Oldest Clock in the Americas to Ring In New Year

On December 31 at midnight in Central America, the international Spanish-language TV stations Telemundo and Univision (along with CNN and NBC) will transmit the sound of the clock in the Cathedral in Comayagua striking midnight. Telemundo and Univision will broadcast from the Plaza in front of the Cathedral as part of a national celebration funded by the government of Honduras and the Alcaldia of Comayagua.

Why Comayagua? The clock mechanism in the Cathedral is said to be the oldest clock in the Americas. Photos of the mechanism show it uses a system of iron weights to power the escapement.

While the local history says the clock was built around 1100 A.D. (though some sources say 1374 A.D.), this kind of clock came into use in the 13th and 14th centuries in Europe. The clock is said to have been originally installed in the Alhambra, Islamic capital in Granada, Spain.

The official website of the city of Comayagua says the clock was a gift of the Duke of Consentania. Other sources say King Phillip II of Spain gave the clock as a gift. All agree the gift was to Jerónimo de Corella, the newly named Bishop of Comayagua. Corella was originally appointed Bishop of Trujillo, but in 1561 he arranged to have the bishopric transferred to Comayagua.

In 1586 the clock was installed in the church with today is called La Merced, but then was the Cathedral of Comayagua. In 1711 the clock was moved to the newly build Cathedral of Comayagua, where it remains today.

In 2007 the Instituto Hondureño de Antropología e Historia restored the clock as part of the renovations of the Cathedral of Comayagua. Part of the renovation involved constructing a new clock face, as the old one had deteriorated, though even that one is not the original clock face.

The clock, which must be wound every day, strikes quarter hours as well as the hour. The Cathedral bells the clock is connected to are 200 years old (La Emigdio) and 300 years old (La Concepcion), with the older bell being used to sound the hours.

So listen for this gem if you're watching television New Years eve.

"Every Stone in its Place": Marvin Barahona

Why does cultural policy and historical knowledge matter in a place like Honduras?

Honduran historian Marvin Barahona, author of a number of books about Honduran identity and 20th century history, provides some answers in a long presentation of Dario Euraque's recently published book El golpe de Estado del 28 de junio de 2009, el Patrimonio Cultural y la Identidad Nacional ("The coup d'Etat of the 28th of June of 2009, Cultural Patrimony, and National Identity").

Barahona's essay is too long to translate in its entirety here. But it is worth citing how Euraque's important work is being received in Honduran intellectual circles, and why it is, more than a commentary on the coup, a critical work in Honduran historiography.

Barahona starts by saying he is resisting the temptation to either begin with the Honduran Congress discussing the Ruins of Copan at the beginning of the 20th century, or with words drawn from a magazine commenting on "the visit to the Copan Archaeological Park in January 2010 by the president of the de facto government, Roberto Micheletti Bain, invited by the Asociación Copán to show him the bounties of the site."

He then goes on:

The underworld of the tunnels designed by generations of archaeologists seem to have been waiting, in the last three decades, for a retinue like this, that emerged from the underworld of politics, as knowledgeable experts of the most ancient caverns of politics and as architects of the latest coup d'Etat that shocked the national conscience by its historical anachronism, and left a trail of instability and chaos in the governability of the country.

What links these two subjects-- archaeology and the de facto regime? Read on:

For that, if it were possible, I would want to extend an historic bridge between the most distant past and the most recent past, to link deeds that at first glance don't seem related, such as the use of official culture to make the collective consciousness forget its past and the abuse of the State to favor the interests of a minority to whom culture and the past has been of interest only as merchandise for tourists, as a business in which they could enrich themselves.

Barahona, following the lead of Euraque, identifies the commodification of national culture as yet one more regrettable product of the reactionary politics of contemporary Honduras.

The trajectory is complicated, but it includes the elevation of one part of the precolumbian Honduran past-- that of the Maya of western Honduras-- to stand for the entire nation, a process Euraque called "mayanization". In this process, Euraque's book shows that all political parties in Honduras and academics, both national and foreign, have played a part. The result is a failure to connect most contemporary Hondurans with a deep past of their own:

And when we recognize this incredible disproportion between the many books written about the Ruins of Copan and the few studies about the peoples and cultures that are still alive, such as the Tolupan or the Pech, the Tawahkas and the Miskitos, the Lenca and the Garifuna, then it is required to think that the cultural policies of the State are as unjust as the form in which national income is distributed, dedicated in the last two centuries to benefit a few wealthy families, to the detriment of thousands of meztizo, Indian and black families that don't fit in the official culture and still less in the economy and the national budget.

