Honduras This Week Opinions & Editorial

EDITORIAL

Happy Journalist Day

Tomorrow, reporters, announcers, photographers, cartoonists and editors across Honduras will be celebrating National Journalist Day. Hondurans with a history in journalism have become some of the nation's most outstanding citizens, living lives of excitement and importance. In many cases it's a natural jump, it seems, from journalism to politics. More than one illustrious Honduran has shifted from one arena to another, the most popular of which today is perhaps Carlos Flores, president of the National Congress, the favorite in next year's presidential elections and owner of Tegucigalpa's La Tribuna daily.

The Inter American Press Association has reported few violations of the rights of the media in recent years. Overall, Honduran newspapers, television and radio enjoy a healthy climate in which to transmit the news. But that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. The Honduran media continue to suffer unfortunate imbalances. Not everyone has equal access to news from the Casa Presidencial, for example. The government's main offices tend to favor certain media with exclusive reports, leaving others in the dark.

On one hand this favoritism is unfair; on the other hand it's understandable. In the hands of some journalists, the news tends to become twisted to better fit with the party lines of the medium involved. Newspapers run by members of one political party, for example, tend to present the darkest possible version of news about the opposition party.

Other media are more interested in the interests of their advertisers than those of their readers. A company in Puerto Cortes, for example, grew angry when a newspaper published a story headlined "Puerto Cortes has intolerable environmental conditions." Rather than rallying the people of that city to clean up the beaches and keep the streets swept, the company refused to pay the advertising bill it owed to the newspaper in question.

But keeping your head above water among today's media is a difficult task. We've all witnessed the demise of once famous Honduran newspapers like Diario El Dia, El Cronista and El Correo del Norte. Faced with high salaries and expensive equipment costs, many media find it impossible to survive.

Despite the problems that face the Honduran media, some of the country's journalists remain the bravest, most courageous Hondurans around. Long live the journalists that fight tooth and nail to bring the whole truth to the Honduran people. It is thanks to them that we have the courage to keep on fighting.

Congratulations Honduran journalists.

PERSPECTIVE

The challenge of learning a new language: tough but worth it

By RUDOLF KERKMANN

After being in Honduras about five years, I am still having considerable difficulties speaking and understanding Spanish. Frankly, I am disappointed. Is it at my age -- around retirement -- that the short term memory suffers? After all, I remember exact details about things that happened 40 years ago.

I thought I would master the Spanish language after five years in Honduras because I could speak English fluently after living in Canada for three years, coming from Germany at the age of 23.

It's not that I'm not trying. I started to learn Spanish by myself before coming to Honduras and knew more than 800 words and some grammar. Now I understand most articles, at least the less sophisticated ones, in the daily newspapers. If a sentence has ten words and I understand six or seven I can imagine the rest.

I purposely did not subscribe to cable TV because most of the channels are in English. I make it a point to listen one or more hours a day to the news and commentaries on the television and radio. Finally, I understand most of it. If the announcers would speak more slowly, that would help. It is a great pleasure to be able to see the excellent programs of the Spanish international TV service, but soap operas I just do not get. And forget about Mexican comedy shows; even my wife has trouble understanding them.

Unfortunately, for convenience sake, we speak English in my family, even though my wife and 17-year-old son are fluent in both languages.

Not knowing a language well leads to embarrassing and sometimes funny situations. Once a person came to my factory and asked if we had chamba (a job) for him. Not recognizing the slang, I told him we didn't sell chamba. Meanwhile, I'm learning those typical Honduran words like pulperia or trucha (a small store), cipote (child), guineos (a kind of banana) and others.

I dislike when people talk very fast, mumble, swallow syllables or otherwise do not speak clearly. Please, Hondurans, if you converse with foreigners whose Spanish is not perfect, shut off the radio or T.V., close the windows and speak slowly.

By now, finally, I have overcome my shyness to speak Spanish and can now function in Honduras. But I still can't participate intelligently in a group conversation. How many more years will it take to be fluent in Spanish? I am getting impatient. It is my experience that it helps a great deal if one learns very methodically, page by page, from a book that teaches Spanish, sentences, words and grammar. To just pick up words here and there will not work, except with children.

Anyone living in a foreign country should try to learn the language, to be able to talk with the people, to make life more interesting and to take advantage of the good things the country has to offer. Speaking the language gives you the opportunity of actively participating in the society you're living in by joining a club or organization of your liking. It can also save you money on some occasions, since you will not fall into a tourist trap.

