to negotiate. But if labor laws are only respected by convenience in a given case, well then, let us create a new law. But there must be order.

The right to strike must be exercised only when all other avenues within the law have been exhausted, and this is not happening.

Equal opportunity expectorations

Some time ago I wrote an article in which I condemned the wide-spread practice among Honduran men of spitting on public walkways. While I was very serious, I attempted to lighten the subject somewhat through the use of a little humor, which at least some readers thought of as a very little bit of humor indeed. No article that I have written excited more comment, much, though not all of it critical. Various of our readers wrote to say that my comments were politically incorrect. I was being disrespectful, if not racist. Not alone that, I was giving Latinos a bad reputation, and hurting tourism. One correspondent wrote to say that while she too deplored spitting, my comments were not constructive.

I have understood for a long time that her attitude was rather characteristically Honduran. That is, Hondurans are world-class deplorers, they can deplore with the best of us, but they do not much believe in taking action, an act that usually begins with vociferous public identification and denunciation, which is also an act that most Hondurans don't believe in, for it can only cause bad feelings.

It will come as a surprise to nobody that the Ministry of Health has not launched a campaign against spitting since last I touched on the subject. Or that the general health of Hondurans continues to decline. Respiratory and gastrointestinal problems are simply endemic. Doctors and witch doctors are waited on by long lines of sufferers who sit sullenly, hoping and praying for relief. And meanwhile, the spitters become ever more entrenched and proficient in this manly art.

I do not lift my pen once again on this touchy subject merely to deplore. No, not me. I have come to ruminate, if not to expectorate. What occasions this event is that the other day as I was walking along the sputum spattered sidewalk, a couple of well-dressed ladies approached. Suddenly, one of them slowed, leaned over the curb (a refinement I appreciated) and unceremoniously... spat. Egad. This shocking event has set me to thinking, and exploring areas of human conduct and culture where I have not entered before.

My father suffered from a sinus problem. At least twice a day until the end of his life he would go to the bathroom and clear his sinuses, which he did with three distinct sounds that were always repeated in exactly the same way. I grew up with that sound. In time it became comforting, somehow reassuring. To hear it was to know that father was abiding, and to know that we could always identify him in any crowd or confusion by that sound. If someday, I should be so fortunate as to get to heaven, and hear again that not so lovely but still beloved sound, my heart will leap. But I digress. Here is my point. I do not remember mother ever making sounds like that, or for that matter, spitting. Mother was not overly refined. She was raised a farm-girl on the South Platte River, part-Danish and part wild. And then this thought follows. One very rarely sees women spit, anywhere, anytime. This has always seemed to be the prerogative of men.

Back to the sidewalks of Tegucigalpa. Consider all the hundreds, make that thousands, of men and boys who every day for one reason or another feel called upon to bedeck the sidewalks of the capital city with these very personal contributions. Consider that one walks among them with something of the feeling of a duck in a shooting gallery. Think of all the numberless times one has walked with a sinking heart behind some gentlemen who is making a sudden hawking sound, as one quickly attempts to ascertain in what direction the wind may be blowing, and then amidst the gathering gloom occasioned by all these thoughts think of the fact that the sight of a well-dressed woman spitting should be startling.

So what do we make of this. Are men and women constructed differently, woman having perhaps less sensitive sinus cavities, or are the psychic and sexual proclivities of woman of such a nature that they do not find spitting to be titillating. Or are women repressed, less free, not liberated to enjoy the sense of bold self-expression that public spitting engenders. Do mothers and fathers everywhere say to their children "boys don't cry, and girls don't spit." Or, are millions of men the world over simply vulgarians who need to evolve quite a lot before they can be called civilized, or is spitting actually a necessary part of the male equipment that enables them to arm against the domesticity traps cleverly laid by women?

Well, these are questions of heavy philosophical import. They deserve the attention of a Schopenauer or a Kant. Or, even better, what would that great questioner Descartes make of all this. "I spit, therefore I am."

THE LEEWARD COURSE

X

By George Agurcia
jagurcia@laconstancia.hn

RN Tuesday Evening Toast:

One night came on a hurricane,

The sea was mountains rolling,

When Barney Buntline turned his quid,

And said to Billy Bowling:

"A strong nor'wester's blowing, Bill;

Hark! Don't ye hear it roar now?

Lord help 'em, how I pities them

Unhappy folks on shore now!

Having lived there for a couple of summers, while on breaks from college, I became acquainted with a few of the many wonderful things that make life in the Bay Islands a waking dream of magical dimensions. Although the days were filled with sunlit beauty and much underwater excitement, I will never forget the nights.

The distant sound of dominoes being slapped down onto a table in synchrony with the tumbling of a bass guitar leading a reggae riff was my customary lullaby. Also, a faint trace of coconut oil -- my laundress probably used it to soften her skin -- was always present in the linen, mixing sweetly with the scent of hibiscus carried into the room by the briny night air. These impressions, the ones that would almost always complete my days' events in Roatan, will be with me forever.

Sleep would generally find me lying in bed, resting content, while locked in the usual eye duel with an enormous and translucent island gecko in the rafters, my reluctant roommate. One otherwise fine evening, my other roommate (Russ) slammed the door so hard that the gecko lost its grip. It landed with an unconventional smack, right on my chest. To say that these animals are notably clammy and cold is an unreserved understatement. I still wonder which one of us (the lizard or myself) enjoyed that particular experience the least, as it did move off me with unmistakable alacrity.

