Honduras
Five Facets of Honduras
Envío team
* Economic. The Callejas government continues to dutifully apply the adjustments dictated by the multinational lending agencies, but a capitalist world market that plays by different rules is further undercutting their already meager results.
* Grassroots. President Callejas also continues to refine his policy of undercutting the strength of unions and other popular organizations by creating parallel structures instead of using outright repression.
* Social. An alarming increase in crime and violence sparked largely by economic desperation is spreading fear and generating a heated debate about what to do.
* Military. The armed forces, whose heady period of US financing has come to an end, are assuring that their own nest is feathered for the future by moving into economic investments.
* Political. With national elections still more than a year away, the battle within Honduras' major parties to select candidates is well underway.
Economic adjustments: Sacrificing in vain Contrary to all national logic, Honduran President Rafael Callejas is sticking with the structural adjustment policies he initiated in March 1990. A letter of intent from his government to the director of the International Monetary Fund in June clearly demonstrates that the adjustments have not improved the behavior of the two basic macroeconomic variables: economic growth and inflation. According to official data, the Gross Domestic Product fell from an annual average growth rate of 4% between 1987 and 1989 to 1.5% in 1990-91. Inflation jumped from 5.5% annually in the same pre-adjustment period to 28.7% in 1990-91.
An underlying goal of the neoliberal economic package designed by the multilateral lending banks is to strengthen a country's balance of payments so it can deal with its foreign debt arrears. According to an economist familiar with the contents of the Honduran government's letter to the IMF, however, neither the currency devaluation nor the reduction of the fiscal deficit has accomplished this objective.
Making the adjustments' few achievements even more precarious, exports fell 7% in the 1990-91 period for reasons largely outside the country's control. This being the case, the government's only short-term option for generating the foreign exchange necessary to make back payments on the debt is another devaluation. Specialists say that this was the government's intent when it announced on June 18 that it was freeing up the exchange rate between the lempira and the dollar. Before the announcement, the rate was 5.40 lempiras to the dollar; by the time envío went to press, banks were buying dollars at 5.52 lempiras and selling them at 5.62. This new devaluation process, while slow, is nonetheless whittling away the income of the large majority of consumers in a country that has to import almost everything it processes or consumes.
The recent price increase for petroleum derivatives, announced on June 12, has made living conditions shakier not only for the popular sectors but for the urban middle class as well. The new prices sparked strong criticism from economists, who know that the government partially finances its fiscal deficit with the 328 million lempiras it brings in annually from import taxes on such products. Leaders of the Honduran Council of Private Enterprise (COHEP) and some of the country's social organizations, increasingly worried about the adjustments' continual threat to social peace, argue that the government should share the sacrifice being imposed on the nation. They propose that it absorb the entire increase in international oil prices that prompted the local price hike. The government has only exempted diesel, which is used for most factory production and for bus and truck transport.
At the beginning of June, the College of Economists of Honduras published a stinging critique of the economic package. In the judgment of these economists, the adjustments have stagnated production, reduced public investment and triggered inflation, resulting in the concentration of income and the denationalization of capital. They have also led to reduced social spending by the state and the shrinking of the real value of workers' wages, while swelling unemployment and accelerating the impoverishment of the large majority of Hondurans.
In their document, the economists reproach the government's priority of canceling foreign debt arrears at the expense of domestic needs. They conclude by urging President Callejas and his Cabinet to revise "the priorities and action strategies of economic and social policy, which should be oriented toward building an historic project of national development, the main objectives of which would be the satisfaction of the population's basic needs, the defense of national sovereignty and sustainable development."
Asked about the document, President Callejas responded that it seemed very "subjective." He recommended that the economists read an article in the British magazine The Economist which contemplates the government's achievements in reducing the fiscal deficit, improving the tax system and increasing the country's international reserves. A brief propagandistic review of this article was published in the local press in the second half of June under the title: "Contrary to what Honduran 'experts' say, Callejas has moved the Honduran economy and Honduras itself, claims English magazine."
