OPINIONS & EDITORIAL

Tying the hands of justice

In recent months many stories, rumors and accusations have surfaced concerning corruption in the Honduran judicial system. There is a recurring dark image of some judges who serve their two or three-year term and come out of office with hundreds of thousands of lempiras, product of selling their verdicts to the highest bidder. A rich criminal receives different treatment by the court than a poor criminal. The very core of the constitution is at stake when people are treated in a unequal manner by the justice system. The wealthy are not brought before justice for their crimes.

Added to this is the widespread abuse of political immunity. The original purpose of this institution was to protect legislators from being criminally prosecuted for actions involved in the exercise of their political positions, such as creating a law that is later deemed unconstitutional. As it is currently used in Honduras though, this term means that any politician who enjoys immunity cannot be brought to trial for any reason. Needless to say, many politicians have taken advantage of this shield to break the law at their convenience, with no fear of being made to respond for their actions. The powerful are not brought before justice for their crimes.

Therefore, in the Honduran justice system, all people are treated equally, except the powerful, the rich, and the politicians. The person who steals a chicken because his family is hungry spends several years in prison while his family continues to starve. But the politician who drains the special bank fund that was developed to maintain the stability of fuel prices may never be tried. The government is then unable to stabilize rocketing fuel prices, which directly contributes to a great part of the current crippling inflation, which results in even more starving families as prices double and wages remain the same; but this politician is protected by his immunity, and may never go to trial to answer to the facts.

The result of this combination of government corruption, which protects politicians as they whittle away the governments ability to provide for the basic needs of its people, and the corruption of the judicial system, promote the wave of crime that is currently such a hot topic with politicians and business leaders. They make a mockery of the criminal justice system, devastate national funds, and put the public in a state of economic disaster, and then wonder why there is an increase in crime.

INVESTMENTS IN DOLLAR INSTRUMENTS UNWISE

Dear Editor:

As a consulting economist with an international reputation, I have a fundamental distrust of anyone who purports to offer investment advice under an assumed name. Indeed, in the United States, western Europe, and most of southeastern Asia, doing so is specifically against the law.

If the "Mas Dinero" piece were to be published in the United States, for example, both the author and the publisher could expect visits from investigators from the SEC, and/or the securities fraud division of the FBI. Those folks don't like anonymous financial advice in print.

Without knowing who "Mas Dinero" is, what qualifications he or she may have to back up the anonymous pontification, and on whose payroll he or she might be, I will simply say that anyone who takes the proffered "advice" seriously should be prepared for some serious disappointments.

Investing in Honduras has much less to do with the investments themselves than with the lack of judicial integrity in the Honduras court system. The single most outrageous segment of the "Mas Dinero" piece is the implied suggestion that someone buy dollar-denominated financial instruments through a Honduras bank or "Bolsa de Valor." In the name of God, why? The same "instruments" can be bought via a fax request sent to the trust department of almost any U.S. bank, probably for a smaller commission, and with the legal protection of U.S. wire-fraud laws and the continuing supervision of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to monitor the deal. Once you move "offshore" to buy your dollar instruments, all of this structural protection is surrendered. If "something goes wrong," you're in deep trouble -- unless you're naive enough to think the Honduras judiciary or Banco Central will ride to your rescue. Har-de-har!

In view of this reality, I would concur that if someone is seeking to invest "hot" money that, for obvious reasons, he doesn't want to -- or can't -- move into the U.S. without danger of seizure or confiscation, then doing the transaction in Honduras, Panama or Grand Cayman, is probably a good idea. But if the money is legitimate, doing the business offshore is worse than inadvisable. It's plain stupid.

In a magnificent demonstration of understatement, "Mas Dinero" acknowledges "Laws, as everywhere, are complex, so it is imperative to work with a reputable, bilingual attorney before you put your money at risk." This is just so much verbal cheese in the mousetrap.

Legal complexities are not the problem in Honduras jurisprudence. The problem here is that there is no fundamental integrity in the courts, themselves. A judicial decision, at whatever level rendered, is worth just about as much as the value of the paper it is written on, as soon as a well-heeled -- or politically well-connected -- adversary comes along and decides to vitiate it. Anyone who doesn't already know this is probably a relative newcomer to Honduras and the Honduras legal system. It takes time and costs money to learn things through experience.

In closing, might I urge that "Mas Dinero" come out from behind the journalistic camouflage, state his or her name, and list his or her professional qualifications. Only then will a trusting reader be able to decide if this is a financial guru in who some degree of confidence can prudently be reposed. If "Mas Dinero" is unwilling to do that, then he or she should quit writing financial advice columns - and Honduras This Week should certainly stop publishing them.

Lorenzo Dee Belveal

lbelveal@foreigner.class.udg.mx

HEALTH OFFICIALS SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES

Dear Editor:

In response to the report about the death of 14 patients at Mario Catarino Rivas Hospital in San Pedro Sula, I would like to say the following:

The Hospital Director, Gerardo Zuniga, comes across as a very insensitive and thoughtless individual when he refused to take responsibility about a rat [causing a short-circuit in] the power plant of the hospital. In addition, he said that 'the patients were going to die, anyway’ as if he is God to decide who dies and when. This is the most tactless, thoughtless and insensitive comment a member of the medical profession can articulate! On the basis of this comment, I would also file a lawsuit against him and the hospital.

I have worked in hospitals in the United States and Saudi Arabia, and I know that pest control (rats, roaches, etc.) is a priority in these hospitals because of the risks of disease and other problems that may arise from the presence of uncontrolled pests.