Visitors to Roatan are greeted by abundant beauty, first above and then below water. Topside, one's eye delights in tones of neon blue and turquoise green; the beguiling hues of a vast Caribbean Sea that gently laps beaches of peach-colored sand which seem to stretch all the way to a setting sun in the distance. Below, a forest of sea sponges spreads along the length of a reddish wall of coral, itself teeming with life. As you follow a school of tropical fish through a crack that guides you toward "big blue," your mind wanders with the tick-ticking sounds emitted by the feeding parrot fish intermingled with the hypnotic cadence of compressed air and bubbles passing through your regulator. All the while, you are floating freely like an astronaut in space...without a care in the world.

But actually, what struck me the most while there were some of the comments I heard islanders making to account for some of the most unusual happenings around their island home. For instance, there's the time a lady in Oak Ridge lost her parrot only to find it squawking away in a neighbor's tree, voicing with eloquence an offer of an "Easter ass'n," for her owner. Also, there's the time a fellow got caught by his wife with another girl. Upon being confronted, he proceeded to announce himself as somebody else, strenuously denying he knew anything of the man to whom she was married, saying, "I done tole you, I ain't myself todee." Both make strong cases for keeping all birds duly confined.

Finally, there's my all time favorite. Since the Bay Islands are pretty much in the way of most tropical depressions passing through the Western Caribbean, many islanders have come to terms with storms and their effects, making light of their sudden unpredictability: "Mon, you know... bod ting's a hurricane got no rudder, mon!"

"Foolhardy chaps who live in towns,

What danger they are all in,

And now lie quaking in their beds,

For fear the roof shall fall in:

Poor creatures! how they envies us,

And wishes, I've a notion,

For our good luck, in such a storm,

To be upon the ocean!"

--William Pitt, The Sailor's Consolation

PERSPECTIVE

Life on the edge -- the karma that keeps us all alive

By MELANIE WETZEL

Sometimes living in Honduras means living on the edge. Disaster must surely be just inches away, yet things always seem to work out for the best.

This idea first occurred to me in the backseat of a taxi as the driver was weaving lanes on the Boulevard at about 80 MPH. Ihad my hands in the air over my head, much like a 12-year old on a roller coaster and for exactly the same reason. What else could I do but enjoy the breeze?

I don't believe that living in Honduras increases my risk for bodily harm or mental anguish. I don't have a death wish, and if I thought it was really safer in the U.S., I would go back there. I think that a great part of the insulation we put between ourselves and danger in the United States is more habit than actual protection. It would be nice if the taxis had seatbelts, though.

One of my favorite adrenaline-inducing experiences is watching Hondurans play fast and loose with electricity. Little wooden shacks with home-strung wiring and the bare light-bulb on the end of a wire are two symbols of the laissez-faire that makes Tegucigalpa seem like a 365-day a year carnival. The occasional boom of a transformer blowing up down the street just adds to the delight.

Hondurans don't often let safety concerns get in the way of getting something done. I know that the laws of physics are universal but somehow, in Honduras, leaning an aluminum ladder against the power lines just makes the job go faster. In the U.S. this would result in a fatality, a lawsuit, a late breaking news story and a ban on aluminum ladders. Maybe the U.S. just has bad karma.

That must be it -- Honduras is populated by extremely lucky people. People who can set off huge black-powder firecrackers six times a year and not lose a finger. Well, maybe one of the lesser fingers, but hardly ever a thumb.

In Los Angeles, the NBA finals resulted in a riot. In San Pedro Sula, the national soccer team played Nicaragua with whom Honduras has a tense border dispute and historic animosity, and no one even threw a can.

Honduran pedestrians (and gringos who keep their happy thoughts) can cross six lanes of traffic on a two-lane street without breaking a trot or causing anyone to swerve. Or if they choose, they can take advantage of their lucky karma by using the rickety pedestrian bridges. At the very worst, a small piece of concrete will fall to the highway below and break a windshield, but there will probably be no injuries and the car will either have been insured or belong to the United Nations.

There is no 911 in Honduras. If you do get hit by a car, the first person to come across your injured body will probably take all the money out of your pockets. Then a taxi will stop to see if you want a ride to the hospital, but since you don't have the fare, he'll move on. But even knowing this, I skip the pedestrian bridge and navigate the traffic. Who needs 911? Nothing in Honduras is an actual "emergency."

This situation -- the edge, the danger, the karma -- is never more apparent than on one's first landing at Toncontín airport. Yes, that is a mountain at the end of a very short runway. Yes, the traffic has to be stopped on nearby streets "just in case." Yes, that is a cow on the runway. What are you going to do about it?

Just put your hands above your head and keep your happy thoughts.

READER'S FORUM

COME SEE THE REAL HONDURAS

Dear HTW:

I was sorry to read of Paul Hellander (of Lonely Planet fame) and his wife's experiences in getting to and from the Bay Islands. I hope the new minister of tourism and local airlines will take their comments into account.

Still, perhaps all is not lost and some good can come out of their misfortune. There is, strange as it may seem, a Honduras outside of the Bay Islands and the Copan Ruinas. Here in the highlands of western Honduras we can't offer giant pyramids (though there are interesting, unmarked Mayan traces) or scuba diving, but we can offer spectacular scenery of wooded canyons and cliffs, mountains and a gentle climate ideal for hiking and pony-trekking, not to mention the rivers for swimming.

The Bay Islands and Copan Ruinas are great, but here in the mountains, the land of the Lencas, it is another world, very beautiful and well worth the visit. Maybe there are no 5-star hotels or even 3 or 4, but there are hotels in Marcala and La Esperanza, for instance, that are clean and comfortable. Many local people will also put up tourists for very reasonable rates. Get out of that rut, off La Ruta Gringa, La Ruta Turística and come and explore the real Honduras.