As Barahona notes, Euraque's book argues that the antidote to this poison lies in

a new cultural policy of the State, concretized in projects to rescue the cultural diversity of the peoples that give it flesh, to rescue national history in local archives, to give to archaeology its rightful place, to reconstruct the characteristic features of popular culture and provide communities with people qualified to recover local historical memory and that of the population marginalized by official culture.

Barahona argues that

the goal of giving to Honduras a democratic, inclusive, participatory cultural policy capable of responding to the challenges of the world today, continues to be a valid effort and an inescapable responsibility of the State and society...

Therefore it won't suffice, in the present day, to insist on mayanizing Honduras to sell to foreign tourists the bounties of our past, nor less will it do to continue privileging the value of the stones of the distant past...

And even putting each stone in its place, there remains no doubt that Honduras needs this new cultural policy to avoid letting the study of its archaeology continue in the hands of the same foreign institutions as at the beginning of the 20th century..

The alignment of archaeology, especially foreign archaeology, with conservative politics, in other words, may not be new but it is not to be supported in the future.

Knowledge of history, Barahona concludes, is indispensable, and democratization of history continues to be critical for Honduras:

every effort to reconstruct the national identity, including all its protagonists without exclusions of any kind, implies a large scale effort to re-elaborate national thought, to put it into action and place it at the level of the requirements of our time.

But the final words should go to Darío Euraque, whose summary account of his motivation in writing a memoir of his experiences during the coup d'Etat has also been published now:

Today there exists a new government in Honduras: nonetheless, the authorities imposed on the management of the Institute of Anthropology and History by means of the coup d'Etat, lacking in experience or intellectual vision of our culture, continue in their offices. I suspect that they continue violating the cultural policy that I promoted since 2006 in coordination with the Secretariat of Culture. Not only the Cultural Patrimony of Honduras suffered, but also our National Identity, the fragile institutionality of the State, and ironically even the support given to cultural tourism promoted by the Institute of Tourism and Chamber of Tourism of Honduras decreases.

“Alta es la noche y Morazán vigila.”

Full Circle

High government officials are tried by a procedure distinct from common citizens. We talked about this in the context of the legal case brought by the Public Prosecutor, Luis Rubi, against then president Manuel Zelaya. At the time, we showed that this was the proper, legal proceeding for prosecution of a case against a high government official, such as the President.

Well, the Asociación de Jueces y Magistrados de Honduras, a group of judges that supported the coup, wants the existing fraud case against Zelaya back in the Supreme Court. Their argument is that Zelaya is still a high government official because he is the representative to PARLACEN, and therefore the case must be heard in the Supreme Court.

Good thing the courts are on vacation. Judge Claudio Aguilar has a motion in front of him to nullify the cases against Zelaya brought by the alleged defenders he appointed for Zelaya, and a suggestion that he has no jurisdiction over the case brought by a group of his fellow judges and magistrates. Normally he would have to decide such a motion within three days, but because of the holidays, he has three days from when the courts resume a normal schedule, that is, until January 8, to render a decision.

Not that he can't rule sooner. At the very last minute he was put on the holiday rotation which means he can hear and resolve issues during the break. Speculation is that this was done to prevent another judge from being assigned to the case.

If Aguilar decides he does not have jurisdiction over the case because Zelaya is a member of PARLACEN, the prosecution of Zelaya will have come full circle, back to the Supreme Court; the same Supreme Court that the International Commission of Jurists report noted was "permeated with extreme partisan polarization."

Unreported News made by the International Commission of Jurists

What is news?

Seems like a simple question. News is something that happens that is important enough to be picked up by the media and commented on and discussed.

As anyone following the Honduran coup d'etat and its aftermath knows, however, what is news depends on the judgment of the media, and that judgment is very selective. Horse-race show elections are news, but the protests against them are not. The installation of a meaningless "Truth Commission" which has no credibility with conservative or progressive ends of the political spectrum is news, but the formation of a commission with independence and credibility is not. And tragically, too little of the violence perpetrated against union organizers, peasant cooperatives, women, sexual minorities, and even journalists is unworthy of serious news coverage, at least in mainstream English media.

