By BLANCA MORENO

TEGUCIGALPA -- On the 178th anniversary of independence, Honduras thanked the world for its solidarity and cooperation during and after the tragedy of Hurricane Mitch.

Cabinet members were present during the ceremonies early in the morning when the flag was raised and the cry of "Viva la Independencia! Viva la Republica!" was heard from President Carlos Flores at Plaza Morazan in downtown Tegucigalpa. The day was greeted with the traditional 21-gun-salute from the Juana Lainez Hill located near the center of the city.

In the nation's capital, 57 schools participated in the parades complete with marching bands, pom-pom girls and students wearing costumes representing everything from ecology themes to sports and national traditions. The massive event started at 7 a.m. and went on until 3 p.m. The National Stadium was filled to capacity with more than 30,000 cheering citizens, who applauded every school and state institution participating. This included the Army Paratrooper Team, the Central American champion. The team made 10 perfect landings in the center of the soccer field, to the delight of onlookers and millions of television spectators nationwide.

A controversy started early in the day because of the very short skirts worn by high school pom-pom girls. This caused the government parade organizer to issue a statement to national and international media in which she stated that next year the skirts will be longer and if they are not, measures will be taken against the schools.

President Flores, in a spontaneous breach of protocol, invited the Central American Ambassadors and Honduran congressmen to join him in a ride around the field to salute the people present at the stadium.

All of the schools that marched carried a sign in which they thanked a country for their moral and economic support. By mistake, the Instituto Santa Teresita carried Continental China's flag instead of the Republic of China's, which caused the protest of Ambassador Chin Yen Yang of Taiwan. The episode was saved by President Flores and Foreign Minister Roberto Flores Bermudez, who talked with him and prevented him from leaving.

The president congratulated all the students of Honduras who demonstrated true patriotism to the whole country at the stadium and on television. "The independence of the five Central American countries carries with it the memorable past that was passed on to us by the fathers and martyrs. It conveys the aspirations and expectations of those who created the republic, the Motherland, for which we are working to make better, which is the wish of every Honduran," he said.

By MICHAEL COLEMAN

TEGUCIGALPA -- The recent announcement by Russian geologists that oil deposits were found on the North Coast has some Hondurans excited and others skeptical.

Two weeks ago, three experts from the Russian Institute for the Exploration of Petroleum Reserves declared that La Mosquitia is ripe for drilling. The news was presented as having the potential to be a major, profitable crude oil discovery for the country.

But petroleum exploration is a high-risk business and many people are worried that Honduras will need to invest a lot of money and resources into what could amount to nothing more than an expensive deposit of useless mud.

Dr. George Chilingar is one scientist who disagrees. He has explored and collected data on oil deposits in Honduras since 1963. He met with the Russian team the week before they spent three days examining the site in La Mosquitia. Together they went over the information he'd gathered during his years of investigating the region. Chilingar, a professor of geology at the University of Southern California (USC) and an expert in petroleum exploration, is confident there is oil there and doesn't feel Honduras needs to invest anything.

"Honduras should do what they are doing now: give concessions with conditions more or less favorable to oil companies," he says. "Let the oil companies with the concessions take care of expenses."

Meanwhile, Chilingar admits that, though there is oil, they do not know yet whether it is present in commercial quantities or not. "That's why Russian geologists took samples of Honduran oil and rock cores to examine them in Russia," he says.

The news of this find blanketed the front pages of national newspapers. The knee-jerk reaction was to look at this discovery as a salvation for a country in dire need of some good news.

This isn't the first time people have had black-gold fever in Honduras. The first discovery is reported to have been in 1919 when the government gave its first concession for oil exploration. Sixteen sites were drilled. Two came back with positive results. In the 1960s, Honduras tried again based on aerial photographs from International Geophysical Exploration. More positive samples were discovered in 1965 at a site called Ceibita.

The most recent explorations, before the Russian declaration, took place from 1970 to 1983. Many companies like Texaco, Exxon and Mobil have invested in oil exploration here. But to put it in perspective, according to figures from January 1, 1997, the crude oil reserves in all of Central America amounted to only 700 million barrels. By contrast Trinidad and Tobago alone accounted for 600 billion barrels and Venezuela sold 72.6 billion barrels.

The Russian report discusses an area of approximately 150,000 km2 along the North Coast from the shores of Nicaragua to Amatique in Guatemala.

"We have source rocks, reservoir rocks and traps," says a confident Chilingar. "That is all that is necessary. The technology of exploration and drilling has progressed immensely since the drilling of the old wells."