Nigel "Nayo" Potter

San Jose Marcala, La Paz

ARTICLES WRITTEN WITH ARROGANCE

Dear HTW:

In early March of this year, two American business executives, one the co-founder and chairman of America Online, met with Manuel Marulanda, the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). They tried to convince the rebel leader to lay down his arms and seek peace with the Colombian government on the premise that peace would invite foreign investment, thereby leading to economic prosperity in Colombia. What struck me most upon hearing of the meeting was that the two executives did not seek Marulanda's point of view, much less consider it. "The Leeward Course" series of articles seems to be written with the same arrogance.

One need not go into the mountains of Colombia to understand Marulanda. FARC has its own website. It's not an original point of view. The same message can be heard from the keyboard of Rafael Sebastian Guillen Vicente (a.k.a. Subcommander Marcos) or Ralph Nader's speech at the World Bank/IMF protest rally last April. It's not a new point of view either. People have been talking about this for years: people like Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon, Emiliano Zapata and Carlos Fonseca.

The fact is that with or without foreign investment or with or without economic growth, it won't make much difference to the poor peasant workers of Honduras or Colombia or Mexico. Before Cardenas nationalized the Mexican oil industry, the U.S. oil company used bribes, armed guards and underground oil distribution facilities to avoid taxes and send as much profit as possible back to the United States while paying subsistence wages to Mexican workers. In Nicaragua and El Salvador during this century, healthy profits from many industries went into foreign investment accounts of a privileged few while the average worker barely made enough to feed himself, much less his family.

In Honduras, our banana industry has used bribery, fraud and murder to ensure that the Hondurans receive as little as possible from their hard work. Bribes up to the presidential level have been used in the past to ensure low export taxes. Threats of violence, actual violence and murder have been used by certain banana companies to protect their stranglehold on the Honduran market. There have been documented cases of toxic insecticide being sprayed by banana companies while workers are in the fields and while children have been playing nearby. And most of the profits go to Cincinnati, Ohio, not into the pockets of the Honduran workers. During periods of economic growth and ruing periods of economic depression over the centuries, the average Honduran worker has returned each night to the same humble home and an average of nearly half his children died before age 5. And Jorge Agurcia Fasquelle wonders why Hondurans are not anxious to work real hard to make money for expatriates.

Despite lack of formal education, the average Honduran worker and peasant understand an economic concept that too many highly educated expatriates evidently do not: that without hat Stanford professor and former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz calls institutional infrastructure (laws to enforce contracts and to ensure competition and effective corporate governance, regulations to rein in natural monopolies and keep the financial system sound, and a social safety net), foreign investment and economic growth probably won't make any difference to their standard of living. So as you ponder the problems of the Third World, take a step back and think about it from their point of view.

Silencia Cruz
Arlington, VA

EDITORIAL

Coup in regional bank

The term of the Central American Bank of Economic Integration's President, Alejandro Arevalo, has been cut short, undoubtedly due to political differences with Alfonso Portillo, the president of his native country.

It is a regional nuisance that the presidency of CABEI, the only surviving institution of Central American integration efforts, has been beheaded by the simple fact that Mr. Arevalo is not an ally of Mr. Portillo's reigning party.

All of this is still a rumor, but the Honduran representative or governor to CABEI said in the next meeting in Guatemala, Mr. Portillo will retire Mr. Arevalo from his post and appoint someone close to him.

The blunder on the part of the Honduran Governor was a statement saying that Honduras will analyze the next Guatemalan candidate's curriculum. This would mean that Honduran authorities could be readying for an internal conflict in CABEI in the event that they don't like the candidate's background.

It is expected that this forceful change made by Guatemalan authorities will be the last because the system will change. The next CABEI president will be elected in an effort to give the biggest regional bank a more democratic spirit.

The great expectations about CABEI have not been met. Among other things, it lacks projection in the region, its development projects have stagnated, it does not have the power to promote industry, has no Central American natural resource management plan, does not participate in the Central American integration process and does not promote currency unification.

All of the above are possible when there is will. CABEI should have been the center for many things in Central America. The Central American Parliament and other regional integration entities should revolve around it.

For now, Honduras and the rest of the area must comply with President Portillo's will, but we must all reject political impositions. From now on, we will act under technical terms. This is what the world of the future, a universal macro-monopoly, demands from us today. Then, together, we shall all bow our heads to the system.

PERSPECTIVE

Is "Communism" still a clear and present danger in Central America?

Personal reflections on the link between paranoia and fallacious reasoning

By W. E. GUTMAN

"I may not be looking for Commies under my bed when I retire at night but I know they're here, ready to play havoc with this country, eager to poison and subvert the region as they tried once before."

An acquaintance, a retired Honduran high-ranking intelligence officer (and graduate of the School of the Americas), my interlocutor is dead serious. His assessment, prevalent among the region's military elite, may be more a case of wishful thinking than imminent reality. Inactivated -- if not trivialized -- these graying warriors are visibly pining for the good old days when the "democratization of death" allowed a blurring between legitimate armed conflict and extermination. Unable to offer a shred of verifiable evidence in support of their claims, they resort to hyperbole and allude circuitously to mounting crime, popular discontent and the discernible unraveling of Central American societies to bolster their scaremongering views.

Countless interviews and private chats confirm that these men (now retired and mercifully forgiven for the horrific crimes they committed) simply wax nostalgic about the Cold War, a time when heresy, dissent or mere eccentricity from oligarchic dictates could be silenced at the point of a gun. It has occurred to this writer that they also harbor a concept of "Communism" that is both flawed and fanciful.

It is because it fails to convey the concept it purports to encapsulate that I often get the urge to write the word "Communism" in quotation marks, to read it thus circumscribed in the works of others, as if to accentuate an incongruity. The word is a paragon of vagueness. Overuse, misuse and abuse will do that to words. "Progressives," "loyalists," "conservatives," "liberals" and "independents" know what I mean. It is not surprising that Marxist doctrinaires, atheists, human rights crusaders, freethinkers, pacifists and people who wear red socks have all been labeled "Communists."