International capitalism dances to a different tune The caprices of international capitalism threaten to undercut even these modest achievements of Callejas' adjustment policy. The plunge of international coffee prices, for example, is drastically reducing the incomes of producers, exporters and the state alike. In the first four months of this year, Honduras exported over 46,000 lbs. of coffee, for which it received $63.5 million in foreign exchange; in the same period of 1991, it earned $5.2 million more than that for exporting 6,000 lbs. less. Additional problems will befall a country once known as a "banana republic" if the European Community's quotas for Central American banana imports actually go into effect in January 1993.
This situation raises two unsettling questions. What is the Callejas government doing to ameliorate the impact of the drop in coffee prices on the country's producers and exporters? And what is it doing to persuade the European Community not to impose import quotas on Central American bananas?
While some 50 large exporting firms control the export of Honduran coffee, its production is in the hands of more than 50,000 small and medium producers. These growers have been hard hit by the plummeting coffee prices; the majority of them are unable to repay their bank loans. Their situation has been made even worse by the devaluation, the rise in interest rates, the tax policy on coffee and the increased costs of fuel, fertilizers, tools and machinery. Coffee growers say that a minimum investment of 250 lempiras is required to produce one hundredweight of coffee beans, while its top price in the domestic market is only 200 lempiras.
To ease the growers' crisis, the government issued a decree pardoning their 1990-91 arrears with the National Agricultural Development Bank, a state bank whose credit portfolio specializes in promoting the country's agricultural activity. This decree does not cover the arrears for the 1991-92 harvest, however, which specialists say is greater since that was when international coffee prices fell to their lowest level in 30 years.
The government also gave coffee growers a 20-lempira purchase subsidy per sack of fertilizer, but this will not go into effect until October, when they begin their work for the next harvest, for which it is expected that international prices will be even lower. And finally, it made available a fund of 20 million lempiras to refinance their debts and sent a bill to the legislature, which was passed and will also go into effect in October, eliminating the coffee export tax when the international price is less than $70 per 46-kilo sack. In recent months, the price of coffee has hovered between $60 and $65 per sack.
The coffee growers' association considers these measures insufficient. It is demanding a 100-lempira discount line through the Central Bank of Honduras for its members' use and wants the credits provided through this fund to have a 5-year duration with a 3-year grace period. Coffee growers used the occasion to demand that the fertilizer subsidy be doubled to 40 lempiras. They are also pushing the government to create a stabilization fund to cushion the impact of the drop in coffee prices. This fund would be created with the income the state brings in through coffee exports. Banker and Liberal politician Jorge Bueso Arias made a dramatic appeal to save Honduran coffee production by subsidizing it, even if this upsets the IMF. "Every country in the world," insisted Bueso Arias, "gives subsidies or aid, albeit temporary, as long as the crisis lasts."
President Callejas will surely have to listen to their appeals. Since coffee production is mainly in the hands of nationals, its export generates the most foreign exchange for the country.
With regard to the quotas on Central American banana imports, President Callejas traveled to Europe with his counterparts in Costa Rica and Panama to urge the European Community to reconsider. They had no more success than a delegation of Honduran banana union leaders who made a similar trip. It is not known who financed the unionists' travel expenses, but the setting of quotas in Europe has created common cause between the government and the banana unions since it will mean the loss of $100 million in foreign exchange as well as the layoff of some 10,000 banana workers and the loss of about 50,000 indirect jobs.
As President Callejas observed, the quota system will halt the current expansion of US banana companies in the country. But this expansion has already wiped out some of the most representative peasant banana cooperatives of the agrarian reform sector. Some have been forced to sell out because they were in debt to the banks, others wanted to buy individual plots instead of continuing to participate in cooperatives and still others were dazzled by the prospect of having thousands of lempiras in their pockets.
Popular organizations: Buckle under or get twinned The government is continuing its policy of weakening the organized popular movement to prevent it from opposing the adjustments. One of its preferred mechanisms is to promote parallel governing boards loyal to the government to substitute those elected by the majority.
