Public Letter and Denunciation of a Menace to the Cultural Patrimony of Honduras

That's the title of a document posted today on Vos el Soberano, and circulated via email by the authors.

They are the Ex-Minister of Culture, Arts and Sports of Honduras during the Zelaya administration, Dr. Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle, and the last legally appointed Director of the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History, Dr. Dario Euraque.

Both noted historians, they explain clearly what is at stake in the actions taken to pacify politicians of the town of Copan Ruinas who have insisted they should get a cut of the sales of tickets to visit the World Heritage Site, Copan.

So far, no response from the government of Porfirio Lobo Sosa or, mysteriously, his Minister of Culture or the current occupant of the office of Director of the Institute of Anthropology and History, who (they note) are not listed as signing the agreement through which not only will income from Copan be illegally diverted to local politicians: the budget of the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History will be deprived of funding, and protection and interpretation of the entire national patrimony, including traditional cultures, archives, historic places, and archaeological sites across the country, will be destroyed.

Public Letter and Denunciation of a Menace to the Cultural Patrimony of Honduras

The 26th of February of the present year there was signed a public agreement on the part of the present Minister of the Interior of Honduras, Áfrico Madrid, the Mayor of the Municipality of Copan Ruinas, Helmy Giacoman, and the Congress member of the Department of Copan, Julio Cesar Gámez. Through the so-called "Agreement of Copan 2012", its signatories, supposedly in order to strengthen the impact of the government of San José de Copan in the protection of the national patrimony in the Copan Archaeological Park (PAC), rather prepared the destruction of the institution legally constituted to administrate and protect the Cultural Patrimony of Honduras: the Instituto Hondureño de Antropología e Historia (IHAH).

The Prosecutor for Heritage ought to investigate this unusual Agreement of Copan 2012 that commits the sin of an evident abuse of authority. First, because it ignores and disqualifies the functions of the maximum administrative authority legally responsible to keep watch over the Cultural Patrimony of the Nation: the Secretaria de Cultura, Artes y Deportes (SCAD), whose leader is at the same time President of the IHAH, who was not present and did not sign the act. The Agreement also doesn't carry the signature of the Director of the IHAH since the coup d'etat of 2009, who by law is obligated to defend his institution, although it can be supposed that he supports the accords of the Agreement that threatens it. Second, because via these and other transgressions, the Agreement of Copan 2012 violates the spirit and international compacts assumed by the State of Honduras in relation to the most important international instruments that guard the cultural patrimony of humanity.

The Agreement of Copan 2012 consists of nine understandings. Four of those (3, 4, 6, and 7) pretend to promote a greater participation by the government of Copan in the administration of the cultural patrimony of the region behind the back of the SCAD and of the technicians and specialists of IHAH and its international collaborators, who in their great majority are opposed to the Agreement in question. In fact these articles mask the principal objective: which is to permit the mayor of Copan to divert the income of the PAC with purposes outside the mission of the law that governs the Cultural Patrimony: Decree 220-97, the Law for the Protection of the Cultural Patrimony of the Nation.

This disastrous proposition is evident in the first article that, without authorization and the required proceedings, dismisses from his position the regional administrator of the IHAH in Copan and the Park. The agreement under its article number nine promotes investigations on the part of the Prosecutor of the officials and employees of the IHAH without cause or denunciation with the aim to intimidate and silence the technicians and specialists and sub-directors of this institution who refused to favor the evident concubinage between the Directorate of the IHAH and the signatories of the Agreement of Copan 2012. Article number five asks that President Porfirio Lobo sanction a pre-proposal for a law introduced to the National Congress by the congress member for Copan Gamez which would grant a percentage of the income of the Park to the government of San José de Copan.

The Agreement of Copan 2012 seeks to reform the Decree 220-97, without consulting the SCAD and to the discredit of the autonomy and the authority that Decree 220-97 grants the IHAH to gather resources of its own and to administer and protect not just the Copan Archaeological Park but all the Cultural Patrimony of the Nation, including from many archaeological sites and the Historic Centers of the historic cities, the documentary patrimony of our archives and the living cultures. The Honduran people should know that the IHAH will administer and protect this treasure that is the greatest treasure of the nation and the core of our National Identity with the resources from the income of the Copan Archaeological Park. And that therefore the agreement and the project to strip the institution of that income will contribute to destroy the IHAH and still more to deprive the Cultural Patrimony of Honduras of protection.