Secondly, I disapprove of the way the Health Minister Enrique Samayoa is handling this problem. How could he even suggest that the problem was caused by the rat and not by the hospital authorities? If the hospital officials do not develop and implement policies and procedures to eradicate or control pests in hospitals, then no one else would do it. This is a basic quality control issue, because hospitals deal with sick people who are already at risk of developing complications.

I think the health minister should be more concerned about ensuring that the hospitals in the nation develop and implement sanitation and pest control policies, rather than trying to put the blame on the rat. In my opinion, both Mr. Samayoa and (Dr.) Zuniga stated silly and insensitive comments, and both should be ashamed of themselves.

Rosa Diaz-Perla, RD

Arbon, Switzerland

Neither ape nor angel:

Reflections on the existence of intelligent life on Earth

By W. E. GUTMAN

Every now and then, usually by default and seldom on the first try, the human race blunders on a fact or two. Wrenched from the shadows of ignorance -- or simply sideswiped by some careless time traveller, these facts often shatter basic, if somewhat unverifiable beliefs. Take mankind, for example.

In the beginning, when fate still ruled the world, when providence (not scheme), random chance (not purpose or plan) molded the destinies of men, two groups vied for the truth and both held it for a while.

Fat and sated like iguanas basking in the sun, wading in an out of the primordial soup where it's cozy and warm, Darwinists made no bones about it: their blueprint was sound; evolution made sense. One by one, the pieces of the gigantic puzzle began to fit neatly into place with such perfection as to make some transcendent first cause -- divine or other -- not only quite probable but necessary. They just didn't call it God...

Obsessed by Darwin's irreverence, mortified at the thought that they might descend from apes, not angels, Creationists kept invoking God's name, obstinately, unimaginatively, as though evolution were not itself a wondrous and singular event. And life went on.

One day, for no apparent reason, and as if there were an urgent need to know, cosmologists everywhere decided to split cosmic hair. With the Big Bang versus Steady State debate well behind them -- though still deadlocked -- they now asked each-other (and themselves, no doubt): Is the universe "open" or "closed"? Does intergalactic space extend to infinity or do boundaries mark its final limits at some inscrutably distant point? What lies beyond? In fact, what is space, they quipped. Is it a circumstantial realm with no intrinsic dimension, no reality of its own? Is it the byproduct of human consciousness, like Time, which is seen as "passing" but never really moves?

Surely, while these mental pirouettes severely strained the limits of perception, the issue, everyone agreed, was philosophical, perhaps even mystical, but not physical. Probes sent out on scouting missions to the farthest reaches of the inky void had gone on one-way odysseys and no one knew for sure what they would run into, or when.

For a while, the case for an open (or infinite) universe gained new ground. After all infinity is a tolerable abstraction because, like all absolutes, it is as self-limiting as it is immeasurable. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, even among the learned.

In time, however, unable to agree, lacking clear proof with which to bolster their respective positions, cosmologists reached an impasse -- and a compromise. It became fashionable to argue, for lack of a more sensible explanation, that perpetual spacetime and cosmic confinement may, in the long run, be one and the same. The choice, they offered, lay in the mind's eye of poets and star gazers, perhaps a philosopher or two. It was pretty much an open and shut case. And another millennium came and went.

And then it happened, not unexpectedly, but with devastating finality, as though the heavens had burst at the seams. "WE ARE ALONE!" banner headlines proclaimed. "MANKIND: AN ACCIDENT" they screamed impiously on all the front pages.

Carefully worded by the wire service that broke it, the story ran verbatim, unadorned, brutally prosaic, eloquently unconcerned, igniting passions in its wake, provoking outrage or apoplectic stupor, clouding the mind, freezing the spirit. The story read:

"...An international team of astrophysicists has released details of a study which confirms that 'life' is confined to planet Earth and the odds of a similar biogenic phenomenon occurring elsewhere in the universe are nil.

"...Dismissing critics who charge that such views smack of 'cosmic egocentricity,' the report recommends that the search for extraterrestrial life be halted and that efforts be refocused on heretofore neglected earthbound priorities like overpopulation, hunger, disease, and dogmatism.

"...Drafted by the Yearly Astrophysical Hagiographic Watch Experiment in Hyperspace (YAHWEH), the 3,000-page document asserts that 'life is the aftermath of a spontaneous and unrepeatable paradox,' and that mankind is an experiment gone wrong.'

"...Alluding to Albert Einstein's celebrated rebuff ['God does not play dice with the universe'], a spokesman for YAHWEH said that 'God must indeed have played dice with the universe and lost. Perched atop a speck of dust in the limitless void,' the report concluded, 'aided by providence and propelled by destiny, the human race is an occurrence -- an accident -- caused by an endless succession of unpremeditated chance occurrences, all of which continue to unfold as time runs its uninterrupted course, as the present conjugates itself forever, and ever, and ever.

"...Supporting YAHWEH's conclusions, a joint communique issued by the world's spiritual leaders upheld the scientific findings, adding that 'God, the essence of perfection,' had lapsed into imperfection when He fashioned humankind and that, unlike humankind which never learns from past trespasses, 'He had been careful not to repeat such abomination elsewhere in his dominion.'"

And from that moment on, for the first time since the dawning of the age of reality, everyone knew that God would never be reached for comment, no matter how hard one tried. And in classrooms all across the land, children continued to learn about the square of the hypotenuse and Charlemagne and the mighty Mississippi and about life in a drop of pond water. The children grew up and ego devoured the innocence of youth. In time, as expected, apes became extinct and man vanished soon thereafter from the face of the Earth. Only the angels survived the merciful finale. The angels, the little green Martians, the Loch Ness monster, Big Foot, the Abominable Snowman, Sasquatch, the Chupacabras and all the other creatures that populate our dreams.

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

Independence

September is a time of reflection, the month in which Hondurans honor the nation's founding fathers through numerous civic acts and celebrations.

