Education Minister Alejandro Ventura is publicizing a technical note published by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB, or BID in Spanish) issued last August. IADB technical notes are published with the disclaimer that they are the opinions of the authors, not the IADB.
The study, which is a thorough attack against the education unions in Honduras, is long on opinion and light on credible supporting sources for those opinions. But that's a topic for another time.
Honduran teachers' unions are actually quite different from the image of modern labor unions. And the IADB study illuminates those cultural differences sharply.
Honduran teachers' unions are technically gremios. Gremios, or guilds, arose in the 11th century A.D. as confederations of artisans and merchants that controlled the production, price, and quality of a certain craft. You had to be a member of the guild to make and sell that craft in a particular town, and your education and even the tools you could use were often spelled out. The guild guaranteed your pay. Guilds also provided services like funerals, hospitals, and loans.
In this area of services, guilds served the same function as cofradia memberships did. Cofradias were lay-religious organizations licensed by the Pope that developed at the same time as guilds. Cofradias were concerned with the adoration of a particular saint, but also provided diverse social services such as funerals, hospitals, and loans. We'll return to this shortly.
Honduras has had some form of teacher's union since 1895. The compulsory education law of 1966 established that all teachers must belong to a professional organization recognized by the Honduran government, and those organizations are gremios; guilds. They set the teaching standards, define a code of ethics, and the conditions under which teachers work.
Fast forward to today. What do teachers say are the most important reasons for joining one of the gremios?
According to one study cited in the IADB technical note, they are (in order from most to least important) loans, life and health insurance, and discounts on funerals.
In Honduras teachers are part of the group Hermano Juancito called the "lower middle class." For these people, gremios continue to play a vital role in ensuring economic stability and access to social services.
This is reflected in an otherwise difficult to understand fact: about 20% of the teachers' union members belong to two or more teachers' unions. This matches the practice among cofradia members in medieval Spain, where multiple memberships were common. Each cofradia or guild had a diverse set of social services that could attract members. Some people belonged to as many as five cofradias in sixteenth century Zaragoza, for example.
A World Bank/IADB Public Expenditures Survey (PETS) in 2008-2009 found that having multiple memberships was explicitly a strategy to get more and better health coverage and life insurance, to have greater access to loans, and to have access to a greater suite of diversified services.
(The PETS study found a different set of priorities cited as the main reasons members joined a gremio: salary concerns, academic training, and the formulation of education policy. But that may reflect the contemporary salary negotiations just concluded at the time, and the pattern of multiple memberships is not explained by these interests.)
Medieval institutions still function in our day, still provide benefits to their members. More modern institutions seek to dismantle them in the name of decentralization, not particularly concerned with replacing those services that keep the older institutions popular.
Whatever else is driving the conflicts over teachers' unions that the IADB note seeks to dismantle, one of the effects of their recommendation would be to replace a way to secure social services that has centuries-long roots in the Spanish culture brought to Honduras in the 16th century.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
The OAS Made Us Do It
News from Honduras: the Lobo Sosa government is moving rapidly to create a Secretariat of Human Rights and Justice.
Which is not going down well in Honduras with a group of people who continually criticize Lobo Sosa.
No, we don't mean the resistance (although we expect no one in resistance will believe such a move will lead to improved enforcement of human rights legislation or treaties). The criticism coming for Lobo is from members of congress and the government.
They are outraged that this new position has been imposed from outside, as a requirement for the OAS to reconsider Honduras as a member. Except that is kind of not true.
The allegation is made repeatedly by those opposed to the new cabinet post, like Nationalist Party and Choluteca Congressional Representative Francisco Argeña.
According to La Tribuna, when the Nationalist Party caucused on Thursday, they were told by their leadership that the establishment of this Secretariat was a condition for Honduras's return to the OAS. The Nationalists came out of the caucus affirming they would support the creation of the Secretariat, assuring its passage. But that doesn't mean they are happy about it.
Nora de Melgar, Vice President of Congress, told La Prensa
Ramon Custodio, Honduras' disfunctional Human Rights Commissioner, accuses the Lobo government of taking away his independence, and of violating his constitutional mandate with the law to create the new Secretariat.
Elvin Santos Lozano, head of the Liberal Party Central Committee, feels that Honduras is the victim
Roberto Micheletti called it unconstitutional and said that it represents an abuse of power by Lobo Sosa. He reiterated that it is the ALBA countries causing the OAS to impose this on Honduras.