I think that only by knowing a country's language is one able to fully understand its culture, people and problems. To learn a foreign language is a hard and time consuming job, but it is always worthwhile.

PERSPECTIVE

Francisco's new shoes

In happier times, Francisco Jaco tries on his new shoes. (Photo by W.E. Gutman)

By W. E. GUTMAN

Special to Honduras This Week

CENTRO PENAL, SAN PEDRO SULA -- Francisco's new shoes are scuffed, caked with prison slime. They're the relics of freedom divested, pride reviled, the symbols of impermanence, the vestiges of a modest reward granted him for exposing evil with an unassuming eloquence that would come back to haunt him.

Francisco Jaco is back. He knows this odious place, the turf, the vile smells, the hideous faces of human jackals preying on the weak, the lonely. He's mastered the survival schemes, the tricks, the scams. He's faced fear, hopelessness, the immutability of time. Staying alive at the Centro Penal is no small feat. It's not so much because the flesh falls to the unbearable heat, the overcrowding, the biting insects, the vile food or the violence. It's that the soul rots like offal in the sun and the spirit yields to alternating fits of unspoken rage, madness and despair. Especially despair. Like the vultures circling overhead in satanic formation, it waits its turn in a parade of malignant emotions that sap confidence, undermine self-reliance, exhaust the very will to live.

Two years ago, accused of petty theft but never charged, Francisco and his twin brother -- they were 16 -- were jailed, illegally for over 18 months in a compound occupied by hardened adult felons. Corrections officers and older inmates alike took turns harassing and beating them. They also witnessed the rape of young prisoners by guards and trustees, an indiscretion they paid by spending two weeks in a five-foot square torture cell, along with a dozen other prisoners.

When Francisco and his brother returned to the compound, they discovered that the key to their locker had been stolen. They confronted a fellow prisoner. High on drugs, the prisoner lunged at Francisco with a knife, wounding him and killing his brother instantly.

PUNISHMENT SOUGHT

Last October, following months of charges and counter-charges between him and Honduran authorities, Bruce Harris, Casa Alianza's Executive Director, presented this latest case of torture and other abuses to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission in Washington. The purpose of the meeting was to inform the Commission of the endemic atrocities committed against minors in the country's 24 penal institutions and to seek swift punishment of the perpetrators.

Accompanying Harris were various dignitaries, including the

Honduran representative to the Organization of American States, Ambassador Marlene de Talbot, and Public Defender, Linda Rivera. But, without a doubt, the most important member of the delegation was Francisco Jaco himself.

In a riveting testimony to the Commission, Francisco described in detail his experiences as the SPS prison. He spoke of the abuse, physical and sexual, adult prisoners commit against minors and he sketched a stark image of the terrible living conditions they must endure. He told his galvanized audience about the torture chamber in which he and a dozen or more inmates were herded and where they slept standing up in the intense heat, about the plastic bags in which some foul meal was served once a day and how he and his fellow prisoners were forced to relieve themselves in the very same bags. Choking back the tears, he recounted how guards would come by at night, throw buckets of water into the cell then apply live electric wires on the metal grating against which the exhausted men were leaning.

"The guards were amused. They enjoyed the spectacle of sweating, hungry, tired, humiliated men squirming in pain every time they sent another jolt of current...."

TWO PAIRS OF SHOES

When Francisco returned to Choloma, his home town, Casa Alianza bought him two pairs of shoes. It was to be a good luck gift, his send-off on a steadier course, a more auspicious road ahead. But he had become something of a celebrity and, from hereon in, the easy target of an unrepentant and vengeful judiciary.

Predictably, Francisco was re-arrested in November and remanded to the SPS penitentiary on trumped-up charges, hearsay and circumstantial evidence that would have been summarily dismissed had Honduras' inquisitorial system not prevailed. Months of investigations and dozens of writs of habeas corpus filed by Casa Alianza's Legal Aid Office were systematically thwarted. He was still in jail last month when I paid him a visit. Casa Alianza's lawyer, Gustavo Escoto, Public Defender, Hector Arzú and this writer spent a day poring over Francisco's files at the Third Judicial District in San Pedro Sula. None found any proof of wrongdoing. Worse, Francisco has yet to be charged. Naked revenge by the State for his testimony in Washington and for the ensuing embarrassment Honduras suffered in the court of public opinion cannot be discounted. An appeal has been filed.

Shy, not given to idle chatter, his eyes and thoughts turned toward Choloma where his mother and young brothers and sisters live, Francisco spits in his fingers and rubs the shoes' once lustrous leather face. Some of the former sheen yields briefly to his gentle strokes but the elements and neglect are unforgiving and the gray dullness soon reappears, hastened by the burning sun and the hot swirling dust at his feet, as if to mock him.