Toward the end of May, the Union of Telecommunications Workers of Honduras (SITRATELH) held a congress of 36 delegates in the eastern city of Danlí to elect a new board. When it came time for the election, 7 delegates withdrew, alleging disagreement with the election mechanism. They held a parallel congress strengthened by pro-government employees, in which a parallel board was chosen; in the blink of an eye the labor ministry registered it.
The board elected by the legal congress contested the parallel board, but to no avail. Also fruitless were the public denunciations organized by the Central Federation of Free Workers' Unions of Honduras, to which SITRATELH is affiliated.
The aim of imposing this parallel board is to weaken the union's resistance to the privatization of the state telecommunications company and consequent massive layoffs. The board elected at the legal congress and deposed by the illegal action of the labor ministry had defended this policy of resistance.
To prevent workers from mounting a defense against the massive layoffs that have already been carried out in the Secretariat of Roads, Public Works and Transport and are currently underway in the National Agrarian Institute, parallel boards were also created in their respective unions. The layoff of over 2,000 workers in the former is related to the privatization of the majority of services that this state institution once offered.
The government is also promoting parallelism in the peasant movement to handle problems that have arisen around the May 7 land takeovers by peasant groups affiliated with the Coordinating Committee of Campesino Organizations of Honduras (COCOCH) and to pave the way for executing its new Agricultural Modernization Law, which COCOCH opposes. Protected by the initiatives of a National Congress commission, the peasants participating in the land occupations agreed to leave properties not involved in mortgage foreclosure proceedings and continued to occupy only those that were, in the hope that they might be legally awarded the lands. The government has promised to adjudicate nearly 29,000 acres of land not only to the occupiers but also to peasant groups linked to the pro-government National Peasant Council (CNC), which supports the Agricultural Modernization Law and did not participate in the land takeovers. The organizations in COCOCH complain of the marked preference shown by the state institutions for peasants in CNC-affiliated organizations.
The government has most recently tried to weaken COCOCH's support base by pressuring ANACH, one of its strongest affiliates, to switch its membership to the CNC. In a July 13 communiqué, ANACH's national leadership council announced its decision to "withdraw from COCOCH given that this organization is meddling in our internal policies and giving itself the task of irresponsibly denigrating our leaders with the single goal of dividing ANACH." It further announced that it would "incorporate fully into the National Peasant Council (CNC) because it is an organization in accord with our aims and objectives."
To weaken yet another opposition organization, the leaders of pro-government cooperatives have announced that the Honduran Confederation of Cooperatives (CHC) is leaving the group of organizations that make up the Platform of Struggle for the Democratization of Honduras. It is said that eight of the nine cooperative organizations in the CHC voted to pull out of the Platform of Struggle, which, at the time of its creation several years ago, was the most ambitious and hopeful unifying project of Honduras' organized popular movement. The Platform itself is currently grappling with a crisis that could endanger its very existence as an organization.
Violence and crime: The answer of the unorganized The unemployment and massive poverty growing out of the adjustments are creating fertile terrain for the wave of violence and crime currently shaking Honduran society. Armed robberies, rape, homicides and a strange increase in suicide by hanging among young people have become part of the daily life of Hondurans.
Being assaulted in broad daylight on public streets has become one of the probabilities for people who have to leave their homes. Downtown sections of the major cities now empty out by early evening hours as people race for home before dark. Ever more private homes have bars over doors and windows, and in high-income neighborhoods walls have been built higher and the number of watchmen has increased. Private guard agencies have become the new job outlet for Hondurans discharged from the army, who are considered ideal applicants for this kind of employment.
There are no reliable armed robbery statistics, since many are not reported, but both robbery and rape, which is reported even less, are on the increase. Some cases of rape or attempted rape have involved drivers of public transport vehicles, making many women fearful even of traveling alone in cabs. Taxi drivers, in turn, are fearful of picking up suspicious-seeming passengers, particularly at night. Several taxi drivers have been killed only to be stripped of their day's earnings.