But the claims that the Human Rights cabinet post is being developed because of foreign pressure are counterfactual.
It was the suggestion of Ana Pineda, Lobo Sosa's Minister/Advisor on Human Rights, who in a letter to the OAS High Commission on Honduras this summer, suggested that Honduras would consider founding a Secretariat of Human Rights and Justice. Her letter, dated the 23 of July, was included in the OAS report as annex 7.
She wrote
So the outrage about international fascist imposition on Honduras is, in the end, more posturing. But it brings out in the open what should be self-evident: there is no real commitment in the Honduran government to the mission defined for this new cabinet minister. This is just going through the motions as far as Lobo Sosa's own party is concerned. For the main opposing party, it provides a way to make some political gains against him at home, playing off the jingoistic nationalism that has been assiduously cultivated since the coup d'etat.
Only Ramon Custodio thinks this new ministry will have any real effect. And his worry is that someone else will notice that he is not doing his job.
Which is not going down well in Honduras with a group of people who continually criticize Lobo Sosa.
No, we don't mean the resistance (although we expect no one in resistance will believe such a move will lead to improved enforcement of human rights legislation or treaties). The criticism coming for Lobo is from members of congress and the government.
They are outraged that this new position has been imposed from outside, as a requirement for the OAS to reconsider Honduras as a member. Except that is kind of not true.
The allegation is made repeatedly by those opposed to the new cabinet post, like Nationalist Party and Choluteca Congressional Representative Francisco Argeña.
According to La Tribuna, when the Nationalist Party caucused on Thursday, they were told by their leadership that the establishment of this Secretariat was a condition for Honduras's return to the OAS. The Nationalists came out of the caucus affirming they would support the creation of the Secretariat, assuring its passage. But that doesn't mean they are happy about it.
Nora de Melgar, Vice President of Congress, told La Prensa
"We have already started the debate; it's one of the conditions of the Organization of American States for re-entry in the Organization; it's not something invented by the President of the country, nor the National Party, it's a mandate from them [the OAS] and as a poor country we have to do it to get the aid."While the Nationalists agreed to support this for pragmatic reasons, without any notable dedication to the supposed goals of the new cabinet post, other voices were particularly critical of Lobo Sosa for agreeing to what they see as more outside interference.
Ramon Custodio, Honduras' disfunctional Human Rights Commissioner, accuses the Lobo government of taking away his independence, and of violating his constitutional mandate with the law to create the new Secretariat.
Elvin Santos Lozano, head of the Liberal Party Central Committee, feels that Honduras is the victim
"of a gang of so-called Latin American leaders who want us under their fascist boot; and this is bringing a horrible anarchy, but unfortunately we are a country that has not jumped the Third World barrier and we will continue under their control."
Roberto Micheletti called it unconstitutional and said that it represents an abuse of power by Lobo Sosa. He reiterated that it is the ALBA countries causing the OAS to impose this on Honduras.
"Chavez will never stop insisting in the possibility to attract this country to his criteria, to his services."
But the claims that the Human Rights cabinet post is being developed because of foreign pressure are counterfactual.
It was the suggestion of Ana Pineda, Lobo Sosa's Minister/Advisor on Human Rights, who in a letter to the OAS High Commission on Honduras this summer, suggested that Honduras would consider founding a Secretariat of Human Rights and Justice. Her letter, dated the 23 of July, was included in the OAS report as annex 7.
She wrote
"The President, in the framework of the transformation of the State, has taken the decision to seek a better institutional development and not an interim space for response, in this regard, he will create a Minister of Justice and Human Rights, with the legal mandate and budget necessary so that in especially it can plan, coordinate, facilitate and implement all the actions that will be required on the national and international level in regard to Human Rights."
So the outrage about international fascist imposition on Honduras is, in the end, more posturing. But it brings out in the open what should be self-evident: there is no real commitment in the Honduran government to the mission defined for this new cabinet minister. This is just going through the motions as far as Lobo Sosa's own party is concerned. For the main opposing party, it provides a way to make some political gains against him at home, playing off the jingoistic nationalism that has been assiduously cultivated since the coup d'etat.
Only Ramon Custodio thinks this new ministry will have any real effect. And his worry is that someone else will notice that he is not doing his job.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Opiate or Antidepressant
"Religion is the opiate of the masses" may be Karl Marx's well known saying, but the InterAmerican Development Bank (IADB, BID in Spanish), in a study released today, is putting a new spin on it.