His selfhood impugned, his faith in human institutions shaken, Francisco waits for justice. In Honduras, in very special cases, innocence alone will not buy freedom.

A Connecticut-based journalist, W.E. Gutman is a frequent contributor to Honduras This Week.

EDITORIAL

Too much talk, too little action

Now more than ever, Honduras' Indian cultures are feeling the impact of the social woes created by a capitalistic society. Today, their health and living conditions depend precariously on the actions of a culture that is not their own, just as it was for their ancestors when Christopher Columbus first set foot on Honduran territory 500 years ago.

On the eve of the 21st century, our neoliberal economic policies have been unable to meet the health, food, educational and economic needs of many Hondurans, much less the nation's Indian groups. And as the Garífuna, the Lencas, the Tawahkas and the five other indigenous groups of Honduras fight for the ability to live a reasonably decent life, growing crime, the devalued lempira and discrimination against women are factors that are adding insult to injury.

Women are the driving force in most of Honduras' Indian cultures. In many cases, women work the land, either alone or alongside men. They prepare food, they clothe their children, they keep their families together, they serve as the backbone to their cultures. Yet the only time the policymakers seem interested in Indian women is when election time comes around and they need their votes. Meanwhile, efforts by indigenous women to organize and consolidate their power are often snuffed by men who would rather have their wives serving them at home that taking on important roles in community development.

All this despite the fact that Honduran women have proven time and time again to be very effective players in the advancement of their communities. Some international aid organizations now work only with women. One organization offering credit to craftswomen in Santa Barbara saw an astonishing capital return rate of 97 percent. Experiences such as this one have led many organizations to focus their efforts even further on women.

This proven, however, there remain more illiterate women than men in Honduras. Social mores continue to pressure women to stay home and take care of their men rather than applying their skills and knowledge to the development of the community.

We operate under the belief that every problem can be solved with a new law. That's why Honduras' Indian groups have been marching on Tegucigalpa this week. They want new laws that include them and protect them. But legislation is one thing and the needs and details of life are something else entirely. While the policymakers negotiate with Indian leaders, Indian children continue to be underfed. And scientists have proven that malnourishment in children has a grave effect on adult mental capacities later on.

ONLINE READERS' FORUM

THOSE GOLDEN DAYS

Dear Editor:

As one who grew up in Honduras, with American parents who worked for (then) Standard Fruit Company, [HTW online] is the main contact I have with my 'home country.' Yes, the boy is out of the country, but the country is still very much a part of my life, with Spanish as a co-language with English. How I miss the many tropical fruits, the beaches of La Ceiba, my home town, and of course my friends. A chance to visit seems remote due to the cost, but the desire will always be there, to eat papaya, aguacate, toronjas, guayabas, naranjas, cocos, and los platanos. Wish I could return, but until then I will only dream of those golden days!!!
D. Owen dowen@sisna.com

Online Readers' Forum Continues below.

Celebrate real beauty

Honduras was recently host to the Miss Latina International beauty pageant. Although pageants like this one are common throughout the Americas, Miss Latina International 1997 was different. Only three candidates participated. The majority of the original 11, who hailed from countries all over the hemisphere, dropped out of the pageant before it began, arguing that they had been mistreated by the event's organizer.

Because beauty pageants in and of themselves tend to be news in Latin America, word that Miss Latina International was a flop in Honduras spread quickly. Although the problem was a single organizer, the idea being sent out is that Honduras is incapable of handling such events. This is not good press for a country that is becoming increasingly dependent on international tourist dollars.

Despite their widespread popularity, beauty pageants also spark controversy. Many argue that they degrade women, or at the very least place more emphasis on being buxom than brainy. During Holy Week in March, in fact, the Governor of the Department of Cortés said he wouldn't stand for anymore beauty pageants flaunting women dressed in "dental floss". Although some might call him a prude, the Governor's comments were an important step in achieving something that Honduras could use: regulations for beauty pageants.

Despite what their name would want us to believe, beauty pageants aren't really celebrating beauty; they're celebrating the exploitation of the female body for economic gain. If pageant organizers were truly interested in exalting the beauty of women, they'd look for more than the T&A for which pageants have become known. T&A may bring in the beer drinkers, but does it celebrate beauty? Only in a very limited, cliché and superficial way.

If you want to celebrate the beauty of women and set standards for which little girls can strive, why not organize a pageant that shows off brain power? Why not have contestants parade around waving innovative and effective development plans for the country's future rather than showing off the latest in evening wear?