In McCarthyist America, cultural non-conformity and a penchant for social justice were unmistakable symptoms of "Communism." Predictably, the latter was considered a far more heinous crime and is still looked with askance by right-wing demagogues. Popular liberation movements aimed at shaking the colonial yoke would be similarly imputed. Opposition to U.S. military intervention in these conflicts, when not spurred by laissez-faire isolationists, was also denounced as "Communist-inspired." John Lennon's stirring pleas for peace at a time of war were reflexively ascribed to "Communist" leanings. Had they lived today, Tom Payne and Henry David Thoreau would be branded "Communists."

In Russia's new market‑oriented economy, a "Communist" is better known as a "loyalist." A hundred years ago, a "loyalist" was a czarist. Fifty years ago, "progressive" described a latent "Communist." In capitalist circles, aggressive and daring investment strategies are referred to as "progressive." Both the Nazis and the "Communists" persecuted Freemasons. The former regarded them as "Communists;" the latter deemed the ancient brotherhood a tool of western imperialism. So much for semantics.

There's another problem. What passes as "Communism" has perverted the ideals it alleges to represent. It also betrayed the goals to which it is theoretically committed. In assuming power -- by force -- "Communists," in true Fascist style, granted themselves rights that they promptly took away from the rank and file. Instead of tending to urgent social issues, such as poverty, hunger and illiteracy, their crusade quickly became mired in proselytism-by-terror.

Ultimately, the narrow canons at the core of "Communism's" wider philosophical tenets, like those of monotheist religions, are un‑enforceable. Driven by disciplines and proscriptions that denounce egotism, intolerance and greed ‑‑ traits found in abundance in Homo sapiens ‑‑ "Communism" is hopelessly incompatible with human nature. What the world has witnessed since Marxist theories were first propounded is a travesty inside a parody. Under the brutal stewardship of its disciples, "Communism" has failed. History may yet rank this failure (as is the failure of religion to root out evil) as one of the greatest tragedies to befall the family of man.

Growing up in Israel, and later as a young journalism student in Paris, I too would toy with "Communism." Mine was a youthful romantic longing for social harmony and justice, a paradigm anchored in the naive belief that collective distribution of goods produced collectively would not only bring the world happiness but also rid it of its torments. I was rebelling against all power and authority like any self-respecting young French secular Jew enamored of the philosophies and intrigued with Hegel, Hobbes, Locke and Saint-Simon. The amassing of personal wealth and the acquisition of corporate fortunes, I agreed, are achieved through exploitation and lead to an anarchical control of assets that are never evenly shared with the exploited.

By the time I became sufficiently acquainted with it, the popular 19th century Saint-Simonean movement had long since degenerated into a quasi-religious sect. It would soon break apart and be promptly consigned to history's bottom drawer as an eccentricity -- which is perhaps what attracted me to it in the first place.

As time passed, bloodied countless times in the ceaseless crossfire between ideal and ideology, I would then explore the more utilitarian goals of "Socialism." I had concluded that "Communism" did not and could not work, except on a small controlled scale, in the disciplined confines of some ancient Essene community or in a modern and self-sufficient monastery. I still recognized in Marxism's muddled stoicism and stridency an unambiguous morality that was hard to dismiss. I would continue to be drawn to the spirit long after the letter, to my immense chagrin, had been shredded beyond recognition. I also understood that freedom is achievable -- in very brief spurts -- only after the dissolution of the status quo, but I was not prepared to accept the chaos and the injustice that a revolution would bring.

With nowhere to go, I would concede that political power is intrinsically oppressive, whether wielded by the right or the left, by a mercenary elite or a covetous proletariat. To escape pigeonholing, I resolved that conscience would be the fulcrum of my convictions. Mid‑course corrections are best made from the middle of the road. I would often stray off the beaten path just to see what lay beyond my field of vision.

More recently, I witnessed the last gasps of nearly 80 years of "Communism" in the Soviet Union and the evisceration of the Russian spirit. Russians are afflicted with what I have come to characterize, for lack of a better hyperbole, as cancer of the soul. Misconstrued, contaminated and falsified by nearly four generations of hoodlums, goons and charlatans, "Communism" remains everywhere the balm of dreamers and chronic malcontents. In Russia, where there is much to bewail, it still festers with a naivety bordering on irrationality.

"Things were tough under Stalin and Beria," complained an old-timer bearing a mouthful of gold teeth, "but at least we all had jobs, a roof over our heads, food on the table. There was order. Now we have nothing, except disorder."

I find it a delicious paradox that the well-to-do, quintessentially upper-middle-class Karl Marx, an unrepentant philanderer and a man not known for high standards of personal hygiene, loathed and denigrated the masses. I then grieve at the notion that an ideal of emancipation, of universal fraternity found itself transformed on the morrow of the October Revolution into an all‑powerful and merciless doctrine of discrimination and repression.

Now and then, I also wonder whether another Jew, perhaps an exalted figure such as Jesus -- had he lived today -- could have led mankind to salvation with his own brand of "Communism." I follow such musings to their natural conclusion and rule that the Vatican would have branded him a heretic and excommunicated him, and that CIA‑sponsored death-squads -- perhaps the gruesome Honduran Battalion 3-16 -- for reasons of "national security," would have silenced him, as the Pharisees did two thousand years ago.

The colonel, who, to this day, condones the murder of young priests, peasants, labor union leaders, journalists and teachers a decade and a half ago -- "they were all Communists" -- concurs.

"It would have been our sacred duty!"