According to them, religion is actually an antidepressant.
And Honduras, the authors say, is one of the least depressed countries in their international sample.
This was reported in La Tribuna as "IADB: religiosity reduces the depression of Hondurans", citing the EFE original.
Sound good? well, not so fast: take a closer look at how the study was conducted, and the conclusion seems a little, well, dubious.
The 25 page study, which is part of the IADB's sponsored research on the "Quality of Life", is the work of Uruguayan economists Natalia Melgar and Máximo Rossi. It began with the observation that past studies have indicated some correlation between personal life characteristics and risk factors for depression and sought to extend previous findings by exploring the relationship between specific environmental factors and depression.
To summarize, the study found the depression is
The study's authors found that Honduras had one of the economically most uneven distributions of wealth, concluding that "the three least equitable countries are Bolivia, Brazil and Honduras". Yet Honduras had a lower level of depression that would be expected, which they argued "may be explained by the very high percentage of people with religious affiliation".
The wording here is significant: "high percentage of people with religious affiliation". So what did the study actually find?
The study relies on data from a CID Gallup poll in 2007 to assess depression. The question Gallup asked to assess depression was "Did you experience the following feelings during a lot of the day yesterday? How about depression?" The possible answers were "Yes", "No", "Don't know", and "Refuse". Approximately 80,000 people in 93 different countries answered either "Yes" or "No" to the question. Overall, 14.63% of the international sample answered "Yes" to the question, with 85.37% answering "No".
The most depressed country in the sample? Ethiopia, where more than 51% of the respondents reported being depressed.
Religiosity was one of the individual (personal) factors the study's authors tested against depression. Being religious was measured by response to a question asked in the 2007 CID Gallup poll about having attended a place of worship within the last seven days. If a person answered "Yes" to that question, they were considered "religious". They found that attending religious services had no significant effect on depression.
So, in fact, the authors conclude that religiosity-- a personal characteristic-- is not related to depression.
The study's authors, though, went further. They were interested in how what they call macro level factors-- characteristics not of individual people, but of countries-- affected depression.
So they used data on religion: the percentage of the population that was Catholic, Muslim, or Protestant. Each of these had a significant negative correlation with depression: the higher the percentage of the population affiliated with one of these religions, whether or not they attended church services, the less likely the country's populations was to be depressed.
Nine of 14 countries with the highest income inequality that unexpectedly had the lowest probability of depression also had a high proportion of the population that belonged to one of the major religions.
The list includes Honduras, Panama, Niger, Senegal, Jamaica, Uganda, Brazil and Mozambique.
But there is a problem here. For unexplained reasons, the study's authors used a 1980 source for the proportion of the population belonging to the major religions. So somehow, the proportion of the population belonging to a major religion in 1980 is correlated with the degree of depression in 2007.
Never mind that the US State Department 2008 report on Religious Freedom in Honduras states that
According to the State Department, the 2007 CID Gallup poll says that 47% of the Honduran population self-report as Catholic, with a further 36% self-reporting as Evangelical Protestant.
Melgar and Rossi do not state where their 1980 data come from, or why they used those data in place of the more recent results from the same poll that provided their data on depression.
From a purely social-science perspective, the IADB study is at best reporting a correlation, which does not say one factor causes the other. Both may be effects of some third factor.
Using data from two completely different surveys separated by 27 years means that the populations sampled were not the same. To see these as cause and effect would require a mechanism through which the religious affiliation of Honduras in 1980 led to a situation in 2007 that caused less depression among a later population. The mechanism involved is, shall we say, hard to imagine.
The fact that actual practice of a religion in 2007 did not correlate with levels of depression in 2007 is a hint that perhaps the 1980/2007 relationship is not real.
According to the 2007 Gallup poll, 11.96% of Hondurans reported being depressed. No comment on what the numbers would be in 2010.
According to them, religion is actually an antidepressant.
And Honduras, the authors say, is one of the least depressed countries in their international sample.
This was reported in La Tribuna as "IADB: religiosity reduces the depression of Hondurans", citing the EFE original.
Sound good? well, not so fast: take a closer look at how the study was conducted, and the conclusion seems a little, well, dubious.