After the Miss Latina International fiasco, Honduras has a bad name in beauty pageant circles. And Honduras should have a bad name in beauty pageant circles. But not for its failure to bring 11 beauties to the pageant floor rather than three -- for choosing to emphasize the real beauty of women over the superficial. Sure, women showing off their intelligence, wit, creativity and potential probably won't sell much beer. But they would mean a brighter future for Honduras and the Honduran family.

EDITORIAL

Bring back the chain gangs

Few would argue that last week's decision by the National Congress to channel an additional Lps. 40 million into the nation's crime fighting forces isn't an excellent idea. On the contrary, it's an idea that makes sense: train more police and give them better equipment and they're bound to be better at fighting crime. And that's just what Honduras needs -- to be better at fighting crime.

Headlines these days are filled with words like kidnap, rape, murder and robbery. Any given day yields a handful of reports on missing children, sexual assault, bank robberies and abduction for ransom. Parents are frightened to let their children out of the house, workers are afraid to cash their checks at the bank and families are afraid to leave their homes unattended.

Last week's tragic kidnapping/murder of young Honduran businessman Ricardo Maduro, Jr. is only the latest in rushing stream of crimes against the good citizens of Honduras. But if anything good could possibly come of the death of one of the country's most promising sons, it's that people are finally sitting up and taking notice. More than 4,000 Hondurans attended the young man's funeral. Suddenly crime is no longer something you read about in the morning paper; it's something that affects the people you know. And there's nothing like giving an issue a personal touch to make people fight back.

Carlos Flores, President of the National Congress, announced this week that the legislature will consider a bill to instate life sentences for certain crimes. Meanwhile, more than one cordial conversation has turned into a heated debate on whether Honduras should also instate the death penalty and, as a local women's groups has suggested, castration for repeat rapists and child abusers.

As the saying goes, the punishment should fit the crime. And it seems only logical that at a time when crime has its fingers clenched around the throat of society, society should in return clench its fingers around the necks of the criminals.

Criminals have it too easy in Honduras. If they even serve jail time for their crimes -- which is not always the case -- they do so in a prison system that allows everything from conjugal visits to pizza delivery. What are we doing allowing our convicts to sit around watching soap operas and playing cards? As one Honduran woman put it, "they should be out doing something positive for the society they violated." Prisoners would make excellent bridge builders, building painters, street cleaners, pothole fillers, trash sorters, tree planters and brick layers.

Those that can be put to use should be put to use. Those that pose an irrevocable threat to society should be punished accordingly.

The topic of fighting crime is current and passionate. Let's take advantage of our frustrations, fears and emotions to finally do something about it. Let us not wait until we lose another son or daughter to finally be spurred into action. The time for action is now.

ONLINE READERS FORUM

LOVE THE COUNTRY

Dear Editor:

I would just like to tell you about your editorial Retirement Paradise. Our son Don lives already five years in Honduras. We operate a mission called Project Uplift in Santa Rosa De Copan. Both my wife and I have been in Honduras many times and love the country. We hope to settle there permanently in a couple of years. We love the people and love the country.

Jan Meinders GMeinders@aol.com

SPS NEEDS CURFEW

Dear Editor:

I was rather surprised to find you had no references or stories on Ricardo Maduro's death. I know it's a new story and that you only publish every week, and true, it's what everybody has been talking about, but I think it is quite important! It has gotten way out of hand, and all we can do is wait to see how the government will handle this crisis. However, I believe the government's action of bringing in soldiers to the city is a great idea. All we need now is a curfew! Really. When

I'm out at night I try to find a cop car or military vehicle to follow as much as I can, all the way home. I think it's the perfect opportunity for the public, which for years has hated the military, to get close to them again. These people are our only safety net at the moment, and we should get closer to them, not view them as the enemy any more. I just hope they are enough of an impression to stop this out of hand crime.

Marcio Valenzuela quique@netsys.hn

EDITOR'S NOTE: The kidnapping of Ricardo Maduro Jr. was mentioned in the article "200 extra officers will fight spiraling crime in SPS." Since HTW goes to press Friday, we were unable to include further developments that occurred that day (April 25). However, this week's print and online editions carry a full report on this tragic kidnapping-murder case.

SMALL MINDS

Dear Editor:

As a prospective retiree presently living in the U.S., I am interested in all aspects of Honduras. I am an avid user of the internet and get all of my info. re: Honduras (via Yahoo). When one first enters Yahoo, the very first item (URL) that is listed is "Freindly and Sexy Girls in Honduras" (sic). The word "friendly" is used and it is misspelled and the URL doesn't even work. This is very tacky and demonstrates "small minds."