Auto theft and the sale of stolen cars have also increased steadily over time. According to the police, at least one car is stolen per day in Tegucigalpa or San Pedro Sula. But what most grips Hondurans with fear is the increase in killings; murder stories fill the pages of local newspapers. Some of these homicides are truly brutal and show signs of being the summary executions identified with death squads or rival armed bands. According to police data, 523 homicides were reported in the first five months of this year.
This wave of social violence and criminality has led different sectors of Honduran society to reflect on its causes and cures, which is generating active debate. Almost everyone agrees that its breeding ground is the poverty and unemployment rampant among the Honduran poor, particularly since the application of the adjustment measures. This logic is held by personalities as diverse as the head of the Public Security Forces, the president of the Supreme Court of Justice, a high prelate of the Catholic Church and a young Liberal politician.
Other analysts give a big dose of responsibility to the inability of the police force to patrol the cities or solve many of the crimes being committed and to the corruption that reins in both the police force and the judicial system itself. But many observers argue that this is a confusion of cause and effect. They blame the weaknesses of both of these institutions on the "impunity" of certain transgressors, and thus list impunity itself as a major cause of social violence and criminality. Impunity is associated with exemptions protecting the minorities—particularly, but not only, the military—who control economic and political power.
Still other participants in the debate underscore the importance of cultural factors. For them, the rising social violence is explained by the crisis of values affecting the country's main social and political institutions, the family in particular.
The debate around measures to combat the violence has been as energetic as the one about its causes. The armed forces' top brass have conceded to the request from broad sectors of the population that soldiers be sent to patrol the streets of the main cities together with the police. The combined groups of soldiers and police are authorized to ask any passers-by for their identification and to search anyone they choose.
As might be expected, these "disarmament operatives," as they are called, are upsetting pedestrians and causing them delays. They are also creating bloodshed. Two police officers were killed near a major marketplace in the capital when they threatened three hoodlums they had detained. In another case, several police shot an army collaborator who refused to hand over the gun he was carrying. Since soldiers and police are now fearful of encountering violent citizens, the searches are becoming increasingly tense. The situation is complicated further by the dispersal of heavy arms that ended up in the country due to the presence and protection of the Nicaraguan contras on Honduran soil during the past decade.
Almost none of the influential participants in the debate have suggested measures to deal with the origins of the violence. Preferring to evade this issue, they have focused instead on toughening criminal sentences. On this topic, a clear split has emerged between those pushing for life sentences and a small minority that wants to institute the death penalty. At present, the maximum prison sentence in Honduras is 25 years. Among those who favor establishing life sentences are the Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, the head of the armed forces and the president of the Supreme Court of Justice. On the side of the death penalty are some legislators who are urging laws that would permit it.
This debate puts the judicial system on trial once again. Right alongside it on the defendant's seat is the national penitentiary system, whose prisons are veritable schools of corruption, crime and permissiveness. Callejas, responding to society's concern about criminal violence, met with his Minister of Government, the vice president of the National Congress, the heads of the armed forces and the Public Security Force, the president of the Supreme Court, the Archbishop of Tegucigalpa and the President of the Honduran Council of Private Enterprise (COHEP) on July 13. In the meeting, these gentlemen formed an ad hoc commission that will, with the utmost urgency, turn in a report based on the analysis of each representative's sector or state institution regarding the causes of this wave of violence and the measures that should be applied to control it.
It is assumed that the measures that will be proposed by the commission will include better salaries for judges, an increase in the size of the police force, the encouragement of information gathering and actual filing of charges, and other measures that will leave the structural and more immediate causes of the increased violence unscathed.
The military: Old bull in a new china shop The Honduran military has been losing the powerful role it had during the past decade, when Honduras became the platform for the US counterrevolutionary policy in Central America. The US government has now reduced aid to the Honduran army and come out in favor of reducing its size. This new subordination of the military to civilian power has become one of the controversial issues in the national political debate.
A fundamental point of the controversy is the military's traditional level of impunity from civil jurisdiction. The rape and brutal murder of a young student teacher in July 1991 has sparked broad sectors of society to mobilize in favor of reducing this impunity.