The 25 page study, which is part of the IADB's sponsored research on the "Quality of Life", is the work of Uruguayan economists Natalia Melgar and Máximo Rossi. It began with the observation that past studies have indicated some correlation between personal life characteristics and risk factors for depression and sought to extend previous findings by exploring the relationship between specific environmental factors and depression.
To summarize, the study found the depression is
positively related to being a woman, adulthood, divorce, widowhood, unemployment, and low income.Not surprisingly the study found depression correlated with living situations where there are high levels of inequality, especially in urban areas. But the study didn't actually find as strong a relationship as the authors expected between poverty and depression. And that's where the findings about Honduras that La Tribuna chose to emphasize come in.
The study's authors found that Honduras had one of the economically most uneven distributions of wealth, concluding that "the three least equitable countries are Bolivia, Brazil and Honduras". Yet Honduras had a lower level of depression that would be expected, which they argued "may be explained by the very high percentage of people with religious affiliation".
The wording here is significant: "high percentage of people with religious affiliation". So what did the study actually find?
The study relies on data from a CID Gallup poll in 2007 to assess depression. The question Gallup asked to assess depression was "Did you experience the following feelings during a lot of the day yesterday? How about depression?" The possible answers were "Yes", "No", "Don't know", and "Refuse". Approximately 80,000 people in 93 different countries answered either "Yes" or "No" to the question. Overall, 14.63% of the international sample answered "Yes" to the question, with 85.37% answering "No".
The most depressed country in the sample? Ethiopia, where more than 51% of the respondents reported being depressed.
Religiosity was one of the individual (personal) factors the study's authors tested against depression. Being religious was measured by response to a question asked in the 2007 CID Gallup poll about having attended a place of worship within the last seven days. If a person answered "Yes" to that question, they were considered "religious". They found that attending religious services had no significant effect on depression.
So, in fact, the authors conclude that religiosity-- a personal characteristic-- is not related to depression.
The study's authors, though, went further. They were interested in how what they call macro level factors-- characteristics not of individual people, but of countries-- affected depression.
So they used data on religion: the percentage of the population that was Catholic, Muslim, or Protestant. Each of these had a significant negative correlation with depression: the higher the percentage of the population affiliated with one of these religions, whether or not they attended church services, the less likely the country's populations was to be depressed.
Nine of 14 countries with the highest income inequality that unexpectedly had the lowest probability of depression also had a high proportion of the population that belonged to one of the major religions.
The list includes Honduras, Panama, Niger, Senegal, Jamaica, Uganda, Brazil and Mozambique.
But there is a problem here. For unexplained reasons, the study's authors used a 1980 source for the proportion of the population belonging to the major religions. So somehow, the proportion of the population belonging to a major religion in 1980 is correlated with the degree of depression in 2007.
Never mind that the US State Department 2008 report on Religious Freedom in Honduras states that
there are no reliable statistics on religious affiliation.The State Department cites the same 2007 CID-Gallup poll used as the source for self-reported levels of depression in the IADB study as the best source for estimating religious affiliation in Honduras.
According to the State Department, the 2007 CID Gallup poll says that 47% of the Honduran population self-report as Catholic, with a further 36% self-reporting as Evangelical Protestant.
Melgar and Rossi do not state where their 1980 data come from, or why they used those data in place of the more recent results from the same poll that provided their data on depression.
From a purely social-science perspective, the IADB study is at best reporting a correlation, which does not say one factor causes the other. Both may be effects of some third factor.
Using data from two completely different surveys separated by 27 years means that the populations sampled were not the same. To see these as cause and effect would require a mechanism through which the religious affiliation of Honduras in 1980 led to a situation in 2007 that caused less depression among a later population. The mechanism involved is, shall we say, hard to imagine.
The fact that actual practice of a religion in 2007 did not correlate with levels of depression in 2007 is a hint that perhaps the 1980/2007 relationship is not real.
According to the 2007 Gallup poll, 11.96% of Hondurans reported being depressed. No comment on what the numbers would be in 2010.
Broke Again
Like many families today, the government of Honduras is having problems making ends meet. This despite the flurry of financial support announcements this month unleashed by the agreement with the International Monetary Fund.
The problem is that what the government collects in taxes and payments from businesses and citizens is falling behind the financial projections. Spending, in turn, has accelerated, not in small part due to the problems produced by the inclement weather, poor or nonexistent construction standards, and previous infrastructure neglect. More cash is going out than is coming in right now.