Why don't (they) list the URL's re: tourism, etc., intelligent listings first, for Honduras is not a dating network, but a beautiful country that deserves respect. My husband has already e-mailed Yahoo with the same message.

Therese and Frank Pallares pallares@worldnet.att.net

MORE ON AIRLINE SERVICE

Dear Editor:

This letter is in regard to Jeff Davis' remarks about Wayne Warrington's complaints about poor Islena service. Jeff, one can blindly show respect only up to a certain point. There comes a time when respect must be earned and is no longer available as a free/blind gift. Wayne Warrington's complaint is perfectly justifiable and he is entitled to his opinion and to speak his opinion! Unfortunately, the Isleña case IS a reflection on Honduras society in general. Anyone who's been there at least once quickly learns that customer service hardly exists is certain organizations and markets. Note that I didn't say ALL organizations and markets. On any day I'll give a plug for Hotel Ceiba!

Don't get me wrong, I love Honduras, my wife is from Honduras and when I retire I'm moving to Honduras. The place is

absolutely wonderful! Hey think about it, why is Wayne

living down there?!?!

Given a choice I always take an airline other than Islena.

I've certainly had my share of trouble with them.

Gene Smith gene@bellhow.com

* * * * *

Dear Editor:

I have flown Islena and found the service to be reliable and inexpensive and would recommend the airline. Perhaps the offended party was truly offended and the agents should be disciplined.

Airline travel is not always easy. Even in the States travelers will encounter nightmare problems.

Rod Smith rodsmith@david.intertel.hn

PRESS SHOULD SHOW RESPECT TO MINORITY GROUPS

Dear Editor:

I am writing in regard to the inflammatory, derogatory and near criminal journalism that appeared on Monday, April 22 in the local dailies La Tribuna and El Nuevo Dia. Reporting on a new, and much welcomed, gay bar in the Barrio San Rafael of Tegucigalpa, both papers managed to reach new heights in predatory reporting.

The bar, Galeria-Cafe Incógnita, opened on Friday, April 18. The clientele was exited about the new bar and arrived to show both their moral and financial support. At no time was there licentiousness, depravity or other discourteous behavior on the part of the clientele. Indeed, except for the fact that the majority of the couples were of the same sex, the setting would not be very different from a cozy, if rather smoky and warm, middle-class cantina. That's all that the bar really is, a cozy, safe, gathering place for an ostracized community.

If any one showed lack of culture, decency and respect for the human being, it was the community of the Barrio San Rafael, and the illiterate racist and bigoted journalist and editors responsible for the articles. These people have no concept of tolerance, of acceptance, and of moral themes that the Catholic Church strives to impart on its flock. Granted, the local clergy is just as closeted as the San Rafael community, yet the message ought no to be demeaned by the messenger. If a complaint was to be made, it ought to have been done in person, with all the civility that accompanies human discourse. Making the complaint by false reports to the police of fights and gunfire illustrates the weak and cowardly nature of the complainants. A character shared by the press in its characterization of the fights as those of depraved homosexuals seeking the favors of some Rambo-like man. Doubtlessly, the reporters and residents of Barrio San Rafael do justice to this symbolism.

The attacks on the gay and lesbian community are no more than attempts by the power structure to maintain an image of machismo, of an intolerance of weakness. If the gay community does not speak out and act to reverse this false illusion, then it too is guilty of participating in its own subjugation. Machismo is part of the mythology created and maintained to support a system rule based on the strong man, the cacique. It is a myth that has no part in a participatory democracy, that has no part in the rule of law.

The bar has been shut down on a technically that apparently does not affect the much more prosperous businesses which also serve alcoholic beverages around the Escuela de Cultura. This is not only an example of the selective application of the law used to deprive minority groups of any legal means of support, it is also an example of Honduras' lack of understanding of human rights. When a minority group is attacked and defeated, that majority ought not cheer, rather it ought wander which part of it will now become the minority and be in its turn devoured.

I ask that the bar be reopened and the local civil authorities create and execute a plan to teach the people of the Barrio San Rafael respect for their fellow human beings. I also ask that the local university and the College of Journalism immediately design and require a course for all journalism students on the rights and responsibilities of a free press towards minority groups. This course should also be required for continued accreditation in the College of Journalism.

Honduras has too much to offer to be held back by petty bigotry and racism.

Richard Roberts

Tegucigalpa, M.D.C.