Honduran Soccer 101

Demand for Honduran players abroad surges

Motagua star Ivan Guerrero will soon be playing for Conventry in England's Premier League. (Photo by Eric Schwimmer.)

By MARCO CACERES

There's no question that Honduras is playing some of the best soccer in its history. On April 30, the country's Under‑23 team (made up of players under 23 years of age) beat its U.S. counterpart to win the CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) championship. A few days earlier, the same Honduran team had upset powerhouse Mexico to qualify for the Sydney Olympics. In addition, Honduras' national team recently beat Haiti 4-0 in the first leg of two matches to determine which squad will play in the next round of World Cup qualifiers.

With all of Honduras' recent success in international competition, Honduran soccer players are being heavily scouted by some of the top professional teams in Europe and South America, as well as teams in the United States and Mexico. Just in the past couple of months, for example, Austria's Salzburg signed

Maynor Suazo of San Pedro Sula's Marathon and Juan Manuel Carcamo and Walter Lopez of Puerto Cortes' Platense. Salzburg is also interested in acquiring Julio Cesar Suazo and Francisco Antonio Pavon of La Ceiba's Victoria.

In England, Coventry City has signed Jairo Manfredo Martinez and Ivan Guerrero of Tegucigalpa's Motagua. Motaguenses Amado Guevara and Milton "Jocon" Reyes will reportedly sign to play for West Ham United or Newcastle United. Martinez, Guerrero, Guevara, and Reyes would be the second, third, fourth, and fifth Hondurans in England's Premier League. Milton Omar "Tyson" Nunez currently plays for Sunderland.

In Italy, two teams of the Serie A League are interested in acquiring Honduran midfielder Julio Cesar "Rambo" de Leon, who plays for Deportivo Maldonado of Uruguay's First Division. Leon would be the second Honduran player in Serie A, after Oscar David Suazo Velasquez of the Cagliari Calcio.

In Argentina, two first division teams are interested in Olimpia's Samuel Caballero and Federal's Jose "Chepo" Fernandez. Caballero and Fernandez would be the third and fourth Honduran players in Argentina's first division, after Eduardo "Balin" Bennett, who now plays for Cobreloa of Chile's first division, and Arnold Javier Cruz of the Chacarita Juniors.

In Mexico, Carlos Pavon plays for Atletico Celaya of the first division A and, in the United States, Saul "Speedy" Martinez plays for the Miami Fusion of Major League Soccer (MLS). U.S. and Mexican teams are reportedly interested in Luis "El Bombero" Ramirez of San Pedro's Real Espana. At least one Mexican team is interested in Motagua goalkeeper Noel Valladares.

The growing market demand for Honduran players is a good thing for Honduras, as a whole. It is positive exposure, rather than the negative stuff Honduras is so accustomed to getting. Honduran soccer players are quickly becoming a major export, just like bananas and cigars. Hopefully, the players are representing Honduras admirably abroad, not only in terms of their performance on the field, but also as human beings and citizens. These de facto ambassadors, after all, are in unusually enviable positions for helping promote the country and its culture.

A very concrete advantage to having Honduran players going abroad is the simple matter of their lucrative contracts. While not every Honduran player will be fortunate enough to earn the $60,000 per month Juan Manual Carcamo has been promised by Salzburg, anything remotely near this amount is a huge step up from what players make in Honduras. Even the President of Honduras earns only about $5,000 a month, last I heard.

Having dozens of Honduran soccer players earning $500,000 or more annually could conceivably start to make an impact on Honduras if these individuals chose to invest some of their money wisely in their native land. Perhaps they could eventually return to Honduras and help develop its soccer industry to where it's churning out hundreds of export‑quality players, rather than just dozens.

The downside, of course, to having so many of Honduras' best players displaying their skills abroad is that it can potentially leave the country's national team shorthanded when it comes time to play matches that could decide its participation in the World Cup every four years. Each time a top notch player signs with a European or South American team, it means that his availability to play for Honduras in international competition is limited. He may be able to make some of the games, but not all of them, particularly if he has to frequently travel long distances.

Note that Honduran players in Italy and England have to account for at least one day of flight time to Honduras and another day for the return trip. Thus, they must be selective of the games they will play for the Honduran national team. Otherwise, they will risk their relationship with their employer. Milton Nunez recently disclosed in an interview that Sunderland team officials were not too happy about the amount of time he's been away playing for Honduras.

The ideal situation for Honduras would be to have its "soccer exports" playing close to home, like Carlos Pavon in Mexico. Pavon can grab a flight to Honduras and be there in a couple of hours. Problem is that you're not going to be making the kind of money in Mexico as you would in Europe. So it's a bit of a catch-22, really.

The key is for Honduran players abroad to manage well their playing time between their host teams and Honduras' national team so they don't jeopardize their careers or Honduras' World Cup aspirations. If this is to happen effectively, there must continually be close support from and coordination with the coaching staff of the national team and officials of Honduras' soccer federation, FENAFUTH. After all, it's to everyone's advantage.

Marco Caceres is the co‑founder of projecthonduras.com <http://www.projecthonduras.com>.

THE LEEWARD COURSE

By George Agurcia
jagurcia@laconstancia.hn

RN Tuesday Evening Toast:

Here's to our men.

In his doctoral dissertation, The People of French Harbour (University Microfilms, 1966), anthropologist David K. Evans dedicates an entire chapter to Island folklore. My particular favorite is the "duppy." What follows has been excerpted from Dr. Evans' work, based on his research and interviews in the Bay Islands.

Islanders, particularly the older ones, believe their world to be densely populated by spirits of the dead. These are known as duppies. It seems to the villagers "more natural that the duppy should be there than that he shouldn't" (Beckwith, 1929).

