Honduras, radiography of a forgotten country
Interview with Father Melo
One year after the electoral fraud, the caravan of migrants to the US puts back on the map a country punished by international indifference, inequality, poverty, corruption, violence, impunity and the constant lack of respect for human rights.
Honduras barely makes any headlines in the international news. To his sadness, it comes to light only every time a misfortune strikes the country. Hurricane Mitch, the 2009 coup d’état, the assassination of indigenous leader Berta Cáceres, last year’s fraudulent elections and the migrant caravan that set out for the United States this fall.
Electoral fraud
On November 26, 2017, elections were held for the presidency of the Republic of Honduras. For the first time since the 1982 Constitution had marked it as one of its stone articles (immovable), a president opted for reelection, this being unconstitutional. The text in question, art. 239 states: “Our Constitution prohibits the citizen who is or has already been president to be elected again to govern, but not only that, it also prohibits the promotion of presidential reelection and punishes all those public officials who do it directly or indirectly. And whoever violates this provision shall be immediately removed from office and shall be disqualified for 10 years for the exercise of any public function”.
Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH), thanks to an appeal of unconstitutionality, ran for reelection and far from being disqualified for such cause, is now serving the first year of his second term. In the middle, a manipulated vote recount when JOH was losing the elections just hours before closing. Indications of electoral fraud brought the population to the streets for several days. In the government’s repression of this massive protest, 33 people died in Honduras, hundreds were injured and several people were arrested. Many of them are still in jail as political prisoners.
With this legacy, the president, whom the great majority qualifies as “illegitimate”, governs the country. It does so in collusion with the Honduran elites but with the opposition of the poorest classes, which in this country account for 70% of the population. And the situation in Honduras has only worsened in recent months.
Inequality and the concentration of economic power in a small percentage of the population (17 families) is the origin of all the country’s problems. Based on this reality, widespread corruption and institutional organization around impunity leave the majority of Hondurans defenseless.
Poverty, inequality, corruption and violence
Of the 9 million Hondurans, 66% (6 million) live in poverty and of these, 45% live in extreme poverty. This means that they live on less than a dollar and a half a day. A country where half of the population is unemployed and therefore lives, or survives, on illegal businesses. And worst of all, a country where violence finds shelter and permeates every pore of Honduran society. Youth gangs or maras control these colonies using extortion and violence against anyone who does not obey their rules or pay the tax they demand. They deal in drugs, drugs that they get from the mafias that also dominate the country and are already turning it into a narco-state. The nouveau riche, people linked to drug trafficking, often win the sympathy of the population and authorities with their gifts and generous donations.
In the midst of such a situation, private security has become an almost mandatory necessity for anyone with a business, large or small. Weapons then appear everywhere, delivery trucks, supermarket doors, in pharmacies, in bakeries, ……. And that huge staff of security guards is in the hands of companies whose owners are the military and ex-military of the Honduran army.
Along with them, local and national police, military police and the army. These two state bodies are among the best endowed in Latin America. In conclusion, Honduras devotes 52% of its national budget to security. The education budget is less than 22%.
The main source of income for a large majority of Hondurans is work in the maquilas, large textile companies that employ 130,000 people in Honduras. Most of them are women, young women and single mothers working under very harsh conditions and at pyrrhic wages.
In the United Nations ranking (Human Development Index) , which measures life expectancy, health, access to education and dignity in living standards, Honduras ranks 130th in the world, the lowest in Latin America. It is only surpassed by Haiti, which ranks 163rd.
Fear of dying
“They have robbed us so much that they have even stolen our fear,” is a phrase that resonates in a country that, without being at war, endures a homicide rate higher than in places in conflict (90 per 100,000 people). And San Pedro Sula, 244 km from Tegucigalpa, was rated the most dangerous city on the planet .
In addition to street violence and drug-related deaths, anyone who criticizes the government or the multinationals that are occupying a large part of the country are threatened with death and, in many cases, killed. In the last five years, 25 journalists have died as a result and almost 170 indigenous leaders and human rights defenders.
The Honduran government has opted for a mining-extractive policy, privatizing and concessioning thousands of hectares, including some that do not belong to them, thus favoring foreign investment in the name of economic growth that is carried out totally without regard for social development and community rights. Many of the Honduran indigenous communities, which have been native to these lands for many years, are being expelled.
An example of this is the Garifuna community: black Hondurans descended from African slaves. They live on the Caribbean coast and are being expelled from their lands by the construction of thermal power plants or by the abusive purchase of spaces on the coast to create large tourist resorts. Many communities have organized themselves into movements of territorial defenders and have fought, including in international arenas, to claim their rights. One of the most emblematic cases was that of Berta Cáceres, whose assassination, just over two years ago, has brought the Honduran people back to life.
Another problem facing the country is impunity: it is almost always difficult to prove that a murder was premeditated and with very specific intellectual authors. In the end there is always a foolproof excuse for the police or local authorities: it was a crime of passion. The security forces here always have some kind of link to organized crime.
Fleeing the country
The growing situation of poverty, inequality, violence and impunity into which Honduras has entered in recent years places its most vulnerable population before a double option: to stay in the country and run the risk of being killed, to go hungry… to hold on as long as possible waiting for better times. Or go north (Mexico or the U.S.) in search of opportunity and a better life for their family. Many have already done so and, in fact, remittances (earnings that emigrants send home to their families) are the main source of income in Honduras.
People who decide to flee north in search of a better life do so in small groups or alone. Every month, between 300 and 400 people under the age of 30 make this choice in Honduras, according to data managed by ERIC. On October 13, a massive joint departure from San Pedro Sula to the United States was called and 4,000 Hondurans gathered. This number grew, with other parallel marches of other Central American citizens, until it reached 7,000.
Spaces for freedom and hope
From Entreculturas we accompany the works of the Society of Jesus that work in Honduras, such as ERIC-Radio Progreso, the Instituto Técnico Loyola and our educational counterpart Fe y Alegría Honduras.
Radio has become a space for freedom, denunciation and constructive analysis of the country’s reality, demonstrating that journalism can and should be risky, courageous, committed and give voice to the voiceless. From Fe y Alegría Honduras and Instituto Técnico Loyola, promoting an education that changes lives and gives opportunities for the future .
And in the midst of it all are the Honduran people themselves, who despite living in a rich country owned by a few, are an example of hospitality, closeness and joy. Even though they live with just enough, with fear and uncertainty, they have proven to be a fighting, capable people who do not lose hope.
It is worthwhile not to forget them.
* Text written by José Luis Barreiro Areses, journalist and member of Entreculturas in Galicia, who was in Honduras last summer on a South Experience.