William Chong Wong, the Minister of Finance to Lobo Sosa complained yesterday in the Council of Ministers meeting, that the payments weren't coming in as projected, and the government cash on hand was down to 200 million lempiras. This is not entirely a surprise. Chong Wong has been predicting the cash flow would reach a crisis without an increase in government income, and has been promoting belt tightening measures in the government. His original prediction that the crisis would occur in August was incorrect, but only slightly off.
Chong Wong warned that he was being creative, using funds from other sources, such as the excess investible capital in government employee retirement funds managed by the private sector. Isn't this the same kind of creative financing that the Public Prosecutor is calling corruption when members of the Zelaya government did it? Still Chong Wong warns that as things stand, the government will not be able to pay the salaries of all the public employees this month.
This is the direct result of the spending practices of the de facto government. Last time Chong Wong issued a warning about cash flow, Lobo Sosa called him a cry baby. It should be interesting to see his reaction this time.
The problem is that what the government collects in taxes and payments from businesses and citizens is falling behind the financial projections. Spending, in turn, has accelerated, not in small part due to the problems produced by the inclement weather, poor or nonexistent construction standards, and previous infrastructure neglect. More cash is going out than is coming in right now.
William Chong Wong, the Minister of Finance to Lobo Sosa complained yesterday in the Council of Ministers meeting, that the payments weren't coming in as projected, and the government cash on hand was down to 200 million lempiras. This is not entirely a surprise. Chong Wong has been predicting the cash flow would reach a crisis without an increase in government income, and has been promoting belt tightening measures in the government. His original prediction that the crisis would occur in August was incorrect, but only slightly off.
Chong Wong warned that he was being creative, using funds from other sources, such as the excess investible capital in government employee retirement funds managed by the private sector. Isn't this the same kind of creative financing that the Public Prosecutor is calling corruption when members of the Zelaya government did it? Still Chong Wong warns that as things stand, the government will not be able to pay the salaries of all the public employees this month.
This is the direct result of the spending practices of the de facto government. Last time Chong Wong issued a warning about cash flow, Lobo Sosa called him a cry baby. It should be interesting to see his reaction this time.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Reworking Symbolic Capital: Francisco Morazán
Why block access to a statue of Francisco Morazán?
That detail in stories about Wednesday's attack on marchers from the Frente de Resistencia in San Pedro Sula may not have resonated with readers who are not from Honduras or Central America.
But it is important, both because of the intent of the marchers to stop there, and the fact that this is where the chief of police chose to draw his line in the sand.
The attack itself started later, when the marchers were reaching the
Parque Central via the alternate route of 2a Calle. But it was reportedly preceded by a "dialogue" between the police chief and the Frente. This concerned whether the marchers would be allowed to reach the statue of Francisco Morazán that stands on 1a Calle, which is more generally known in San Pedro as Bulevar Morazán. The statue is located near the main soccer stadium on 1a Calle.
The most detailed descriptions of the route followed by the FNRP marchers says they began at the Mercado Dandi at around 10th Avenue east-- the southeast quadrant of the four quarters of the city. From there, they marched west, reportedly along 7th Calle south, a total of 24 blocks to 14th Avenue west. At that point, they turned north and proceeded to within one block of 1a Calle.
The reported moment of confrontation with the chief of police came at this point, when the marchers wanted to go to the statue to leave what the news media called "a floral tribute" to Morazán. The police claimed that doing so would interfere with the official march down 1a Calle.
This is not particularly surprising. What is interesting is that the chief of police of San Pedro Sula, who immediately afterward ordered the use of disproportionate force against the marchers as they proceeded down 2nd Calle south, walking east toward the Parque Central, apparently offered to let a dozen or so people from the Frente go to the statue to place their tribute to Morazán.
Why even offer a compromise, when it is clear that he was prepared for an all-out assault on the marchers?
And why was this a goal of the Frente in the first place?
The answer, it seems to me, lies in the symbolic importance of Morazán, revered in Honduras as the leader who tried to forge Central American unity and died in the attempt. When you are trying to refound a nation, you return to the imagery of the founders. In previous posts we have drawn attention to the citation of Lempira, the Lenca resistance leader of the 16th century, in a similar fashion. Like that case, the historical resonances are not vague, but quite specific.
Francisco Morazán won election as president in 1830 against a conservative opponent. As a Liberal, he advocated for federalism: autonomy within unity. His legislative agenda was to promote equality, freedom of religion, and public education. The policies he encouraged challenged the standing of the church as a civic power, and gained him a powerful enemy.