But despite knowing all this, we find it extraordinary that the US media completely ignore even high profile international organizations that continue to call attention to the serious failures of Honduras to redress any of the circumstances that the coup d'etat of June 2009 set in motion. Human Rights Watch's statement on from December 20, for example, has barely has been noticed.

Now, perhaps there hasn't been enough time to get news coverage of the HRW report out. Yet the same is true of the stinging report by the International Commission of Jurists, which has now been available for weeks.

What's the news here? Well, this is a rebuke not only to Honduras, but to the government claiming most loudly that Honduras has put the coup behind it, which is the US. It repudiates the main claims in the US argument for "progress" in returning to civil order, which are the election of Porfirio Lobo Sosa and the appointment of a "Truth Commission". Instead, it urges Honduras to follow the proposals of Latin American nations, including UNASUR, about the necessary steps to take to regain political credibility following a coup.

Here are a few points from the CJI statement that reporters might have followed up as news:

• The CIJ endorsed giving the alternative truth commission the same level of resources, international support, and access to government sources of data as the official "Truth Commission", arguing that the latter has no credibility with the victims of the coup. Why is this news? because the US claims the "Truth Commission" is meaningful and an effective step to restoring democracy.
  

• The CIJ called for the installation of an International Commission against Impunity and an office of the High Commission of the UN for Human Rights. Noting (without naming him) that Ramón Custodio supported the coup, it argued that the Honduran Human Rights commission had lost credibility. News, again, because Custodio remains in office under the Lobo Sosa government.
  

• The CIJ called explicitly for the restitution of the judges dismissed for their opposition to the coup d'etat. The CIJ provided grounds in international law in support of the right, and actually duty, of judges to oppose disruptions of constitutional order. These dismissals happened during the term of office of Porfirio Lobo Sosa and can hardly be ignored as evidence that the present government of Honduras is still carrying on the violence against democratic order of the coup d'etat.
  

• The CIJ also called for effective investigations of the many extrajudicial killings that have occurred since the coup d'etat. It specifically called for police and military to be tried in civil courts, not special military tribunals. The US refuses to even respond meaningfully to press questioning about the continued killings of activists.
  

• Finally, going beyond the coup itself, the CIJ also expressed concerns about a newly proposed "Law on Financing of Terrorism". This kind of legislation has all sorts of potential for abuse. We will not be holding our breath for coverage of this issue, anymore than we will for coverage of any of the other points made by the CIJ.
  

[We have posted our translation of the statement, which can be found here in Spanish, as a document. If an English version exists, we have not been able to find it, and we thought this was significant enough to make it available more broadly.]

Justice Delayed for Honduras

In light of statements that the Procuraduria General of Honduras is happily poised to appoint a "defender" for José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, so his trial can proceed without waiting for him to actually participate, it is especially timely that today also brought news of a visit to Honduras by a non-partisan international body monitoring the Honduran judiciary.

The news is not good.

La Tribuna reports that the Comisión Internacional de Juristas (CIJ)-- International Commission of Jurists, in English-- visited Honduras between December 6 and 10 of this year. The CIJ concluded that its opinion registered in 2003, that

the Judicial system of Honduras “is permeated with extreme partisan polarization",

still is valid; and that in 2010,

"despite the efforts realized by NGOs and the international community, the advances are few and the majority of recommendations have not been followed."

As we noted during the heat of last summer, changes undertaken in the Honduran legal system in the last decade were intended to shift the Honduran legal system from an inquisitorial to an adversarial system, in which the rights of the accused include, among other things, the presumption of innocence.

These reforms require Honduran judges to change their role from zealously pursuing evidence themselves, to assessing arguments by prosecutors and defenders. Inquisitorial systems do not generally include a presumption of innocence, and in our view, it is this change that has not fundamentally been absorbed in Honduran legal proceedings, which still appear to operate on the until-recently familiar inquisitorial model.

For those of you who don't quite get the distinction-- which, based on reading Mary Anastasia O'Grady's recent wad of words about Honduras, includes columnists for some of our major newspapers-- under an adversarial system there is a presumption of innocence, meaning the accusers or prosecutors have to demonstrate their case.

"Where there's smoke, there's fire" may be a good traditional folk saying-- but it ain't the law of the land, not in the US, and not (anymore) in Honduras.