We urge the Honduran people and the international community, the Presidency of the Republic, the Minister of Culture, Arts, and Sports, and the Special Attorney for the Cultural Patrimony of Honduras so that, by common agreement, they can denounce the Agreement of Copan 2012 and they can investigate the circumstances in which the signatories ignored the institutions concerned, usurped their representation and functions, abused the attributes that the law grants them and played at demagoguery, with the Copan Archaeological Park as token on the board.

The Copan Agreement

Here is the text of the agreement signed in Copan, described by one of our Honduran colleagues as "a clear attack on the IHAH and the cultural patrimony". We would note that this "agreement", produced on letterhead of the Municipalidad of Copan Ruinas, entirely violates the long established constitutional principles that hold the cultural patrimony of Honduras as a common good of all the people of the country. (Note that "Copan Ruinas" is the name of the town, not simply a reference to the archaeological site; where the latter is intended, we use the English "Ruins of Copan" for the Spanish "Ruinas de Copan".)

Agreement Copan Ruinas 2012

Gathered in an Open Town meeting, in the Municipal Hall of Copan Ruinas, with the goal of reaching agreement over the subject of the sending abroad of archaeological objects from our national patrimony to the city of Pennsylvania, United States, with the participation of the municipal Mayor, the city council, Congressmen, mayors and representatives of nearby towns, the Minister of the Interior and Population as a representative of his Excellency the President of Honduras, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, the Director of the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History, Commissioner of Municipal Transparency, brothers from the Maya Chorti, representatives of patronatos, brothers from the rural communities, citizens of Copan Ruinas. After hearing participation during the present Open Town Meeting, in Local and National interest, we agree conjointly, to the following points

1. The immediate firing from the post of Regional Director of the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History of Salvador Varela, in light of his being responsible for the lack of communication between IHAH and the municipal government and people of Copan Ruinas.

2. To reform the Ley para la Protección del Patrimonio Cultural de la Nación (decreto 220-97) so that the honorable municipal government and town of Copan Ruinas have direct participation with voice and vote in the Consultation Council which supports IHAH, giving to the communities where the cultural patrimony is found the power and right to manage them, always within the law of the said Patrimony, so that with this [they become] the true protectors of our history.

3. To grant the honorable Municipal Corporation and town of Copan Ruinas the right to name representatives to make an complete inventory of all the archaeological pieces, documents and things of any type which are housed in the CRIA [the archaeological storage of IHAH in Copan], the Archaeological Park, Museums and any other site on the national level.

4. To grant the honorable Municipal Corporation and people of Copan Ruinas the right to name representatives that will be present in any excavation, discovery, or exhibit related to the Patrimony Ruins of Copan, which will give trust with transparency.

5. In light of the proposed law that would grant a percentage of the income from the Archaeological Park, the Ruins of Copan, coming out of an Open Meeting held in 2011, and that the same [law] is in the process of approval by the National Congress, knowing that the committee report is favorable, we ask the constitutional president of the republic, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, to support and favorable approval of the decree and ordering its publication as required by law.

6. To grant the honorable Municipal Corporation and people of Copan Ruinas the right to the sale of tickets, in conformity with the plan presented to the President of the Republic, a plan which comes from brotherhood of the honorable municipal corporation of Antigua, Guatemala and the honorable municipal corporation of Copan Ruinas.

7. To grant the honorable Municipal Corporation and people of Copan Ruinas to name a commission so that the same will be witnesses to the packing, supervision, and shipping of archaeological objects, thus to give faith in the return of all the objects that shall leave for exhibition.

8. Give the honorable Municipal Corporation the authority so that it can invoke the Legal Department of AMHON [so that] that the Ley para la Protección del Patrimonio Cultural (Decreto Legislativo 220-97) shall be reformed in every chapter and article so that the people of Honduras are empowered in their patrimonial historical legacy.

9. Ask the Investigating Prosecutor for legal processes against officials and employees of the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History in local, state and national courts, as well as other dependencies of the state.