It all began on July 15, when the body of Riccy Mabel Martínez Sevilla appeared naked, beaten and eviscerated. The 17-year-old had been last seen leaving the Communications Battalion two days earlier, where she had gone to negotiate the release of her boyfriend, recruited by force to serve his military stint. Colonel Angel Castillo Maradiaga, head of the Communications Battalion, said he had seen her leave the military unit, where she had spoken with Captain Ovidio Andino Coello. In the course of the investigations, Colonel Castillo Maradiaga and Captain Andino Coello were called to testify in civil court, but suddenly one Sergeant Eusebio Ilovares came forward to admit his guilt. Only days later, however, the sergeant claimed he had been coerced into the confession by several high-ranking officers. Suspicions turned again on Castillo Maradiaga and Andino Coello. At first, the military top command refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of civil courts in military affairs, but when the Supreme Court of Justice ruled that the civil courts indeed had jurisdiction in civil crimes, even when committed by military personnel, the two officers were finally turned over.
To the surprise of some, US Ambassador Crescencio Arcos took on the fight against military impunity by sending samples of the suspects' pubic hairs and semen to specialized FBI laboratories. The result was the indictment of Castillo Maradiaga.
Against this backdrop, the first anniversary of Riccy Mabel Martínez's murder was commemorated around the country on July 13. Sizable crowds of students gathered in the main cities, particularly in Tegucigalpa and in La Ceiba, where the victim was born. One of the sponsors of the demonstrations was Honduras' Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CODEH). The students demanded punishment for the guilty and the end of impunity.
The trial is still going on. There is hope that the Second Criminal Court of Tegucigalpa will sentence Colonel Castillo Maradiaga and Sergeant Ilovares. Should that be the outcome, it will mark the relative success of one of the country's most hard-fought struggles to end military impunity, although it will certainly not be the final chapter in that struggle.
The military is also stirring up controversy with Honduras' business sectors. Already chafing at the competition from foreign investors and the neoliberal adjustments that put local capital at a competitive disadvantage, they are taking out their frustration on military institutions, which are also muscling in on the country's business activities. Making use of the political power it has traditionally enjoyed, and of tolerance by intimidated politicians and state officials, the Honduran military has expanded its corporate holdings in Honduran enterprises. Through its Institute of Military Preparation (IPM), the military has been building a small manufacturing and service empire. It is said that the IPM owns a textile plant, a leather and plastics factory, a bank, an insurance company, a credit card company, a real estate company and even a funeral home. Through the privatization process, IPM added the sizable state cement plant to its portfolio in August 1991.
In early June of this year, COHEP secretary general Joaquín Luna Mejía openly questioned the military's corporate investments and the army's monopoly on the production of military paraphernalia. "It is inconceivable," said Luna Mejía, "that a civilian factory could be prohibited from manufacturing boots and field tents by the monopoly that the members of the military institute have established." He accused the military of "unfair competition, because they are meddling in things that do not correspond to them." A month later COHEP president Juan Ferrera gave his nervy colleague some support. He acknowledged the right of officers to get involved in business activities as individuals, but expressed resentful incredulity that "a state entity could move into areas that distract its attention from the tasks assigned it in the Constitution."
In a recent public appearance, General Luis Alonso Discua, head of the armed forces, defended the military's right to make corporate investments in the country's economic activity. He dismissed the complaints of local business interests as part of "a campaign against the armed forces for diversifying their capital, which is a product of the dues of all IPM members. But this does not fit reality. We are Hondurans, with rights and duties, just like any other professional sector."
Although Honduras' civilian entrepreneurs seem determined to cripple the armed forces' investment policy, their campaign has little chance of success. Both sides in this fight are well endowed with economic power, but the all-important scale of political power tips in favor of the military.
Picking presidential timber Honduran-style The electoral law establishes that the members of each political party should select the candidates for posts elected in general elections through internal elections. To participate in the latter, the aspirants have to organize into one of the movements, tendencies or currents within their own party that will finance their internal campaign.
The way this works can be seen in the almost completed selection process for the National Party's presidential candidate. This party, currently in power, and the Liberal Party dominate the political scene and, between them, mobilize the vast majority of the Honduran electorate.