(O'Grady's problem is confusing the presumption of innocence, which is uniform in US legal practice, with the existence of different standards of proof in criminal and civil cases. Criminal cases use a standard of proof "beyond a reasonable doubt". Civil cases-- which are differentiated from criminal cases because the state is not one of the parties, and the outcome is awarding damages, not jail sentences-- usually use a standard of "preponderance of evidence". As a result, while civil cases also incorporate the common law "presumption of innocence", meaning the accusers have to make a case, once they have done so convincingly, it may be up to the accused to refute the arguments made. The reason why OJ Simpson could be found liable in a civil action is that there was a different, easier to reach, standard of proof-- not that he started out presumed guilty. At least not legally. While expecting anything sane from O'Grady is probably too much to ask, her belief that the trumped-up charges against Manuel Zelaya were not subject to the criminal legal code of Honduras simply shows how little she knows of Honduran jurisprudence. But it beggars belief that she doesn't understand the US legal system.)

Which reminds me, back to the primary topic here: in 2003, the CIJ singled out as an example of extreme partisanship the procedures for the appointment of Honduran Supreme Court justices:

“A clear example of this partisanship can be observed in the election of magistrates for the Supreme Court. While the procedures for selection anticipated the participation of diverse sectors of civil society and the political task, the election of those magistrates had as a result a Court divided along lines of political affiliation, with a majority clearly identified with officialdom and a minority in opposition."

A press release summarizing the current findings of the CIJ can be downloaded (Spanish only) from their website. The CIJ noted that the coup exacerbated previously identified weakness of the judicial system, pointing to an increase in impunity in violations of civil rights and a lessening of judicial independence.

The actual report is worth reading in full. In item 6 it goes to lengths to argue that "the restoral of constitutional order doesn't come about simply by convening and carrying out general elections":

The return to democratic legality demands identifying the responsibility of the authors [of the disturbance of constitutional order], without prejudice to other means necessary for reconcilation as an element of co-existence; in addition, according to international legal doctrine it is impossible to legitimate a coup d'etat by means of de facto measures or the development of apparently constitutional arguments about the de facto doctrine that contradict the same principles of democracy and the International Law of Human Rights.

As we noted last summer, the CIJ has been quite critical of judicial progress in Honduras since it began monitoring the attempts to modernize and professionalize the legal system.

Since nothing has improved, it is hardly surprising that the CIJ concludes that things are bad. But it is heartening to see clear endorsement of the need to address impunity and the targeted killings of women, lawyers, and journalists advanced by an international body that is not afraid to say that a coup cannot be put behind simply by recognizing an election.

It is a message the US would do well to heed.

Indefensible Defenders

( on an extended London adventure due to Mother Nature )

On December 16, the Attorney General of Honduras (Procuraduria General) asked a Tegucigalpa court to appoint a public defender for Manuel Zelaya Rosales

"so that they could facilitate proceedings against him,"

said Ethel Deras, the Procuraduria General.

Deras said that rather than smoothing the path for Zelaya, as Canahuati's papers (El Heraldo and La Prensa) have accused, she wants to "move the case forward":

"ex-president Manuel Zelaya Rosales has stated publicly that he will not appear (before a justice) because he considers there aren't sufficient guarantees in the country for his appearance, and he has declined to appoint a defender. This office has request, based on this knowledge, that [the court] name a defense lawyer so the cases can continue.....In conformity with the Legal Proceedings Code and the Honduran Constitution, everyone processed in the courts has the right to a defender."

Just not, apparently, the right to choose their defender.

But wait, it gets better:

"I believe it is in the national interest to finalize once and for all these proceedings and bring them to an end, and a criminal trial comes to an end only when we read the real truth of the facts; it is logical that we continue with the criminal process."

Sigh.

Arturo Corrales, a Micheletti supporter and Lobo Sosa's Minister of Planning, says that Lobo Sosa asked the Attorney General to act.

"What the President (Lobo Sosa) asked of the judicial branch was they look for a legal way to leave the charges behind on these two remaining cases (of supposed corruption) to establish a propitious environment so that the ex president can come to the country."

So it's a request from on high to make this a national priority to settle this case.

This "procedure" goes completely against the Código Procesal Penal of Honduras, the very law Deras cites as supporting her actions.

Here's the problem she's trying to get around. Manuel Zelaya Rosales refuses to participate in the charges against him, and as part of not recognizing the court, has not named a defense lawyer. This pretty much puts the case on hold under Honduran law, until Zelaya either returns and voluntarily presents himself, or is arrested and brought before the court, or names a defense lawyer to represent him.