In witness the honorable municipal Mayor, the honorable Municipal Corporation, the honorable Congressmen, mayors or representatives of the nearby towns, Minister of the Interior and Population in representation of his Excellency President of Honduras Porfirio Lobo Sosa, Director of the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History, municipal commissioner of transparency, brothers representatives of the Maya Chorti, represenatives of the patronatos, brothers of the rural community boards, citizens of Copan Ruinas, we proceed to the signing of the present accord.

Given in the city of Copan Ruinas, on the twenty-sixth day of the month of February of the year two thousand twelve.

[the signatures of Mayor Helmy Rene Giacoman Franco, and of Africo Madrid, follow]
[below this is the signature and seal of Julio Cesar Gámez, interim representative of the Department of Copan in Congress]
[Below this follow the names of sixteen others, not identified to office]

Robbing Culture to Pay Copan

We've said all there is to say before, but it bears re-iterating after a January 9 article in El Tiempo noted that Congress member Julio Cesar Gamez late last year introduced a bill which would assign 50% of the income from selling admission to the archaeological site of Copan to the town of Copan.

The basis of the argument advanced by the town of Copan is that they have a right to the income from admission to the archaeological site. This would take vital funding away from the Honduran Institute for Anthropology and History, responsible for all the cultural properties in Honduras, including Copan.

It's sheer greed, combined with the decreasing budgets given to municipalities by the state government in Honduras.

According to Mayor Helmy Réne Giacoman, who leads the latest effort,

"We are only left with the trash that the tourists leave",

a statement that ignores all the benefits that the town and its residents derive from those tourists. The Mayor speaks nonsense, of course.

As Victor Manuel Ramos noted last August in his column in El Tiempo, the town of Copan

receives most benefits from the Archaeological Park, because the enormous quantity of visitors also stay in the hotels of the locality, they consume food, they buy crafts, they visit the restaurants and the shops and use local transportation. All those businesses contribute taxes to the municipality. More than that, the benefits that the Institute receives are really limited if we compare them with those that the entire community and the municipality receives, since the costs for entry are very cheap and if we do an analysis of the expenditures of the visitors we will see that a tiny quantity corresponds to the Institute in the shape of tickets since the major part of the expenditures of the tourists remains in the hands of the local business people.

Just to be clear, tourism poured $650 million into the Honduran economy last year.

A 2003 study by the UN suggests that more than $60 million of that went directly to the town of Copan.

That's some trash.

Privatize Copan? Why Not.

Copan Ruinas asks for its rights over the archaeological park.

That headline in El Tiempo on Monday caught our eye.

What "rights", do you ask?

The newspaper reported Monday that in a town meeting over the weekend, the residents of Copan Ruinas (the town adjacent to the Maya archaeological site) voted to demand that the Institute of Anthropology and History turn over 50% of the gross revenues generated by the archaeological park.

Congress member Julio Cesar Gamez Interiano will reportedly introduce legislation to this effect. The legislation reportedly would enable the town of Copan Ruinas to sell tickets outside the country, keeping all of that revenue, although it leaves undefined the mechanism for these direct sales to foreign tourists.

This is exactly what was predicted in a letter from the Union of Employees of the Institute of Anthropology and History on June 8, 2011. As we said then, the consequences of such a shift in distribution of income from this national monument would be disastrous, both for the archaeological site itself, and for the Institute of Anthropology and History.

Why? Copan's income is currently the main source of funding for preservation of the cultural patrimony in Honduras.

That includes Copan. In fact, most of Copan's income is dedicated to preserving that very site.

The former director of the Institute of Anthropology and History, Dario Euraque, demonstrated in his book El golpe de Estado del 28 de junio de 2009, el Patrimonio Cultural y la Identidad Nacional that funds generated by admission to the archaeological site of Copan are used almost entirely in the maintenance and administration of Copan.

The article in El Tiempo includes no arguments to justify this grab by the town, no explanation for why the town thinks it has the right to the income from admissions to the site.

It's not like it isn't already receiving economic benefits from visitation to the site.

The government pays taxes on the land to the town every year; about 500,000 lempiras according to the El Tiempo article.

And of course, the town derives income from all the visitors who come and stay in the hotels, eat in the restaurants, and buy things in the stores. Anyone who remembers sleepy Copan Ruinas in the 1970s and visits today can see the economic growth there fueled by proximity to the archaeological site.

The call to take 50% of the revenues used to maintain the national monument is nothing more than a plan to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs for the town of Copan Ruinas.