From the beginning of the National Party's campaign, preferences centered on two politically antagonistic figures: Oswaldo Ramos Soto and Rodolfo Irias Navas. Ramos Soto initiated his campaign in somewhat sneaky fashion from his office as president of the Supreme Court of Justice. He created a political movement that was soon known as "Oswaldista," following the Honduran personalist political tradition.
As president of the National Congress, Irias Navas was in a better position to kick off his campaign with fanfare. He opted to wrap himself in the banner of the Rafael Callejas National Movement, which, for better or for worse, goes by the acronym MONARCA. The current President created this political movement nearly a decade ago.
To weaken "oswaldism," the "monarchists" got Ramos Soto removed as president of the Supreme Court in September 1991. This took little effort since, in Honduras, the National Congress can elect or remove the Supreme Court at will and the "monarchists" are currently the majority of the National Party bench. They also blocked Ramos Soto from retaking his seat in the Congress. While the first maneuver could be interpreted as defending the Constitution, which prohibits Supreme Court magistrates from engaging in party politics, the second was a bit harder to justify since the "monarchists" were the ones who chose him to fill in as head of the Supreme Court and gave him permission to leave his elected legislative post to do so.
This low blow appeared to clear the way for Irias Navas. But suddenly Alba Nora Gunera de Melgar Castro threw her hat into the ring. In addition to being the current mayor of Tegucigalpa, doña Nora, as she is publicly known, inherited the political estate of her late husband, General Juan Alberto Melgar Castro. In the later years of his life, Melgar Castro became a major figure in the National Party and was head of state between 1975 and 1978.
Not only was doña Nora formidable opposition with well-oiled political machinery, she was supported by a fraction of the "monarchists." After several months of intense campaigning, she had gained the edge over Irias Navas. When an opinion poll confirmed her supremacy, Irias Navas bowed out of the race.
That unleashed a ferocious internal fight between doña Nora and Ramos Soto for the National Party mantle. Both contenders got enough financial support to wage one of the most expensive publicity campaigns in the history of party primaries.
At the beginning of June, a second opinion poll led the MONARCA leadership, headed by President Callejas himself, to urge Melgar Castro to drop out of the race and throw her support to Ramos Soto as the only candidate. Irately denouncing the pressure, she realized that her only alternative was to strengthen her movement and insist that the decision be made by the party's internal elections. In early July, she contracted a Costa Rican firm to do yet another opinion poll among the National Party electorate, which showed her ahead of Ramos Soto.
While that unleashed a brief poll war, news broke on the night of July 20 that the leaders of the MONARCA faction supporting Melgar Castro had decided to go around her and negotiate their support for the single candidacy of Oswaldo Ramos Soto. Doña Nora initially rebelled, but finally decided to ignore her humiliation and support Ramos Soto's candidacy. Barring any last-minute surprises, Ramos Soto, a lawyer, will be the National Party's candidate in the presidential elections scheduled for November 29, 1993.
And barring any other surprises, his Liberal Party rival will likely by Carlos Roberto Reina, also a lawyer. The Liberals will hold their party primary on November 28 of this year. Reina's electoral potential has been increasing since Carlos Flores Facusse, the Liberal candidate in the last elections, hooked up with his political movement. Another important contender in the Liberal Party is business executive Jaime Rosenthal Oliva, although his electoral potential is presumed to be far below Reina's.
The upcoming presidential campaign promises to be passionate, no matter who the Liberal Party candidate is. Ramos Soto has the dubious reputation of having been a close friend of the late General Gustavo Alvarez Martínez. General Alvarez was the principal author and implementor of the past decade's "dirty war" in Honduras, during which a number of leaders of popular opposition organizations were killed and more than a hundred leftist leaders and activists were "disappeared." Human rights activists also recall that Ramos Soto was linked to Alvarez's neo-fascistic Association for the Development of Honduras (APROH), whose membership comprised military officers, large capitalists, politicians and rightwing union leaders. The current President of Honduras was also a distinguished member of the now-defunct organization.
|
a monthly magazine of analysis on Central America