Central America's independence from Spain on September 15, 1821 was not just a haphazard occurance, but motivated by several important contemporary events, positive as well as negative, that have had a lasting effect on the region.

Among the events having a positive influence was the independence of the United States on July 4, 1776, whose 13 colonies fought to attain rights inherent to man, demonstrating to the New World that liberty does exists. The French Revolution of July 14, 1789, which shook the foundations of European feudalism, was also based on the fundamental rights of man and had enormous influence on the people of Central and South America and the Caribbean. The Napoleonic wars, as well as attacks on Spanish ships by pirates, also had an effect on the movement toward independence.

These examples of patriotic inspiration would not have had the necessary effect were it not also for negative circumstances, such as the denial of education to many Central Americans under the colonial regimen, to such an extent that when political independence had been achieved there were not enough people with the necessary preparation to hold public offices.

The so-called shout of independence was launched by the creoles, American-born children of Spanish parents. While being part of the colonial hierarchy that gave them access to the best education, they also developed a sense of "Americanism" that was the inspiration for independence. These creoles were responsible for writing Central America's act of independence, naming Gabino Gainza as political and military head of state.

However, the act of independence was only the beginning. The lack of educated leaders and a downtrodden public crippled the new Central American government. And it appears they erred in taking the federal system of government as a model, an expensive political economic system requiring communication between regional and federal government that was nearly impossible due to the lack of good roads.

The choice of Guatemala City as the federal capital was another cause of the disasters that followed. Many of the other countries looked upon Guatemala with suspicion, as it had been the seat of the colonial government for nearly 300 years.

Many historians feel that Central American independence was only political, and gave rise to economic problems. One hundred and seventy-six years later the area is still struggling to overcome the effects of the economic disarray left by the independence process.

New rights, old wrongs

"Police reform alone is not enough. So long as the power structures that promote abuse, and the popular culture prone to justify it are still in place, we will be making the world safe for hypocrisy ... and for more excesses." -- Bruce Harris

By W. E. GUTMAN

Grotesque as it seemed, the vote by Honduras's Congress to appoint Archbishop Oscar Andres Rodriguez as interim police chief must be viewed as an act of exasperation, an admission of impotence against a corrupt, brutal and inept constabulary.

Like Honduras, where the FSP are about to make the perilous

transition from military to civilian control, other Latin American nations face the daunting task of creating modern security forces. But poverty and despair have kindled a widespread scorn and distrust of law, and crime is soaring. Politicized judiciaries and police officers with a strong aversion for the masses -- and a high tolerance for criminals -- have helped further widen the alienation.

Cosmetic at best, reforms have done nothing to purge the old guard, many of whom still pull the strings. Nor did they attempt to unravel -- and sever -- the inextricable links between

law enforcement, human rights violators and organized crime. As a result, these reforms have come too little too late. Ongoing events illustrate the depth and magnitude of an evil and immutable symbiosis.

NO MERCY FOR CANARIES

Four years ago, Mexican Gen. José Francisco Gallardo was jailed for accusing soldiers of murder, torture and narcotrafficking. In August, to silence his accounts of habitual torture at the prison, he was thrown into solitary confinement.

Senior officers in Colombia and Peru have also been incarcerated for blowing the whistle on corruption and violence by the police and military. In Colombia, Col. Carlos Alfonso Velasquez was fired for criticizing the army's tolerance of right-wing paramilitary death squads. Retired Peruvian Gen. Rodolfo Robles was jailed for suggesting that Intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos, one of Peru's most reviled public figures, had been involved in the 1992 kidnapping and murder of a university professor and 10 students. Bowing to public pressure, President Alberto Fujimori, who had pardoned Montesinos and Gen. Nicolas Hermoza Rios, also alleged to have committed atrocities, to release him after 11 days.

EARNING A "LIVING"?

A recent outbreak of Colombian-style violence in Guatemala has authorities scrambling for leads. Investigators believe the killings are the result of a quarrel between police and ex-military officers and members of the Cali cartel. Guatemala remains a vital transshipment hub for U.S.-bound drugs, and Guatemalan ex-military and policemen, who are notoriously underpaid, have been involved in the drug trade.

"After the '96 peace accords, these people must find another way to earn a living," said Oscar Contreras, special drug prosecutor in the Guatemalan Attorney General's office.

Political analysts offer a more sinister rationale for the violence. They claim that retired and active military and police

officers encourage the carnage to provide an excuse for bolstering the army's grip on internal security.

"We're not dealing with simple homicides," said a spokesman for the Mutual Support Group for the Relatives of the Disappeared (GAM), "but rather with extrajudicial executions where the victim is selected, abducted, tortured then killed. This is both a push to 'liquidate' criminal elements and a campaign to intimidate grassroots groups attempting to organize."

The peace accords have been vague on how best to recruit, train and monitor new police cadres. While less than 10 percent of the old force was deemed qualified for retraining and redeployment, the police academy let through veterans who failed the admissions test, functional illiterates, and recruits accused of murder. Woefully inadequate, the three-month training period was reduced to three weeks. Drug enforcement police received only nine days' training!

Meanwhile, claiming that judges needed time to "familiarize

themselves with its statutes," the new Code for Children and Youth, approved nearly a year ago, was abruptly suspended on the eve of its enactment (Sept. 27. The indefinite deferment is widely believed to have encouraged yet another new wave of violence against Guatemala's street children.

In El Salvador, which has the highest crime rate in the hemisphere, 50 young people ranging in age from 14 to 22 were murdered this year in what the Church calls a "selective and systematic cleansing" by vigilantes widely believed to be off-duty policemen, presumably members of a new criminal investigation division who run death squads and criminal gangs on the side.

