The important Honduras daily, La Prensa, carried a major article recently that tries to peddle the hollow idea that, in spite of the efforts of legislators of the Republica in passing heavy-handed legislation against graft, bribes and related crimes against public confidence, nothing seems to work.   The basic flaw in the story is that it seeks to consider the impotence of presumably applicable laws in a kind of operational vacuum.

Laws, by and within themselves, are worthless. Indeed, they may be worse
than useless, since a law not enforced weakens all laws.

The laws cited in the La Prensa article are political camouflage, nothing more. Obviously, their purpose is not to bring order and honesty into public service, but to delude and propagandize the Honduras public, and - most importantly - potential foreign contributors into thinking that poor, handicapped Honduras is doing its damndest to introduce rectitude and honest dealing into the snake-pit of mendacity and political privilege that has been the hallmark of Honduras federal administration for as long as memories run.

Without doubt, this is journalistic window-trimming for the committee of
international donors that is scheduled to arrive later this month (February,
2000) to find out what wonders their millions (billions?) of dollars in
contributions have wrought in cleaning up the devastation left in the wake
of Hurricane "Mitch", more than a year ago.

Predictably, the La Prensa story ultimately fails completely and, in doing so,
leaves the reader with more questions than it answers.  It could hardly be
otherwise.

To begin with, the story utterly fails to address the Immunity Clause in the
Constitution, that makes potentially "licensed criminals" out of the full
panoply of elective political officers. Neither does it pay even passing
mention to the Publicity Gag Law, that seeks to hide political miscreants from public notice and the opprobrium that they so richly deserve.

Nor does the La Prensa story address the fact that Honduras Supreme Court Judges are mere politicial appointees, whose high offices are solidly anchored to the incumbency (ergo, the personal whims) of the politicos who appoint them.  Most reasonable people understand that this is not the way to encourage honesty and functional rectitude on the part of a high-court judge charged with the most sensistive legal functions in the nation.

Lack of laws pointed toward economic wrongdoing is not the problem in Honduras. Rather, that the cabal of immunized politicians, along with their henchmen and furtive bag-men under their protections, are beyond the reach of those laws, however stentorian they may appear, set down  on the printed page.  Without application, the words mean nothing.

This reality has prompted me to characterize Honduras as "a nation without law" in a variety of publications within a reporter's global reach. Nobody has had either the temerity or bad judgement to seriously attempt to rebut the charge. The closest anybody has come to rebuttal was the anonymous headline on a "Honduras This Week" editorial that querously asked, "Who Says We Are Corrupt?" Indeed!

The hard fact is that virtually the entire world community says Honduras is corrupt.   Clearly, obviously, shamefully, deliberately and knowingly corrupt. From the top to the bottom. From sunrise to sundown. Seven days a week.

Honduras laws facilitate, enable and condone corruption. Honduras official salaries encourage corruption. The Honduras Publicity Gag-Law functions to hide official corruption. Political appointment of Supreme Court Judges makes these "guardians of the nation's virtue" both parties to - and direct beneficiaries of - the corruption that, in effect, could only take place under the direct sponsorship or tacit approval of the highest levels of jurisprudence. These are patent, unarguable facts.

Attempts to deny the corrosive reality, or cloak it in slick legalistic explanations
only succeed in further amplifying the sordid truth: That corruption is the fundamental 'engine' that drives both the perverse Honduras version of statecraft, as well as much of   what would - in a more respectable venue - be considered legitimate commerce.

The article in LaPrensa that prompts this commentary carries the improbable headline (translated) "Eight Laws Are Incapable of Halting Corruption and Illicit Enrichment". This in itself can only be read as a sick joke.

Whether it is "eight laws" or eighty laws, laws by themselves accomplish
nothing. Without firm and forthright enforcement, a law is a sham and a
shame on those who enacted it. Without enforcement, a law is nothing
but another piece of duplicitous window-trimming, calculated to help sell
the impression that the cowardly, thieving. predatory "public servants" who
enacted it are "doing the best they can". But that canard no longer serves to
camouflage the globally-recognized reality.

Nobody is fooled. The world-wide neighbors have made up their minds
about Honduras, and that concensus is not a bit complimentary. Form
without substance will no longer draw a crowd for sovereign pretenses, regardless of the histrionics employed in the performance.  The message to Honduras is now loud and clear: "Straighten up, or shut up"!

Unless Honduras can schedule another headline event, equal to - or even
bigger - than Hurricane "Mitch", some thoroughgoing changes will have to
be made to underpin any reasonable prospect for improvement in this
woebegone land. Presidential speeches urging "faith and steadfastness"
in the face of constantly deteriorating national circumstances, no longer
attract believers - either at home or abroad. Especially when nobody
can identify even the most miniscule contribution of official functions, to
support the rosier view.

A modest amount of manure, applied judiciously at proper intervals, is
properly identified as fertilizer, and it brings a benign and valuable effect
throughout the entire range of agricultural activities.

An excess of manure, applied without restraint, constantly, and without
considertion for realistic needs and logical expectations, quickly becomes
just one more problem to cope with. There is a qualitative point at which
an overabundance of fertilizer becomes merely "much too much bullshit".

I shall rely on your own inherent good judgement, Dear Reader, to decide
which interpretation is currently applicable to dicey life and hard-scrabble times in the sovereign and notoriously screwed-up Republica of Honduras.

Lorenzo Dee Belveal

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Guadalajara, Jalisco, MEXICO

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