According to a brochure titled "The Archive Collection of the International Currency Bureau Ltd., representatives of the mint met with government officials at the Central Bank in Tegucigalpa on March 17, 1995 where they "proposed the production in England of a series of legal tender coins for Honduras."

Further communications consisted of facsimile messages sent by the mint to the Central Bank in July and November 1995 "to explain the progress of the coin production."

The International Currency Bureau states that although a pair of dies were manufactured and examples struck in a variety of metals, the Central Bank "never expressed further interest" and no additional contacts were made after November 1995.

However, a government source told Honduras This Week that there is no record of any Central Bank official ever having authorized production of the patterns, nor is there a government decree to this effect.

The source added that a senior Central Bank official may have asked the mint to produce the patterns without the knowledge of the Central Bank President at that time.

A local numismatic expert said it is a common practice of some mints to manufacture limited numbers of commemorative coins for Third World countries and then sell them to world coin collectors for a substantial profit.

A total of 1,071 examples were struck, including one in platinum, four in 0.916 gold, 16 in silver (piedfort). The obverse bears the national shield of Honduras and the reserve a portrait of national hero Lempira.

By MICHAEL COLEMAN

On February 11, 1998, U.S. geologist and mining engineer, George M. Wilson, was murdered in the department of Olancho. With little progress or even action since, Wilson's brothers are taking matters into their own hands.

Andrew and Steve Wilson are now turning up the heat on both Honduran and U.S. authorities in an effort to get some satisfactory answers and most importantly, justice in this as yet unsolved case.

George Wilson was in the process of building a road in order to gain access to some mineral deposits he had discovered that are reportedly worth millions. It has been surmised that the murder was a contract kill based on land disputes. Soon after the murder, the Wilsons visited the crime scene and were "appalled" at what they saw there. No evidence had been collected.

However, while on the scene they managed to find three spent AK-47 cartridges -- the caliber of the murder weapon -- and three .22 cartridges believed to have been fired by George Wilson himself. Cigarette butts presumed to have been smoked by the waiting assassins were gathered as well.

According to the Wilsons, this evidence was later mishandled either through corruption or incompetence and is now useless. They also claim politicians have been bribed or threatened, witnesses have not been questioned and that the entire area lives in constant fear, afraid to say anything regarding the case or against the suspects.

"Our next move is to set up a website and proceed to warn all U.S. citizens that Honduras is the most dangerous country in Central America," writes Steve Wilson in a letter to Honduras This Week. "We are going to proceed with legal action, boycott your goods, and stop U.S. support to your government. Why? Because there is no justice in your country."

The brothers are in the process of petitioning the U.S. Congress and Senate to halt all but humanitarian aid in hopes that some political pressure will help put the suspected killer, nicknamed "Cunia," behind bars for good. Letters have been sent to President Flores and the U.S. ambassador.

A $10,000 reward for the capture and conviction of their brother's murderers has been up for over a year now. They have even hired private investigators after being disappointed with the inaction of both U.S. embassy officials and Honduran authorities. Now armed with facts and evidence that points to the killers and the motive and frustrated with waiting, they are appealing to anyone who can help.

By ROSIBEL PACHECO DE GUTIERREZ

TEGUCIGALPA -- With the motto "Hand in hand with the people in National Transformation," the National Autonomous University on Monday (Sept. 6) inaugurated the XI Scientific Week. This year, the event is dedicated to national reconstruction and transformation.

During the inauguration, Rector Ana Belen Castillo presented an analytical essay on the country's situation and expressed that UNAH will continue to strengthen its role as the "consciousness of society." She said the university will make additional efforts to make technical careers more attractive by bringing in technology that allows students to have hands-on contact with what they read and see in text books.

Research works presented during the week are in the fields of social sciences, biological sciences and health, physics and mathematics, and economics and administration. Approximately 43 percent of the papers are deal with biology and health themes.

The impact of Hurricane Mitch was presented and focused on the following lines:

• Damage evaluation in different communities;

• Damage evaluation of streets and avenues on the banks of the Choluteca River (civil engineering); and

• Hydrological and hydraulic modeling of the upper watershed of the Choluteca River during Mitch (civil engineering).

As everyone knows, there has been significant seismic activity over the past few months, so essays on this topic were also presented, like "Seismic activity in Honduras during the first half of 1999: Implications of the seismic menace in the adoption of preventive measures," by Dr. Gonzalo Cruz, Earth Sciences Institute.

The School of Architecture presented "Mapping of the Urban Services of Tegucigalpa, A Draft of Honduran Construction Codes and Safety in Public Buildings."