CRIME AND RECOMPENSE

In Nicaragua, the Alemán administration signed a disturbing accord with "ex" contras known to have participated in armed robberies, kidnappings and murder. The president also granted them amnesty, food, clothing and financial assistance, fueling speculation that the accord may be paving the way for the creation of "shock" troops empowered to enforce his regime's right-wing policies.

Also in Nicaragua, National Police Chief Criminal Investigator, Capt. Jose Luis Carcamo, confirmed in August that Col. David Abraham Mendoza engaged in "illicit transactions" in that country with the complicity of the Henríquez brothers in a scheme involving the "exchange" of livestock for vehicles. Col. Mendoza is Chief of Intelligence of the Honduran FSP. Currently out on bond, he stands accused of grand theft-auto.

SAFE FOR HYPOCRISY

In Honduras, the murder of street children by moonlighting

policemen and the illegal incarceration of minors with adult felons continue to make headlines and attract world attention. During the past year, prodded by international pressure, the government has at last opened juvenile detention centers.

While this is a positive step, the care inside has been found to be deficient and repressive. Non-existent -- or inapt -- rehabilitation programs and improper training of prison staff have since triggered mass escapes of children, some as young as 10, from the El Carmen and El Hatillo penal centers.

The press has engaged in a feeding frenzy, offering as a remedy that juvenile offenders be returned to adult jails. Others have opted for infinitely more sinister solutions. Of the 44 minors who escaped, 15 were immediately recaptured. At least four runaways, one of them 10-year-old Miguel Angel Castellón Orellana, were later found shot through the head execution-style or beaten to death. Complicity by out-of-uniform FSP is widely presumed and evidence implicating a number of officers in the death of at least eight minors is imminent.

Bruce Harris, executive director for Latin American Programs of Casa Alianza, the organization that has valiantly endured bad press, intimidation and threats of expulsion in Honduras, summed up the situation with characteristic insight: "Police reform alone is not enough. So long as the power structures that promote abuse, and the popular culture prone to justify it are still in place, we will be making the world safe for hypocrisy ... and for more excesses."

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

The United States of Central America

In a surprise announcement last week, Central American leaders once again pushed the idea of Central American unity to the forefront. This idea, which has been tossed around since the times of Morazán, now appears slightly more feasible, with the end of the Cold War and civil disputes that ravaged the 1980s.

The plan takes its roots from the European unification process, but is also strongly influenced by the enormous success of another union of independent states: the United States. The unification of a group of small states that maintain their independence from one another, allowing regional differences to thrive, while uniting economic forces to form a competitive trading block, and to cooperate in the expenses of infrastructure, could be the solution to the problems of poverty and stagnate economies which are commonplace in Central America today.

Since 1991 Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala have participated in the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN). This organization was created with the goals of studying the legislation of the Central American countries, and analyzing the similarities and differences in an effort to promote legislation in each country that favored unification. The delegation of each country is made up of 20 elected representatives, plus the former president and vice-president of each country.

But in the last few months, rumors of corruption within the PARLACEN have surfaced, including ridiculously high salaries, and the widespread abuse of the "immunity" provided by a PARLACEN post. It appears that the PARLACEN will need to recuperate its public image before it can consider itself the leader of the unification movement of Central America.

Unity within Central America is a necessity. At the very least to prevent internal disputes, and promote peaceful settlement of conflicts. And at the most, to improve the regions ability to negotiate in the world marketplace; to improve infrastructure which will allow exportation to grow; to be a market of 30 million people instead of five markets of 3 million to 10 million each.

But are we making a mistake by putting unification solely in the hands of the politicians, who, in this region, have a bad history of putting personal enrichment over the needs of their countries? Where is the support of unification by the commoner?

Unification of Central America must be supported by all sectors. There must be exchange on a cultural, educational, social, and personal level; to bring the people of these nations closer together, to provide understanding between the cultures, and to increase support for the measure. If the people of the countries do not take an interest in the unification on every level, there will be no awareness of the actions of governing organizations such as the PARLACEN. And history shows that they cannot be trusted if they are not observed, elected, and fired by a constituency who are actively involved in the political processes.

Three factors contribute to Teguz' garbage problem

By TELISHA WILLIAMS

Solid waste disposal is a wide-spread problem throughout Honduras, especially in large cities such as Tegucigalpa. Private and commercial garbage is not being contained, collected, and disposed of properly. This negligence is threatening the present and future health of the community and the quality of the environment both locally and globally.

Three factors contributing to the unusually high accumulation of garbage in the city of Tegucigalpa are: the lack of easily accessible waste receptacles in public areas and neighborhoods, an inefficient garbage collection service, and the attitude of indifference shown by the general public toward the act of littering.

These three factors are intertwined and directly influence one another. For example, it is difficult to blame citizens for littering when so few containers are provided for trash disposal. And even when waste receptacles are widely available and properly used, if the trash is not retrieved in a timely manner by city collection services, animals and humans living in desperate conditions may displace and disarrange what has been collected thus far.

Possibly the most influential factor is cultural attitude. If private citizens and local businesses continue to tolerate and/or participate in the littering of Tegucigalpa, even the most convenient and efficient collection service will be working in vain. Therefore, improving just one or two of the factors will not be sufficient.

To work toward the positive change of the three mentioned factors there must be an effective coalition formed between the municipal government, private enterprise, and local communities. Efforts must be made to re-educate the general public about the importance of having a clean, healthy environment and the role every citizen and place of business plays in this initiative.

REFORM ARTICLE 107

Dear Editor:

Hats off to Fernando García, Minister of Industry, Commerce, and Tourism, on his efforts to reform Article 107 that limits foreign ownership of land on borders and most importantly the Bay Islands. The only invasion this law prevents is that of large amounts of foreign currency. The invasion of poverty and ignorance is already ashore.