The origin of the word is African, for child or ghost, and can still be traced to Sierra Leone. According to Dr. Evans and similar research carried out by other anthropologists throughout the West Indies, duppies are said to appear in any form at any time, though they seem to prefer twelve noon or nighttime. Generally, duppies are not seen, but make their presence obvious to the living in many ways. For instance, they may cause a person to feel a warm current of air during a cool evening. If a duppy chooses to show itself in human form, one will notice that its feet don't quite touch the ground, while moving in a smoke-like, swirling motion.

Duppies [unlike the living] are divided into good and bad. There are the "Christian" spirits, and there are those "walking th'earth ta humbug a mon." According to lore, whenever meeting up with a duppy it is important to immediately ascertain its character. If you curse before a "good" duppy, he will vanish into a wisp of smoke; an evil one, on the other hand, will laugh and come at you, in which case you should call out the name of our Good Lord to make it go away.

Among the more popular characters in the duppy cast is the benevolent "Sea Mahmy," a "sweet-tempered duppy who cares for little except sporting in the water and sitting on the bank, combing her gorgeous hair" (Leach, 1961), echoing the Homeric fable of the mermaid. Also the dangerous "Long-Bubby Susan" or "Bubby Girl," who chases men into the bush and kills them with her hot suffocating breathe. Then there is "Old One Foot" or "Old Stick," who like Robert Louis Stevenson's notorious Long John Silver leaves characteristic prints on the sand. Additionally, there is the never-ending role call of rogues, pirates and Spaniards who once lived and died in the islands, and who still haunt their old posts.

Bearing Dr. Evans' comments in mind, I know of one person who swears, to this day, that an ancient pirate roams his house in Roatan. I am talking about someone not only educated in Europe, but also somebody who is characteristically skeptical, even about most living folks. His first sighting of this duppy with "golden hair" was during a warm summer evening, as he was getting ready to go to bed. The sighting lasted a few minutes, as the ghost looked out into the ocean and then simply dissolved into the night air.

The next morning, at the breakfast table, one of his guests commented on having seen a strange "blonde midget" dressed in "the old style" right outside his window, on the sun deck. My friend, who had slept in the loft and hadn't spoken to his guest about the sighting ¾ afraid of seeming the fool, reluctantly admitted to also having seen it. It had appeared as a short person to the guest since the deck lies just below the room-level of the house; from my friend's perspective upstairs, a full-bodied buccaneer, olden clothed, cutlass and all had been clearly in sight. Two separate witnesses, corroborating a very strange event indeed.

It so happens my friend's house is built over an old English battery position in Port Royal. I think it was Cervantes who once proclaimed in classic irony, "I don't believe in ghosts; but, about their existence... I have no doubts."

About those pesky sandflies

By DON PEARLY

If there is one single topic about which people inquire the most, it is the sandfly conditions on Guanaja. I will now give you the results of my most recent 12 years in the Caribbean. Working in and among them both in Belize and here in Honduras.

Again, I can only go on what I am told and what I have witnessed, so If any bug-ologists out there have up-dates or corrections, let me hear about them at <dpearly@compuserve.com>.

Sandflies are also called "no-see-ums" and exist almost everywhere in the world. They do not carry disease like the mosquitos, so no one has taken a real hard look at permanently eradicating them. They have a four-day life cycle and can go for four generations without eating. How they find all this out is beyond my realm of comprehension, but I suppose it is through live interviews with the little creatures.

When they find you they will land teeth first, giving you no warning they are about to strike. It is more of a tickle than a bite, and if you have the presence of mind to simply touch the itchy spot, you will maim the creature and somehow neutralize the itch. Now, should you scratch the spot you may be headed for more trouble, as it seems to perpetuate the itchy feeling, and if you scratch the surface of your skin with your nails, you will

agitate the wound and it can turn red and sometimes even get infected. So, ignore it is the word, and they will go away in just a few minutes.

We have been told that if we can get rid of the little nippers, it would be "Katey Bar the Door" for Guanaja, the tourists would flock here. There are warnings on the Internet about how terrible they are, and it supposedly keeps people away by the hundreds. Having lived here for five years now, I know they are not at all bad most of the time. But I do admit that some people attract them more than others and end up looking like a "connect the dots" drawing.

We spoke with a lot of people about the situation until one night in Belize we were directed to a specialist's assistant sitting at a bar. As he had just returned form a "Sandal's" destination hotel somewhere in the Caribbean, he reportedly knew all about it. His boss was making a grand living eradicating sandflies from islands and this helper had come by the magic potion he used exclusively.

Sitting in the Casa Blanca bar at the Four Fort Street Restaurant in Belize City, with the overhead fans slowly turning and Humphrey Bogart playing head water, he dramatically reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a crumpled mess of paper that turned out to be a label peeled off a discarded poison jar. He held it to his chest and began negotiating. His boss had sold this very same technology to the owners of several islands for US$30,000. Of course, we pointed out, his boss had also applied the cure over a certain period of time and had completed the job before he had been paid. (We were bluffing a little because we had no idea how it worked.)

Apparently, we were on the right track because we settled for a night of drinking and a job if he ever made it all the way down to Guanaja. The magic powder was an over the counter poison called "tempo." Among its claims was that it was harmful to insects and fish, but harmless to humans, mammals, birds and reptiles.

Sounded good to us if all we had to do was keep it well above the high-tide water mark on our beach and watch the little sandflies flee for their lives. We found it in the States and for $53 procured a small plastic jug with about a pint of powder in it. The instructions suggested one ounce to 100 gallons of water, so a little goes a long away.

Now to the application. We were to spray the contaminated areas in the morning and rake the sand, being certain to turn it over at least two inches into the beach. Then, in the afternoon, we were to repeat the process. All we had to do was keep it up for five or six days to be sure we got all the generations and we would be completely bug free.