Civil Engineer Nely Belinda Falck presented "Low Cost and Safe Housing," which highlights the fact that the National Reconstruction Plan estimates that 60,000 new houses must be built and 160,000 rebuilt. She says the university can play a major role with technical support in the building of these houses.

The Engineering School and the Panamerican Agriculture School, a private institution, presented a project on how to produce low cost building materials -- micro-concrete roof tiles, compressed concrete walls with metal and bamboo, which favors the environment and other applications.

The biological sciences presented the creation of a medicinal plants data base, the building of an herbarium of useful plants, coral reef studies, frequent diseases of shrimp and fauna, and management plans for protected areas.

The School of Medicine and Microbiology presented studies on parasites, ways to detect them, the papilloma virus and cervical cancer, and preventive medicine.

This academic activity brings about many benefits to the educational task of UNAH. Even with its limitations, there is no doubt that the works presented provide alternatives that should be supported at national and international levels. Systematic research allows a closer look at reality in order to change it. The old study patterns must be broken because underdevelopment must not be replicated through the conventional educational system.

Casa Alianza charged that uniformed policeman Juan Carlos Argueta detained street girl Fanny Cerrato, 16, close to the Hotel Honduras Maya in the center of Tegucigalpa on March 21, 1997. The street girl was pistol whipped and then detained and taken by Argueta to the police station in the capital's suburb of El Machen. The policeman ordered the girl into the police station's shower where he raped her.

Casa Alianza formally accused the policeman before the First Criminal Court of Letters after an investigation by the organization's legal aid office confirmed the complaint, and the now convicted policeman was arrested on June 14, 1997.

The case had a serious setback in mid 1998 when, under pressure from Argueta's family, the frightened street girl retracted her complaint. It is not known if she was paid or threatened to do so.

However, the sentencing judge condemned the policeman for rape under the "special cases" article of the criminal code, which takes into account that the girl was raped while formally detained by a police agent in a police facility. The judge did not accept the retraction of the complaint made later under pressure by Cerrato.

The sentence was confirmed by the First Appeals Court. Argueta is serving his sentence in the Tamara prison, close to Tegucigalpa. The maximum sentence for rape is 13 years.

"Let it be understood loud and clear: If anyone -- uniformed or not -- lays a hand on the street children, or abuses or exploits them, then we will be after them," said Bruce Harris, the Regional Director for the Casa Alianza programs in Latin America. "Anyone who exploits the vulnerability of the homeless street children deserve to rot in jail."

By MICHAEL COLEMAN

TEGUCIGALPA -- The first thing you notice is the map. The office deep in Casa Alianza is nothing special -- a few desks, a table, some chairs -- but the map is memorable. On it the streets of Tegucigalpa are littered with hundreds of colored pushpins -- red, yellow and white. An educator and outreach worker, explains. "Red is where we always find kids. Yellow is where we frequently find them and the white pins are sites we're investigating." I pause and stare at the colored dots brightening the monochromatic map. All areas of the city have at least one pin -- most contain clusters.

Casa Alianza estimates there are as many as 1,500 children living on the streets of the nation's capital. Put simply, for every 1,000 people in Tegucigalpa almost two are under 18 and living on the street. The impact of Mitch is also still being assessed and officials are certain the numbers now are even greater. More orphans, more families without shelter or a source of income and temporary housing projects where life is formidable have been contributing factors to the increase in kids on our streets. There has always been a natural affinity for the city when disaster strikes.

It is from this office and from this map that the staff plans its next sortie onto the streets to find and help some of these kids. Games, food, clothes and some positive human contact are all delivered in hopes that these youth will someday take refuge at Casa Alianza. On this day the shelter is about half-full but as always, the goal is to fill all 100 beds.

THE CASE OF ROGER

Roger: One of over a thousand kids who call the streets home. (Photo by Michael Coleman.)

Roger is 16. He has been living on the streets here for about two years. He stuck with the Casa Alianza program once, participating in all activities at the crisis center including counseling and non-formal educational activities. He seemed committed and moved to the next step spending a month in a group home where he started attending school again. He excelled, they said, showing real promise, but unfortunately it was too much for him and he left in favor of a less structured life back on the streets. He has been a familiar face to the workers here ever since though the longest he has stayed at Casa Alianza this year is four days. Today he is in the sanctuary area of the crisis center. It is the first step; a place where kids fresh off the street come to get cleaned up, get sober, get fed and hopefully get started with the program. He has just arrived and appears coherent, friendly but tired.