Most global economists agree that within a few decades there will be no country boundaries or borders as we know them today. Trade will move freely around the world and major manufacturers will be hard to identify as being of or from a specific country.

As we move into the 21st century having cheap labor and natural resources will not be enough. Technology will override most of these factors. Honduras needs education in the right areas and it takes money to educate. Keeping the rest of the world out of this country is placing Honduras in a category of countries that would not be missed by the developed nations should it disappear totally from existence. The clock is ticking repeal article 107.

Frank Canale
fcanale@globalnet.hn

ERROR IN GUTMAN ARTICLE

Dear Editor:

I am writing this after reading an editorial by W.E. Gutman published in the Sept. 1st issue of Honduras This Week. Largely because of a free press, Mr. Gutman was able to express a number of observations and opinions concerning events which may have occurred in Honduras.

However, his reference to the remnants of a "CIA weather and radar installation" on the Swan Islands is not correct. I would like to take this opportunity to clarify the purpose of the weather and radar installation as well as make a few personal comments. The "CIA weather and radar installation" had nothing to do with the CIA. It was a United States Weather Bureau (now known as the National Weather Service Office which collected meteorological information which was transmitted and shared world-wide. This meteorological observatory was very important in providing information to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, FL to be used in the forecasting of hurricanes and tropical storms.

In the early 1960s, I was one of a small number of United States citizens who were employed at the Swan Islands as technicians to operate and maintain the equipment at the meteorological observatory. At this time, the Swan Islands were considered part of the United States. While I was there, a powerful radio transmitting station was constructed whose main purpose was to transmit, in Spanish, anti-Castro propaganda to Cuba and other Caribbean countries. This radio station identified itself as "Radio Swan, la Voz Internacional del Caribe". Argument and evidence might be provided linking "Radio Swan" with the CIA and its involvement in the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Again, it must be pointed out that "Radio Swan" was totally separated from and had nothing to do with the operation of the meteorological observatory on the Swan islands.

I have always been proud of the work done by the United States Weather Bureau at the Swan Islands. We not only provided continual weather information, but we also transmitted a daily weather broadcast on a marine frequency a weather report for the northwest Caribbean. This broadcast was not only received by ships at sea, but also on the North Coast of Honduras, in the Bay Islands, as well as in Belize. Hurricane bulletins were always read over this frequency immediately after they were received -- I personally would translate these bulletins into Spanish.

We used the small weather radar to track Hurricane Carla which devastated the Texas Coast and Hurricane Hattie which wrecked Belize causing the capital city of that country to be relocated to Belmopan. A rotating light beacon or "faro" and a large navigation beacon for aircraft were also continually maintained at the Swan Islands. In the days, before satellites and computers, the Caribbean Sea was a very large and lonely place.

The meteorological observatory on the Swan Islands was finally closed by the U.S. Government in the 1970s not because of political reasons, but because of modern advancements in technology. Satellite pictures had taken the place of ground based equipment and high speed computers had replaced 60 word-per-minute teletype transmitting equipment. I personally am very grateful for the opportunity I had to work at the Swan Islands. It not only provided me with the money which allowed me to complete my studies at the University, but it also brought me into contact with people from Honduras who allowed me to know this country and how beautiful it is.

People like Capt. Delmar McNab, Jr. of French Harbour, Roatan with whom I sailed on the Cacique for my first visits to Roatan and the North Coast. Don Simon Kawas of La Ceiba, one of the most honest men I have ever known. Capt. Arturo Alvarado Wood, President of Islena Airlines, an example of what hard work and perseverance can accomplish. Spencer Bennett of Savannah Bight, Guanaja, Horis Kelley of Bonnaca, Guanaja, and Vincent Bush of West End, Roatan whom I had the good fortune of knowing and working with on the Swan Islands. Most recently, Don Mario and Dona Rubenia Marroquin of Copan Ruinas who have included me as part of their family.

These Hondurans are mostly of different ethnic backgrounds representing some of the cultural diversity of this beautiful country. They have provided me the means to understand and say "Honduras -- Beautiful and Diverse".

Clyde Stanley Hall
Green Valley, AZ
stanhal@azstarnet.com

FRIEND OF HONDURAS LOST

Dear Editor:

In the fall of 1995 I had the great fortune of meeting Tom Ellis. He was planning an ecotourism conference in La Ceiba, Honduras for the following spring. I asked if I could help out and we struck up a remarkable friendship.

I just found out that Tom passed away last week. It's hard to express my feelings, except to say that I'm in shock. I'm also not comfortable sending this message as an e-mail, but I'm not sure how I would ever feel comfortable. I'm sad and I'm angry, and I'm so very grateful to have met this person.

The 1996 conference was a cutting-edge event for anyone who knows Honduras well enough to see that this country holds so many opportunities for both conservation and tourism. And who knows how poorly the government and the tourism sector promote ecotourism. Too often, conferences on environmental travel in Central America gather the ministers of tourism or the academics or the tourism industry. This meeting brought together a diverse group of people, most of whom I'm still in contact with.

The guidebook that Jim Gollin and I have written is one of the many direct results from this conference. If it weren't for Jim, there would be no Honduras: Adventures in Nature book and no Honduras issue of El Planeta Platica... And that's just speaking for myself. I know others have made similar connections and networks, thanks to Tom's ground-breaking efforts.

Tom left Honduras this spring and returned to the United States. He was a strong supporter of networking and using what we have to make the world a better place. I am truly saddened by the loss of this friend.