We did it religiously and sure enough at the end of a week we had a zero sandfly population. Were we happy or what? Now, for a big advertisement campaign, "Bug free Guanaja invites the world to visit. One U.S. dollar refund for every bona fide bite, free scratchers should a guest be bitten."

And then it happened. Just before we seriously paid for the ads, a small northern wind came upon us and brought to visit a brand new healthy squadron of, you guessed it, our neighbors' sandflies. The tempo left very little in the way of residual poison. So we had to start over again.

So, what's the answer? Tempo for everyone. We need to start at the tip of Michael's Rock and work our way down toward Bayman Bay Club. It is only a matter of a few miles, so no big deal when you think of the on-going reward. We need to enlist the proud owners of Michael Rock and of Dina's beach, the future site of the Iguana Bay Resort, to join forces and have a tempo week, and when we are through, an open invitation to the world to come visit us.

Don Pearly is the General Manager of the Bayman Bay Club on the island of Guanaja. His e-mail is <DPearly@compuserve.com>.

End of school year reflections

A sweet little 7th grade girl walked by me the other day at the school where I teach. I noticed that she was crying. I stopped her and asked her why. She had just learned that she had failed a course. Spontaneously, I opened my arms, and she snuggled in briefly for a hug. A couple of days later, I read in the newspaper about a well-known relative of hers, implicated during the 80s in the torture and murder of fellow citizens.

We have other students at the school intimately connected to people who engaged in acts of extreme violence against others in the name of the holy war against communism. On the other hand, we have a teacher, perhaps one who teaches children of military officers implicated in murder, whose uncle, a university student at the time, became one of those who vanished into the Honduran night of terror.

The other day I watched the quality CNN documentary "The Cold War," a segment of that series featuring the bloody Latin America chapter of the conflict. John Negroponte, Ronald Reagan's ambassador to Honduras during the terrible years, was being interviewed. It must not be forgotten that the Honduran government and military were carrying out the role assigned to them by that amiable and demonically innocent fascist president, and the militant and fanatic advisors and diplomats he put in charge of waging the Cold War.

Watching Negroponte defend the activities of that time with a smug and arrogant smile on his face turned my stomach. I felt an intense sense of shame that this man had been allowed to represent my country in Honduras. He is a character from central casting, where they stockpile actors capable of playing Joseph Goebbels or Heinrich Himmler in Nazi movies. I developed a powerful impulse to find where this creature now resides, no doubt in the most luxurious of surroundings, and on my next trip to the states make my way into his unctuous presence and slap that insufferable smile off his face.

Honduras was profoundly victimized during those times. While murder and torture are common enough here, brutality and murder are not routinely sanctioned, and Hondurans are not easily recruited into holy wars. These events are still all to recent and rest uneasily upon the Honduran soul. Nothing has been forgotten or forgiven. Those who were incited to commit crimes are uneasy and unhappy. Some of them turn to Christ, hoping to ease the ache of conscience. Their children and grandchildren suffer. No national unburdening is allowed. No national repentance and consequent grace takes place.

Meanwhile, in southern California, the aging former president advances into the last stages of Alzheimer's disease, his conscience as untroubled as when he presided over the brutalization of cultures about which he knew a great and utterly vacuous-nothing. And his henchmen, enjoying the affluence and prestige which the United States usually affords to its high level assassins, bide their time, confident that the moment will come when their deeds and names will emerge from the faint odor that has, despite everything, come to surround them, and they will on that bright day be called forth to be recognized as the heroes, who inspired by their peerless leader, saved the hemisphere and the world for God, freedom and money.

* * * * *

The other day I went to the graduation exercises at the American School in Tegucigalpa. The students graduating were my 8th graders during the year in which I taught at that school for which I hold neither affection nor respect. But I do have affection and respect for many of the students I taught who are not responsible for the peculiar circumstances which cause that feckless institution to be such an abomination.

That I came to be a teacher at the American School was pretty much an accident. I had come to Honduras to teach English at a private university. But meanwhile whole groups of recently hired U.S. teachers, lied to by the administration and appalled by the lack of discipline at the school, summarily quit. Since the American School paid much better than the private university (which was another kind of disaster), I allowed myself to be recruited to teach at the school with scant warnings that there were some problems.

On my first day of teaching, during a lull when I had given a reading assignment, my students suddenly got up and laid down on the floor at the back of the classroom, their bodies draped in various fashion across each other.

"What do you think you are doing?" I asked.

"Oh, mister, we always do this."

"Not any more you won't, not in my class, at least."

These were the opening salvos in a long internecine battle between myself, many of the students, and much of the school's establishment. I was determined to win the battle. In the short term, at least, I did not win. I lost. I had made too many enemies. Many of my students resented my efforts to alter their behavior and their outlook, above all their disrespect for education.

But as years have passed, when I run into the students who I once battled, I notice that there is a certain something that has grown up between us, more so than at other schools where my tenure was less embattled, something that was shaped back then though rarely, if ever, acknowledged. I would call it affection, respect, maybe even, love.

Sitting there at their graduation, I felt a degree of pride and accomplishment. I felt that I had contributed to what some of them are becoming. I felt that I had won.

READER'S FORUM

CURED OF TELA'S BEACHES

Dear HTW:

I read W. E. Gutman's article about Tela [April 29 issue] and it was certainly the Tela I know. My beach experience there cured me of a desire to swim in Tela. I've got beautiful photos of that water, but upon close inspection it's not where one wants to swim. My experience last year included watching a used sanitary napkin float by. I was out of that water in a matter of seconds.