"Roger has come here on and off since around 1996," says Loana Cano, a psychologist with Casa Alianza. She is flipping through his thick file in her tiny, white-walled counseling office. "He has a severe glue addiction." His father was murdered when he was two-years-old, she tells me and his mother died of AIDS contracted from her second husband when Roger was six. A church from his Choluteca home arranged for he and his brother to stay at a nearby orphanage. He completed his elementary school education but it wasn't long before he was "getting in trouble" and at 14 he took the advice of a friend and headed to Tegucigalpa.

Roger's black hair is slicked back except for a few reddish curls spiraling up front. He wears all black, from his unbuttoned shirt to his shoes. He looks young.

"I wanted time to reflect on my life," he says of his decision to leave the orphanage. But as with most kids who end up on the street, he got into inhalants like glue and Resistol and drugs like marijuana. Great for limiting the effects of hunger, pain and awareness but wearing this chemical armor doesn't provide much opportunity for introspection.

LIFE A SHOPPING LIST

When Roger talks of the dangers in his life it is as if he were reading a shopping list, checking off each item with a raised finger: "You could get beaten up (forefinger), killed (middle finger), sexually abused (ring finger) ..." Earlier this year he was beaten by police in front of Casa Alianza. The legal department filed a case against the officers involved and they were suspended. His case was one of seven filed against the police this year -- a slow year.

Cano is in the process of helping to set up a special program designed for those under the age of 14. "It's a critical time," she says. "A time when kids can really be helped." She sees kids as young as seven and eight in her office. Unfortunately, with cases such as Roger's, though not impossible, the work is much more difficult. There are more walls to break down.

A weekend has passed before I see Roger again. He is outside the crisis center with a few other kids, this time obviously high, a jar of glue in his right hand as he shakes mine with his left. "Que tal?" To attempt a second interview it seems, would be futile. I find out later, he stayed in the crisis center for only a few more hours after we had met. "Roger's situation is very difficult," Cano says. "He needs to recognize he has a problem. It's up to him now. He many not have a good future."

In May Roger's 15-year-old brother also left the orphanage and has joined him in Tegucigalpa. His youngest brother is still there. Despite everything, Roger still tries to visit him there every four months. His 16-year-old girlfriend, they tell me, is pregnant. I find out later she was beside him on the street, clutching her own bottle of glue.

In 1995 UNICEF calculated that more than 50 percent of the Honduran population is under 18-years-old and that 44 percent of Hondurans live in urban areas. Casa Alianza has estimated that approximately 41 percent of children in Honduras are working and that 43 percent do not have access to school. They also report that 51 children have been murdered in Honduras this year.

By ERLING DUUS CHRISTENSEN

TEGUCIGALPA -- Matias Funez, the congressional deputy and leader of the United Democrat Party, has announced that 14 different organizations have come together in permanent session to form a front for the defense of the sovereignty of the Honduran nation. What has motivated this unprecedented action is a determination to prevent the National Congress from ratifying the reform of Constitutional article 107, which would allow non-Hondurans to own seashore property, as well as land along national borders.

The front will be coordinated by individuals representing ethnic groups, human rights organizations, and environmentalists. It will be dedicated to lobbying the members of Congress to make them aware of the negative consequences that could follow if the reform is ratified.

According to Funez, the reform would put 23 percent of Honduran territory up for sale to the highest bidder. He argues that it is far from certain that this would lead to worthwhile and significant development on the Caribbean coast, the area of Honduras that would be most affected.

The debate is heating up dramatically, fueled in part by comments made recently by Congressional President Rafael Pineda Ponce to the effect that the measure will be passed during the next session of Congress and that nothing can or should prevent it. Pineda Ponce is clearly staking his reputation on this issue.

The argument offered by he and other advocates is that in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch, with the economy of the nation in a deep slump, tourism is the only means of rejuvenation for the short term. Congressional advisor Raul Pineda Alvarado was quoted as saying "Honduras needs to move on this matter with a sense of urgency, not simply for the purposes of reconstruction, but in order to achieve a real economic transformation, and the best hope for this is tourism."

Businessman Miguel Facusse, who is rumored to own large amounts of land on the North Coast, has had his name and reputation injected into the debate. Facusse, it is reported, is heavily involved in promoting the reform initiative. Opponents think Facusse and other wealthy Hondurans would be in an ideal position to realize fat profits from the sale of land to foreigners. On the other hand, there are some Hondurans who see in Facusse a great patriot whose tireless activity benefits the Honduran people as a whole.

Celeo Alvarez Casildo, director of the Organization for the Development of Ethnic Communities (ODECO) and a member of the newly formed front, is promising a mobilization of protestors throughout the country in the coming week. As they take to the streets, they will be demanding to know the names of the politicians, businessmen, and military leaders who own land on the North Coast.