Ron Mader
ron@greenbuilder.com

CANADIANS NOT AMERICANS

Dear Editor:

A while back I took a trip to Ireland and Britain. When I was there people called me an American quite often. I would respond no, I'm a Canadian. When I mentioned this to my next door neighbor who is from Mexico, he said, "Of course you're an American, Ben, just like Mexicans and Brazilians are." I said no way, Canadians are only Canadians and North Americans but not Americans. You see, we Canadians always mean Americans of the U.S.; Hondurans, Mexicans or Brazilians are not Americans at all the way Canadians see things. You are Latin Americans and we are North Americans.

The Americanization of Canada I think is one of the things going on in globalization for Canadians: to become Americans of the continent because so far we are not. Canada does not need more trade and technology, we are drowning in appliance pollution. We need ideas.

A big problem is North America. I have a fat stack of newspaper clippings from the Vancouver Sun and The Globe and Mail newspapers that when they use the term North America they always mean Canada and the United States. Without fail, a story with Honduras, Mexico, or Panama will never have the words North America in them. Cuba is not a North American problem, it has never been described thus.

The media cannot have it both ways. No Spanish speaking country is included in North America. This is, when you think about it, not a very multicultural attitude. This is not the way when we say the words Europe or Africa which are a diverse mix of peoples, languages, and cultures. North American homogeneity seems kind of dated to my mind.

The media and government in Canada say words are neutral which could explain why they are so rigidly regulated. The word America to Canadians is not neutral, it is in fact a very charged word because we rarely say it. It is one of our taboos, which seem out of date for a modern scientific people. We are not Americans nor do we live in America, which is odd considering our location.

Ben Griffin
Burnaby, BC, Canada

A Moon for the misbegotten?

BY W. E. GUTMAN

Dr. K. C. Park, a clinical psychologist at an upstate New York medical center, calls him "a short-fused, arrogant little man who thrives on intimidation and exploits the gullible and the perplexed."

Oh Chung-Hee, an economics professor at a leading U.S. university, remembers a "megalomaniac, a manipulator imbued with a messianic complex who has forced his followers to turn over their assets after highjacking their souls."

Jee Sun-Yee, an electronics importer, describes him as a man who "amassed untold wealth by subverting peoples' spirit then relieving them of their cash."

Kim Yong-Ja, a voice teacher at a noted American music school, recalls a man widely suspected of having granted himself the medieval "droit de seigneur" -- sleeping with the brides before surrendering them to their husbands.

Chung Sun-Jieh, a produce vendor on New York's Second Avenue

identifies him simply as "a crook," an assessment shared by the Internal Revenue Service which helped convict him on charges of tax evasion.

The object of such contempt and derision? None other that the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder and absolute ruler of the Unification Church, a cultic evangelical movement based on the worship of personality, with Moon -- who considers himself the reincarnation of Christ -- as the central, irreducible supreme figure.

Despite his daunting self-image -- and his followers' bizarre belief that he is God's transfiguration on earth -- the Rev. Moon is widely regarded as an irascible, stern-jawed con man, another for-profit proselyte, a man driven by powerful hormonal urges, a buffoon with monumental chutzpah. Backed by millions of foot soldiers, a huge treasury, a publishing empire and seed money planted in carefully selected universities, he continues to be an invaluable cog in the religious right's

huge apostolic engine and an influential silent partner in conservative politics.

"SHOW ME YOUR FRIENDS...

... and I'll tell you who you are," says an old maxim. The Rev. Moon has been associated from time to time with a veritable "who's who" in reactionary circles, people committed to strategies aimed at destabilizing fledgling democracies and replacing them with plutocratic minions prone to underwrite both U.S. economic aims and the Christian Right's theocratic crusade. Among them --

* The Knights of Malta -- the Vatican's mouthpiece, a patron of the CIA and a champion of conservative elites in Latin America.

* Forever U.S. presidential hopeful, Pat Buchanan.

* Roberto Alejos Arzu (Alvaro's cousin) on whose estate commandos of the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion were trained. Alejos is known to have ties with Guatemalan military officers implicated in human rights violations.

* W. R. Grace Co. head J. Peter Grace, a man associated with

CIA-assisted coups. Grace, who had a fondness for Nazis, helped bring Dr. Otto Ambros, a developer of the Zyklon-B gas used in extermination camps, to the United States. Convicted in Nuremberg for mass murder and for supplying slave labor, Ambros became a Grace consultant.

* Robert Macauley, founder of AmeriCares and a former member of the Grace Board. AmeriCares, whose declared mission is to offer relief worldwide "regardless of race, religion or political persuasion," became active in Guatemala in the early 80s, channeling donations to the U.S.-backed military regime. A conduit for the Knights of Malta in Latin America, it also contributed to U.S.-engineered armed conflicts in which the poor and the voiceless were the prime victims, and routinely flew its

armada into ideological battlefields directly linked to U.S. strategic interests, including flash points in the crumbling Soviet empire. Meanwhile, areas that most desperately needed assistance but were not deemed strategically vital to the United States, especially sub-Saharan Africa, were virtually ignored. In 1990, AmeriCares funneled nearly $20 million to Poland; Uganda, with persistent health emergencies, including an AIDS epidemic, only received $59,000.

* Pat Robertson, founder and president of the Christian Coalition, whose financial empire generates annual revenues in excess of $140 million. Robertson has been linked to private investments in Zairian diamond mines and shady deals with deposed dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

In 1985, the peripatetic Oliver North got the Rev. Moon to donate nearly half a million dollars worth of supplies to the Contras. Three years later, he withheld assistance to Sandinista Nicaragua, which had been devastated by a hurricane. He couldn't get his planes in fast enough when Violetta Chamorro defeated the Sandinistas. There have been unconfirmed reports that he contributed to Arnoldo Aleman's election campaign.