I've been to Tela many times over the past 18 months. My husband and I love its proximity to Lancetilla. The drive from San Pedro Sula is beautiful, the sopa de caracol in local restaurants is delicious and we love the Telamar. Unfortunately, the beach that could be such a wonderful attraction is dirty and trashy.

A recent visit to Omoa provided an entirely different swimming experience. The water was clear to the bottom. The beach dropped off suddenly, leaving us to float in clear, coldwater. The food was fine, the beach uncrowded and there were small but satisfactory hotels nearby. I'd go back there in a heartbeat, but I'd go to Tela even faster if residents and visitors would take more pride in their beach.

D. H. Henriquez
via Internet

POVERTY OF SPIRIT

Dear HTW:

Thank you for Christiana Casebolt's stimulating special to

Honduras This Week, "Poverty must be dealt with before progress can occur."

Her article points to phenomena that anyone who has ever lived not only in Central America but anywhere in the Third World cannot help but observe. Why, for instance, does a country like Honduras, so rich not only in human capital but in agricultural resources as well, have to import basic food stuffs like beans and corn? I speak not about agribusiness, which is doing very well and knows how to attract investment, but about the countryside where the small farmer and agricultural worker is swiftly disappearing. Why does a country that could feed its population 25 years ago have to import basic foods today?

If we only go looking for the "bad guy" to answer questions like these, we end up only with what's wrong ‑‑ not with what's possible. What we need here is a new way of thinking and a new way of communicating with one another.

I assert that the greatest challenge facing Honduras today is not its physical poverty but a poverty in thinking, a poverty of the spirit, a poverty that clings to fear the way an addict clings to heroin or whisky.

What could happen if Hondurans began to really explore some of the basic questions that bedevil their quest for prosperity? What is the land for? Apart from rents and annual agricultural yield, what does the land really provide us with? What do we owe to her; is she not, after all, our mother? Have we forgotten, not only in Honduras, but all over the world, that Mother Earth is from whom we come and to her bosom we must one day return?

I assert that the political will exists in Honduras to address the manifold problems that affect its development. I also assert that rich and poor and those in between, of whatever political stripe, can learn to listen to one another, learn from one another and join hands to help one another.

Perhaps what Honduras needs most is more people like Christiana Casebolt to stand up and say, "I am responsible in the matter of a Honduras that works for all of its people."

Mike J. Quinn\
Riverdale, New York

ATTITUDE PROBLEM

Dear Editor:

On July 28, 1993 the Honduran government wisely made into law Acuerdo 151-93 in which retired foreigners can obtain a resident visa to live in Honduras, bring in their household effects tax-free in a single, one-time shipment, and a motor vehicle for personal or family use tax-free, once every five years.

The decision was wise because it stands to bring in revenue as a shot in the arm for the Honduran economy, without problems or complications, and retirees are usually of an age and temperament that they represent a peaceful, trouble-free and sedate group of residents.

But that's as far as the law goes. Doing it is a nightmare (with the exception of bringing in personal effects, which was a breeze with understanding and expedient customs people in Puerto Cortes). The spirit of this law goes only as far as its printed text. When retirees attempt to make use of it, they enter an intimidating world of money-hungry paperwork artists and an attitude problem that is truly not on concert with the intent of the law.

The problem with tourism isn't crime, public health, good versus bad hotels or all the issues and details continually debated in Honduras This Week. The problem is attitude, starting with that of officials and their support of a parasitic crowd of "tramitadores."

Both these groups of vultures, generally and with few exceptions, honestly and contemptuously believe that 1) foreign retirees have an unlimited source of funds; 2) retirees' limited resources are theirs for the taking; 3) retirees have unlimited patience for abuse; 4) retirees fear the power of officialdom (which is not inherent in other cultures as it is in Honduras), and finally; 5) even easy-going and generally submissive retirees are to be treated daily with anger and contempt.

The law clearly provides 90 days tax-free status in the country upon entry of a motor vehicle, extendible an additional 90 days, after which the vehicle must 1) be taken to customs or 2) taxes paid (or exonerated) on it, or 3) removed from the country. Yet, government officials play God and arbitrarily issue less then 90 days at will, charge fees based on whim more than law and, in general, make life miserable for the very people the law has vowed, specifically, "to provide respect and tranquility, once their useful working years have ended" (to quote the very words in the law).

At the border near Copan, the immigration officer (who was characterized by his own co-workers as "problematic") confiscated my son's passport for no explainable reason, wouldn't allow him to pass into Guatemala, refused to let him return to Honduras and would only return the document upon payment, in cash, of a large bribe. The only difference between this individual and a highway robber is that the official needed no gun to rob his victims, only his "authority."

Police regularly shake down tourists and retirees on the highways. Retirees applying for resident visas are commonly victimized by unscrupulous, unregulated lawyers. (Why is it law that a lawyer submit the application if applicants are perfectly capable of understanding and fulfilling requirements for a visa?) Those planning on buying property in Honduras do so at risk. Airlines have to pay high fees to Honduras because of government unwillingness to sign a seamless international agreement on port-of-entry, thus placing tickets out of reach of many potential tourists. And so on.

This is still, on balance, my choice for retirement. The highways are excellent, the countryside is lovely, the tropical climate idyllic, there is great abundance in commerce, virtually nothing available in a major U.S. city that can't be obtained here, even comforts like fast food restaurants. Honduras has so much going for it, and we can talk forever on improving tourism and offering incentives, but until there is a major change in official attitude, from high up, all the well-meaning ideas and laws are just empty words. There has to be higher authority with the intestinal fortitude to be politically willing and energetic in safeguarding and facilitating rights under the law. Only then will the populace as a whole gradually but inexorably benefit from the presence of retired and vacationing foreigners.

(Name withheld upon request)
Tela