In 1839, during his second term in office, the independent states making up the union withdrew from it. In 1840 Morazán went into exile in South America. In 1841, reportedly motivated by dangers to local autonomy he saw in the British presence on the Moskito Coast of Honduras and Nicaragua, he returned to Central America. He rapidly overthrew the head of state of Costa Rica, and began to plan a campaign to reunify Central America. Opposing forces captured him and on September 15, 1842, he was executed in San José, still insisting that union should be the goal of the region.
His last will and testament is a widely cited expression of patriotism in Central America. In it he says in part:
These resonances may be part of the reason the FNRP in its "Proclamation of the 15th of September" invoked a different anniversary than the 189 years of independence from Spain:
That detail in stories about Wednesday's attack on marchers from the Frente de Resistencia in San Pedro Sula may not have resonated with readers who are not from Honduras or Central America.
But it is important, both because of the intent of the marchers to stop there, and the fact that this is where the chief of police chose to draw his line in the sand.
The attack itself started later, when the marchers were reaching the
Parque Central via the alternate route of 2a Calle. But it was reportedly preceded by a "dialogue" between the police chief and the Frente. This concerned whether the marchers would be allowed to reach the statue of Francisco Morazán that stands on 1a Calle, which is more generally known in San Pedro as Bulevar Morazán. The statue is located near the main soccer stadium on 1a Calle.The most detailed descriptions of the route followed by the FNRP marchers says they began at the Mercado Dandi at around 10th Avenue east-- the southeast quadrant of the four quarters of the city. From there, they marched west, reportedly along 7th Calle south, a total of 24 blocks to 14th Avenue west. At that point, they turned north and proceeded to within one block of 1a Calle.
The reported moment of confrontation with the chief of police came at this point, when the marchers wanted to go to the statue to leave what the news media called "a floral tribute" to Morazán. The police claimed that doing so would interfere with the official march down 1a Calle.
This is not particularly surprising. What is interesting is that the chief of police of San Pedro Sula, who immediately afterward ordered the use of disproportionate force against the marchers as they proceeded down 2nd Calle south, walking east toward the Parque Central, apparently offered to let a dozen or so people from the Frente go to the statue to place their tribute to Morazán.
Why even offer a compromise, when it is clear that he was prepared for an all-out assault on the marchers?
And why was this a goal of the Frente in the first place?
The answer, it seems to me, lies in the symbolic importance of Morazán, revered in Honduras as the leader who tried to forge Central American unity and died in the attempt. When you are trying to refound a nation, you return to the imagery of the founders. In previous posts we have drawn attention to the citation of Lempira, the Lenca resistance leader of the 16th century, in a similar fashion. Like that case, the historical resonances are not vague, but quite specific.
Francisco Morazán won election as president in 1830 against a conservative opponent. As a Liberal, he advocated for federalism: autonomy within unity. His legislative agenda was to promote equality, freedom of religion, and public education. The policies he encouraged challenged the standing of the church as a civic power, and gained him a powerful enemy.
In 1839, during his second term in office, the independent states making up the union withdrew from it. In 1840 Morazán went into exile in South America. In 1841, reportedly motivated by dangers to local autonomy he saw in the British presence on the Moskito Coast of Honduras and Nicaragua, he returned to Central America. He rapidly overthrew the head of state of Costa Rica, and began to plan a campaign to reunify Central America. Opposing forces captured him and on September 15, 1842, he was executed in San José, still insisting that union should be the goal of the region.
His last will and testament is a widely cited expression of patriotism in Central America. In it he says in part:
I declare: that I have not deserved death, because I have committed no more fault that to give liberty to Costa Rica and to procure peace for the Republic.Morazán exemplifies dedication to the cause of reforming government, even in the face of overwhelming odds. The reforms he called for were intended to broaden civil participation in Central American society. While the region has not reunified, the form of government he championed largely has provided the blueprint throughout the region. It surely provides one of the main statements of founding values.
...
I declare: that my love for Central America dies with me. I rouse the youth, that are called to give life to this country, that I leave with regret for its remaining in anarchy, and I desire that they should imitate my example to die with fortitude before they leave it abandoned to the disorder in which unhappily today it is found.
...
I die with regret for having caused some evils for my country, although with the true desire of procuring it good...