"Everybody is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody," Mark Twain wrote. The Rev. Moon's dark side has long been bathed in light. But none is so blind as he who will not see. When power, wealth and influence are at stake, embracing false gods in the name of the Almighty is immeasurably more profitable than walking in Jesus's footsteps.

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

Once upon a time

Once upon a time, there was a princess. In the adventures of her youth she met a prince (a little bit ugly, but no frog), and after the imperial orders were issued, they got married. They had two fine children who grew up under the regimen of the empire. For unknown reasons the princess of great height and high thoughts, instead of hiding behind her nobility, dedicated herself to work with the poor and the sick, as well as fighting for the removal of land mines. After a while, she even took off the Royal corset, divorcing the prince, and dedicating herself to works that would inspire Mother Theresa.

The tall, beautiful, talented, ex-princess was able to handle with grace the shared custody of her children, who remained at the side of their father's family for their education, as one would someday be king.

Early one morning in Paris (from whence comes the stork, according to Honduran folklore) at over a hundred miles an hour, escaping from intrusive photographers at the side of a new love, and with a chauffeur who had had nine too many, the beautiful princess perished in an accident that claimed the lives of nearly all occupants. And she went to heaven and everyone misses her, the most photographed princess of the world. God save the ex-princess.

This is the most told fairy tale in the world right now, and will not need to be written down to be passed on to later generations. Diana will be remembered by everyone as a great lady, a little rebellious, but very human; the queen of hearts.

Our national press has had the news of the demise of the princess on the front page, and continue commenting on her extraordinary life, and untimely death. In her parting she takes everything with her, but leaves the world a better place for her presence. Sometimes we did not know whether to accept her humility or her rebelliousness, but what we can accept is her great kindness for all people.

Diana had already said goodbye once, to the family which made her royal. It could be that she liked goodbyes, but we will miss her.

The future of telecommunications

Economic globalization has expanded to included telecommunications, but in the case of Honduras, it will receive a challenge from current economic and judicial systems.

The first manifestation of this globalization is the increase in the number of foreign companies providing not just basic services, but new technologies such as e-mail, video conferencing, and other services now considered essential in the world. "Call back" services have collected many customers, who prefer to violate current national laws against them, to save substantial amounts of money.

To face these challenges, the current telephone provider must put the customer's needs first, because if HONDUTEL does not satisfy their needs another carrier will.

Although it is an autonomous agency, the state-owned and operated Honduran Telecommunications Company (HONDUTEL) is bound by regulations that govern state enterprises. To participate in international contracts, it must negotiate with the government and receive approval.

To allow for necessary growth in these times of great change in the telecommunications industry, Hondutel must be privatized. Privatization would bring a strategic partner with outside funds that would be in charge of the company's administration. This would bring new technologies benefiting users.

To correct administrative problems, it has been proposed to transform the company into a sociedad anónima that will follow the laws and regulations applied to private businesses, and will be run effectively as any other company. This would contribute to agility and a capacity for change in face of competition that will arrive sooner or later.

The commitment to increasing service to more customers has been a slow but steady process for HONDUTEL. There are currently 230,000 telephone lines in Honduras, but there is still great demand, especially in areas with a large industrial growth such as the free industrial zones.

Another interesting possibility for advancement of Honduran telecommunications is the proposed underwater cable with an access station in Puerto Cortés. This project, backed by multinational telecommunication corporations from the United States, Mexico, France, England, Grand Caiman, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia, would lower costs considerably by reducing the use of satellite transmissions and could make Honduras an important link in telecommunications with Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.

The future looks promising for telecommunications in Honduras and hopefully measures will be taken that allow HONDUTEL to compete in this fast changing arena, without obstacles, and with administrative agility, instead of the slow and sometimes

inoperative bureaucracy that ties its hands and feet with legislation that is not compatible to the current field of competition, where changes happen on a daily basis.

For the record

By W. E. GUTMAN

Dear reader:

Let's face it, in an imperfect world fact is calumny, reality is disgrace, truth is scandal. For those whose only loyalty is to the truth it is a lonely world as well. The price for such devotion is high and those who are willing to pay it never lack detractors. Journalists are an especially appetizing quarry. Because reality is what the self perceives, their renderings are never accurate, fair or broad enough to satisfy the biases and optic of all readers. If their articles lack focus or detail, they're dismissed as shallow and irrelevant. If their exposes or commentaries are too graphic, too close for comfort, they're accused of muckraking, of practicing yellow journalism.

Readers come in various stripes too. Most seek to be informed. They possess the analytical tools to judge an article on its merits. It is to them that scrupulous journalists devote their columns. Some are like butterflies: they saunter and skip chunks of text that do not pique their interest or that unsettle or intimidate them. Others see conspiracy in syntax: they dissect every utterance as if it concealed some subliminal password. They can't see the sentence from the words, the idea from the inflection. Others yet are so jarred by the truth that they clamor for its abolition, lest they be infected by its all-consuming virtues.

For journalists working in Central America the problem is

especially daunting. Many people still equate democracy with chaos, popular aspirations with Communism. The quest for truth, they argue, is tantamount to subversion. They regard the effort to bare it as a plot to rattle the status quo. Journalists are seen as purveyors of social disenchantment, not as impartial arbiters giving the public a chance to make free and informed choices.

Is the prospect of a cordial relationship with one's readers so desirable that a journalist will overlook truth and throw principle to the winds? Is the ubiquitous warning to the press and to all citizens -- "do not disagree with the powerful; do not speak out against evil -- or else," an incentive to deliver society to silence? Or will the journalist stick to his guns, obey the canons of his craft and uphold the truth even if the

relationship with his public founders as a result?