Under the Code (Chapter 5, Articles 111-122), a defender can be appointed by the court only when the defendant cannot afford to hire one, or is mentally incompetent to designate one. The code assumes the defendant has already been arrested or named as the target of an investigation by the Public Prosecutor. A defendant can only have two defense lawyers, plus one substitute.

Article 14 of the Code says

the right to defense is inviolable....the accused and their defender have the right to be present in all procedural acts that incorporate elements of proof.

Article 15 reads, in full

Everyone should have the technical assistance and advocacy of a legal practitioner, from the time they are held as allegedly involved in a crime, or when they voluntarily surrender and make a declaration, until the sentence has been fully executed. If the accused does not appoint a defender, the judicial authority shall immediately request the appointment of a public defender, or failing that will immediately appoint them self. This right is absolute. Its violation nullifies the acts that occur without the participation of counsel for the accused.

Key points here, which seem to have escaped the top attorney in Honduras charged with following this code: the defendant has to "held" or "voluntarily surrender" to put in motion the appointment of a defender. And the right to appoint a defender is absolute.

Its violation nullifies the acts that occur without the participation of counsel for the accused.

While the UCD is not my idea of a legal authority, they outlined the same points made above in a letter to Supreme Court Chief Justice Aviles, pointing out that this would nullify any judicial actions taken as a result of appointing defenders.

The Honduran papers are unclear on whether the court actually appointed defenders or not, with published reports that they did, and that they are waiting to decide.

So much for a rule of law.

Oscar Alvarez's Lame Visions

Oscar Alvarez, Honduras's Security Minister, has visions. What else could account for his announcement Monday that the civilians, residents of Dulce Nombre, San Augustin, Dolores and Concepcion who took over the main road between Santa Rosa de Copan and Guatemala and El Salvador were colluding with narcotraffickers.

Alvarez told El Heraldo

"Could it be that they are in collusion with organized crime? Is drug money behind these actions? I say that so that the people will judge them and so that society will turn its back; we will proceed according to the law along with the Prosecutor."

According to Alvarez, its all part of a plot by organized crime to get the Police dispersed into the countryside, leaving the cities unprotected.

Despite Oscar Alvarez's fervent imagination, could it be there's a less sinister, more human explanation?

Yes.

Under President Zelaya Rosales, Honduras was to build an airport in Concepción using international financing. The purpose of the airport is to make it easier for tourists to get to to the Maya ruins of Copan. . In order to receive the international funding, Honduras first had to pave the road from the highway to Concepcion before the money for the airport would be released. Zelaya inaugurated the project in March, 2008, but after making a few half-hearted attempts to start, apparently the firm contracted for the work walked off the job alleging they were not being paid. So nothing has happened. I have vastly oversimplified a politically charged decision here, one that upset powerful people in Copan, but that's not this story.

Fast forward to the present. The citizens of the affected towns want the road paved as promised. They'd like the airport too, but for now the road is much more important to their future. On Friday the mayors of the towns Alvarez named called for a strike to call attention to the lack of progress in paving their road. They organized a group to go up to the highway and take it over, but when they got there, there were about 100 soldiers, police, and special forces, and they decided to go home without taking over the highway.

On Monday they returned at 6 am. The police were already there, and there was some violence, with two children beaten so bad they had to be taken to the hospital in La Entrada. Nonetheless, they blocked the road, and called the Bishop of Santa Rosa de Copan, Monseñor Luis Alfonso Santos, to defuse the situation. He called the Secretary of Transportation, Miguel Pastor and negotiated for Pastor to meet with the Mayors in Tegucigalapa on Wednesday and by late afternoon they quietly quit protesting and opened the roadway to traffic.

The story is told, in part first hand, in more detail on John Donaghy's blog in his "Waiting - but in the streets" post. As John says,

"The people who planned the blockade in Dulce Nombre were not drug traffickers, as far as I know. There are mayors involved in drug-trafficking but I've never heard this charge against any of them. Others involved are land-owners and business-owners. The poor supported the cause because an improved road would make transportation easier and because church leaders support the cause."

I couldn't have said it better. Mayors, land owners, business owners, the Catholic Church and campesinos, all uniting behind a simple attempt to get what they were promised by the government. Oscar Alvarez's lame attempt to criminalize the citizens of Dulce Nombre, Concepcion, Dulce Nombre, San Augustin, and Dolores should be thoroughly condemned by all.