These resonances may be part of the reason the FNRP in its "Proclamation of the 15th of September" invoked a different anniversary than the 189 years of independence from Spain:
Today the 15th of September of 2010, it is 168 years since the assassination of our hero, Francisco Morazán, with his example and that of all the women and all the men that gave their lives to achieve justice and equality, we will continue to victory.
Friday, September 17, 2010
A cry of moral outrage over repression in San Pedro Sula
From Nuestra Palabra on September 16, by the Jesuit-run Radio Progreso:
On the evening news on the 15th of September on a radio station of national scope, the news presenter was precise: "In San Pedro Sula the so-called resistance did its thing [hizo de la suyas]". There was nothing missing from the press release: the leaders of the resistance, among them the youthful group of music with a social message, Café Guancasco, provoked the police, promoted disorder and violence. The police had no choice but to act in their defense. There was no mention of the death nor of the wounded, much less of the threats to journalist colleagues.
The media siege continues its course and its implacable format. There doesn't exist even the slightest shred of opening for a journalism of minimum ethics. And this is so because the behavior of the Honduran elites in relation to those who oppose their privileges continues unimpeachable. Their decision is invariable and implacable: to make use of that which they can, without concern for the human costs, with the goal of preserving their privileges. There is no possible road unless it is that of their earnings and using the State for the strict advantage of their interests.
The case of the country continues intact. Here there is no commission of truth that is worthwhile, and if it has worth it is because it says things in such a way that it leaves intact all the case of the country. So yes, the spokespeople of these elites, in full tune with the tightrope walkers and the prudent, shout themselves hoarse speaking of reconciliation, of peace and of unity. And with pleasure they will accept and promote the embraces-- with all the photos for circulation-- of those opponents that guarantee that the case of the country will continue intact.
In the logic of these minorities, the good are the people who promote individual moral change without ever questioning the state of things that sustains and justifies exclusion and structural inequality. The ideal is to have the top businessmen and politicians whose goodness is expressed in donations to support works of charity in parishes or religious ministries of the prudent and the tightrope walkers, without upsetting anything deep that would place at risk the model producing inequalities.
But when the people and groups demand structural changes that break with exclusion, and when they demand a new structuring of the country that breaks with the control of the State and of the society by wealthy and privileged minorities, then to the fire with them, because they incarnate wickedness, attempt against democracy and the laws, they are servile to international slogans and enemies of reconciliation and peace.
In San Pedro Sula there was a repression with evident signs of premeditation and calculation, and an abusive use of force that only confirms the reality: the small wealth and power elite understands that what is happening in Honduras is a war, and from their privileged trench, they don't value compromises: the resistance is their enemy and only its extermination is worthwhile.
All the rest, call it reconciliation, dialogues, State of Law, respect for human rights, Truth Commission, unity, Plan for the Nation, are interesting themes to fill agendas that distract the unwary and entertain the prudent, the tightrope walkers and the international community. For them the case is more than clear: here we are at war, and the media siege is an essential part of the trench from which is launched the mortal attack against everything that promotes minimal consensus that would save the country from the galloping barbarism in which we are now trapped.
Impunity on Impunity
Porfirio Lobo Sosa announced last Friday that he has invited the members of the UN Commission Against Impunity to come to Honduras.
But the Public Prosecutor, Luis Rubí says not so fast. "Nobody from outside can tell us what we have to do," Rubí told reporters on Monday.
So what is this thing that Rubí finds so threatening, so un-Honduran?
The immediate precedent is the Comisión Internacional Contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (CICIG). It was established in 2008 to investigate the existence of clandestine security apparatus in Guatemala and facilitate dismantling it. It assists the Public Prosecutor's office, and may participate as a complementary prosecutor, but always in conformity with the Code of Criminal Procedures in Guatemala, as part of its mandate. It makes recommendations about new public policies and procedures that would help with the eradication of these clandestine security organizations, and that will help strengthen Guatemala's capacity to protect the basic human rights of its citizens.
Lobo Sosa outlined similar tasks for such a commission in Honduras. He said the commission would investigate the clandestine security apparatus that's operating in Honduras, train prosecutors and police, and make recommendations about modifications to laws to help disarticulate such clandestine groups.