There is no denying in any event that whatever the outcome, this is rapidly becoming a pivotal moment in the history of the country. And while the sincerity of Matias Funez would be questioned by very few, it must be supposed that he is fully aware of the unique opportunity being created by this unique coming together of organization for the creation of a new politics in which the United Democratic Party would presumably be at the center.

Article 107 was passed into law in 1957 in response to political currents that were dominant at that time. If it is now changed in 1999, few Hondurans, whatever their perspective, will fail to perceive the determinative forces in the present political atmosphere. It might be called neo-liberalism, or globalization. What Pineda Ponce and his cohorts may be missing, however, is that the tide of neo-liberalism is receding and there are new political winds blowing in Latin America. The nature of those can be summed up with one name: Hugo Chavez.

In October, the U.S. government will begin issuing statements about the Y2K readiness of other countries. Even before this announcement is made, no one expects Honduras to be truly ready. Most small businesses and homes that have computers have no idea what they need to do to get their machines ready for the year 2000. Much of the information is being made available over the Internet, both in English and Spanish.

If you do not have access to the Internet, you may want to buy an e-book on the subject. Y2K Run is a book available on disk to tell you step by step what could be the problems and some suggestions on how to fix them. You can order this from Hard Shell Word Factory, P.O. Box 161, Amherst Junction, WI 54407, USA. Unlike most computer books, it is easy to read, even for people whose first language is not English.

This book will tell you that the first step is to inventory all of the computers that you have and what software is on the computers. The next step is to find out if your computer is going to have problems coping with the year 00.

Your computer has three internal clocks - a real time clock, a BIOS clock, and a system clock. On almost all computers the real time clock is going to have problems with the year 2000. To test if your computer will have problems, you can download free software from the website http://www.y2ktestandfix.com, which will let you test all three clocks. This test is available in English, Spanish, and other languages.

On many machines built after 1996, the real time clock will fail, and the BIOS clock will pass. In most cases, what the owner needs to do is shut off the computer on December 31 and reboot in the new year. The BIOS clock will show the correct time. If you need to leave your computer on overnight, then it will be necessary to fix the real time clock.

Many people are counting on the fact that since they have fixed the BIOS chip, all their software will now work. Unfortunately, some software used for ordering (and possibly those used for airplane and hotel reservations) depend on the real time clock. If people have this kind of software, they should consider investing the $25 to get "test and fix it" software for their real time clock, which is available through the y2ktestandfix website.

In Honduras many of the cheap, new computers with Microsoft Office in Spanish are reconditioned older computers, so be sure to test the hardware on these. After making sure the hardware works, the next step is to verify if your operating system is compliant. The operating system could be MS DOS, Windows 95, etc. There is an e-mail report that says Windows 95 needs a slight repair to be compliant, but Microsoft's web site says that Windows 95 is compliant and needs no changes.

After the operating system, check if your software is compliant. Lists of manufacturers' comments are listed on the site http://www.vendor2000.com. You will need to know which company wrote your software to check, something that is not always clear with pre-installed programs.

If you are one of the many people who need to check if your Microsoft software is Y2K compliant, look at http://www.microsoft.com. For those whose Spanish is better than their English, look at Microsoft's site in Spanish http://www.microsoft.com/
latam/2000. If you find your software is not compliant, the sites should tell you if you need an upgrade or if you need to replace it.

The next step is to determine how important the computer and its data are. Will the computer and its new upgraded or fixed software work in the new year? The other question is, how will you get into the data that you have in the old version of the software after January 2000. People are creating paper files of the most critical things and making backups of what is on their hard drive.

For those who would like additional help in understanding how to begin your Y2K project, look at the website set up by the U.S. government's National Institute of Standards and Technology in the Department of Commerce. This site http://www.y2khelp.nist/
gov/tool offers a jump start kit in both Spanish and in English that can be downloaded from the Internet to help small business owners with Y2K issues.

In addition to computers themselves, electronic items with chips in them that tell the time may also be affected. To check equipment with imbedded chips, see http://www.cema.city.or/
gov/cem2000. For the retirees in Honduras, of special concern is the possibility that the chips in pacemakers may fail. In the United States, electric companies use many imbedded chips. If they installed the same equipment here in Honduras, the chances are high that some of these chips will not have been tested and replaced by the year 2000. Gas pumps also have these little chips in them. This is why people are preparing contingency plans.

Buy kerosene for lanterns, batteries, propane for stoves early. Have extra lempiras on hand. Get gas in your car. Make paper copies of things like bank account balances. At least heat will not be a problem in Honduras. In fact, Hondurans are so used to energy rationing and blackouts and there are so few computers that it is probably one of the best places to spend the Y2K transition.