This writer has been scouring the isthmus for the past seven years. His beat: human rights, politics, the military and "Third World" socio-economic themes. That's his specialty. It's been a busy seven years staring at the face of hunger, disease, brute force, depravity, misery and death. Yet he's been criticized, not only for stripping the emperor naked for all to see, but also, recently, for failing to rhapsodize nature with the same brushstroke on canvases depicting a child dying of AIDS, a policeman raping a young girl, an army colonel torturing a clergyman, a prison warden abusing inmates, a vice president reciting, parrot-like, sanctioned government catechism as if it were gospel....

If critics are entitled to excoriate this reporter for the painful things he has described, they have an obligation to praise him for the themes from which he has so far abstained. He did NOT, for example:

* Revile the buffoons who suggested that Archbishop Oscar Andres Rodriguez be appointed "interim" Chief of Police. The archbishop is to be congratulated for declining the honor.

* Call attention to the scores of women who collapsed as a result of poor ventilation in dirty and overcrowded conditions at the Korean-owned Wang Chang maquilladora near San Pedro Sula, or report that a similar incident occurred in a sweatshop in La Ceiba, or belabor the subject by adding that some sweater factories in Honduras employ 13-year-old girls who work in excess of 12 hours a day and earn 65 cents for a garment that sells for $90 or more in the U.S.

* Attack the timber and cattle-ranching oligarchies who are forcing the Tawahka-Sumu indigenous people from their ancestral homeland or decry the encroaching deforestation of the Patuca River Basin.

* Ask why the Swan Islands, promoted by tourist interests as "remote outposts of a pristine paradise," are now the dumping grounds for old military garbage, including old U.S., Guatemalan, Honduran and Nicaraguan contra weaponry, rusty boxes and barrels, old aircraft hangars, corroding fuel tanks, mountains of explosives and remnants of a CIA weather and radar installation. Nor did he protest the use or grazing lands by private firms on the islands, a practice that further threatens the plant

and animal life in this fragile ecosystem.

* Question the legitimacy of a pardon by the Paris Club of a $7.5 million debt owed by Honduras to France -- or editorialize on the incomprehensible enormity of Honduras's external debt of over $4 billion, or ask where the money really went.

* Say a word about Gen. Hung's monumental arrogance in the case involving 27 stolen vehicles being used by the FSP under the pretext that such vehicles had not been [legitimately] made available to them. Nor did he endorse Human Rights Commissioner Leo Valladares Lanza's assessment that this case is a classic example of the type of impunity and abuse of authority that the good people of Honduras must reject and help flush out once and for all.

Yes, this writer has displeased a few readers by pointing fingers at reality. Some have voiced their disapproval. He welcomes their comments and respects their opinions. But he asks: Why don't you ever scream at injustice? Raise your collective voices against corruption? Condemn inhuman conditions in your nation's prisons? Denounce the abuse of homeless children by law enforcement agents? Censure the Byzantine judiciary, the Machiavellian military, the dishonest politicians, the inept bureaucrats?

Having said that, my detractors should not confuse a critical eye or an acerbic tongue with a lack of vision, an incapacity to feel. I know that beyond the squalor, the pollution, the corruption, the injustice, the impunity, the everyday life-and-death struggle, there is enchantment and grace and hope.

Honduras is a land of infinite beauty and undiminished potential. I will never cease to marvel at its magnificent vistas. I will return to the humble village of Tutule to be once again lulled by the ambrosial sweetness of an afternoon breeze. I will stand in awe under the star-studded nights of Copan. I will drink again the liquid crystal air cascading from the hills above Valle de Angeles and find serenity in the mystic beauty of Lake Yojoa. It is in the majesty of the rain forest that I will be humbled and regenerated.

Above all, I will treasure my Honduran friends and the Honduran people for the character and quiet dignity and seductive warmth that endears them to all who take the time to know them. It is affection for them, not rancor or enmity, that has aroused this writer to exasperation from time to time. It is easy to overlook the things that do not touch you. It is impossible to ignore the things you love. Perhaps an engaged and combative style is a measure of this journalist's true sentiments. For the record.

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

Why do we need to continue breathing smoke?

By JOSE ALVARO CALIX RODRIGUEZ

Pollution emitted from vehicles is harming human health more than ever. It's important to know that in the last three years, respiratory diseases have moved from the fifth to the second most frequent cause of hospitalization in Honduras. This is due partly to increases in the number of badly regulated vehicles on the roads.

Particles in the all-pervasive smog of Honduras' cities (generated by these badly regulated vehicles) penetrate deep into the lungs, where the mucous system is unable to ward them off. As time passes, there's a high risk of lung cancer. According to a recent poll, the people now identify this foul smoke in the streets as one of the most harmful pollution problems.

The existence of carbon monoxide in the smoke, emitted from lead motors, causes harm to the respiratory system and cardiovascular apparatus and can cause severe damage to the brain and other organs.

Nobody in the streets, whether on foot, motorbike, bicycle or car, is safe from this pernicious smog. Sadly those most susceptible to the effects of this pollution are children, pregnant women, the elderly, those who suffer from asthma, and of course those who work in the streets.

The group Aire Puro is fighting against this pollution, and is at this moment working with all it's energy to make people aware of the harm caused by it. We are aware of the fact that there many other types of environmental problems, but we need to start somewhere. We desperately need a control on vehicular emissions, but we need everyone's a support. We need you to demand that Health and Environment Ministries approve vehicular emission limits as soon as possible. Vehicle owners must be made aware of the severe damages their cars are causing to others. With only a small investment in their vehicle's maintenance, they could save millions of lempiras in human health care.

Jose Alvaro Calix Rodriguez is a volunteer at Aire Puro.