Proceso Digital expands on reasons to reject such a commission, in unsourced comments following their quotations of Rubí's reactions. According to them, it is all a Zelayista plot to get rid of Luis Rubí, the Supreme Court, the Human Rights Commissioner, and everyone in Congress who voted, twice, to remove Zelaya. Oh, and if that's not enough, it is also, according to them, Hugo Chavez's strategy which he's pushing through the ALBA countries in the OAS.
Hmm. Porfirio Lobo Sosa is a Zelayista? Who knew?
And if the Supreme Court is a target, why is the Supreme Court said to be in favor of it?
The actual inspiration seems somewhat more local. Alvaro Colom, President of Guatemala, told the press in Guatemala that both Honduras and El Salvador were preparing petitions to ask the UN for a Commission Against Impunity such as Guatemala already has.
Any such commission in Honduras will have a difficult task probing clandestine activities of the military, police, and politically powerful. Part of the challenge is that investigating impunity in the security forces is likely to lead directly to drug traffickers.
The Guatemalan commission has sparked push-back by elites who find themselves under investigation and prosecution. In June the head of its commission resigned, citing attacks by the powerful and lack of support for his work. This only months after giving press comments on the successes of the commission, which certainly seemed impressive: about 2,000 policemen (15 %) were removed from the force, an attorney-general and ten other prosecutors were fired, and three justices of the Guatemalan Supreme Court lost their office. The commission saw 130 individuals jailed following successful prosecution.
It is clear that uprooting impunity in the security forces cannot be done entirely from within the system in Honduras; it will need the backing of the international community to succeed.
But that's not going to happen if Rubí and the others who believe they gained impunity for the coup and its aftermath through congressional amnesty have anything to say about it.
But the Public Prosecutor, Luis Rubí says not so fast. "Nobody from outside can tell us what we have to do," Rubí told reporters on Monday.
"When you bring a commission, you are having doubts and really, this country is not for having doubts; we who believe in its institutions; we who believe in its functionaries, we who believe in the country; we have to believe in ourselves, the Hondurans."
So what is this thing that Rubí finds so threatening, so un-Honduran?
The immediate precedent is the Comisión Internacional Contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (CICIG). It was established in 2008 to investigate the existence of clandestine security apparatus in Guatemala and facilitate dismantling it. It assists the Public Prosecutor's office, and may participate as a complementary prosecutor, but always in conformity with the Code of Criminal Procedures in Guatemala, as part of its mandate. It makes recommendations about new public policies and procedures that would help with the eradication of these clandestine security organizations, and that will help strengthen Guatemala's capacity to protect the basic human rights of its citizens.
Lobo Sosa outlined similar tasks for such a commission in Honduras. He said the commission would investigate the clandestine security apparatus that's operating in Honduras, train prosecutors and police, and make recommendations about modifications to laws to help disarticulate such clandestine groups.
Proceso Digital expands on reasons to reject such a commission, in unsourced comments following their quotations of Rubí's reactions. According to them, it is all a Zelayista plot to get rid of Luis Rubí, the Supreme Court, the Human Rights Commissioner, and everyone in Congress who voted, twice, to remove Zelaya. Oh, and if that's not enough, it is also, according to them, Hugo Chavez's strategy which he's pushing through the ALBA countries in the OAS.
Hmm. Porfirio Lobo Sosa is a Zelayista? Who knew?
And if the Supreme Court is a target, why is the Supreme Court said to be in favor of it?
The actual inspiration seems somewhat more local. Alvaro Colom, President of Guatemala, told the press in Guatemala that both Honduras and El Salvador were preparing petitions to ask the UN for a Commission Against Impunity such as Guatemala already has.
Any such commission in Honduras will have a difficult task probing clandestine activities of the military, police, and politically powerful. Part of the challenge is that investigating impunity in the security forces is likely to lead directly to drug traffickers.
The Guatemalan commission has sparked push-back by elites who find themselves under investigation and prosecution. In June the head of its commission resigned, citing attacks by the powerful and lack of support for his work. This only months after giving press comments on the successes of the commission, which certainly seemed impressive: about 2,000 policemen (15 %) were removed from the force, an attorney-general and ten other prosecutors were fired, and three justices of the Guatemalan Supreme Court lost their office. The commission saw 130 individuals jailed following successful prosecution.
It is clear that uprooting impunity in the security forces cannot be done entirely from within the system in Honduras; it will need the backing of the international community to succeed.
But that's not going to happen if Rubí and the others who believe they gained impunity for the coup and its aftermath through congressional amnesty have anything to say about it.
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