Mitch and the Uncertain Future of Honduras

"Mitch" and the Uncertain Future of Honduras

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In a Reuters story by-lined by Gustavo Palencia, and that covers the visit of "Tipper Gore, wife of the U. S. Vice-President, to Honduras, she hopefully promises "This will involve a commitment for a long time, and we (the United States of America) will be here in the years to come".

Certainly every friend of Honduras and its beleaguered population hopes the assistance activities by the United States and other nations will continue long enough to restore the shattered nation and its desperate, homeless "damnificados" to some semblance of a decent existence. But just saying it doesn't guarantee it.

In point of fact, the basic consideration that has brought an almost global mustering of both private and governmental assistance to the victims of "Mitch", in Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador, especially, is pure, unalloyed sympathy. Governments, like individuals, can look at a catastrophe such as "Mitch" has wreaked over much of Central America and say with conviction, "There, but for the grace of God, go (we)". Such a realization provides a powerful incentive for those who were spared, to go to the aid of those who bore the brunt of nature's destructive wrath.

Sympathy, however, is among the most tenuous of reasons for helping a disadvantaged neighbor. Long-established and well-recognized obligations, borne and nurtured in reciprocal undertakings and steeped in mutual respect afford much stronger ties, and far greater life expectancy. Sympathy may get the job done in the short run, but it takes firmer stuff to bind the donors and beneficiaries together for the months and predictable years, that overcoming the devastation of "Mitch" will certainly require.

Narrowing the focus to Honduras and the United States of America, it takes no particular insight for informed observers to agree that the relations between those two sovereign nations have regularly lacked the collegiality that their geographic proximity seems to suggest. From the standpoint of Honduras, the United States has, altogether too often, conducted itself as a tightfisted if not miserly neighbor, who has missed many opportunities to share its wealth and resources more freely with its less fortunate hemispheric neighbors.

Through the glass of the "Gringos", the Hondurans have long been faithless borrowers, and ingrates in the bargain; defaulting regularly on fiscal obligations seemingly undertaken in good faith, while at the same time, brazenly flaunting American laws, and the norms of international conduct. While constantly begging for yet another infusion of money, Honduras has made a growth industry out of providing "safe haven" for notorious criminals in flight from the long arm of American law.

This kind of procedural ambivalence in the name of "sovereignty" constitutes an affront that would be easier to accept if Honduras, even occasionally, repaid a loan. Instead, they allow borrowed obligations to slide into arrears, and then plead for "forgiveness" of interest or principal - or both. Decades of this kind of comportment is not conducive to confidence or warm feelings.

Beyond this cavalier behavior in the international arena, the methodology employed in running the Honduran political machinery is, to sticklers for such things as "due process" of law, and honest administration of federal functions, no less an outrage.

Blatant political patronage is rife at every level of function, and immunity for all elected and most appointive functionaries, sets the political tone. Nepotism, favoritism, corruption, and political collusion is so tightly woven into the warp and woof of Honduras public administration, that there is no longer any reason to even go through the futile pretense of denying it. No less an authority than "Transparency International", in their August, 1998 report, rated Honduras as Number 83, in a roster of 85 sovereign nations evaluated on the basis of perceived corruption. Only Paraguay (#84) and Cameroon (#85) are deemed more corrupt than the Republic of Honduras.

This kind of international infamy does not offer a serviceable foundation from which to seek the hundreds of millions - perhaps billions- of dollars in cash, and services almost without limit, required to restore hurricane-demolished Honduras to national function. As your friendly local banker would surely say, "The record is not one that prompts lender confidence."

And this is not the end of it.

Formalized legal immunity is written into the Honduras Constitution, that cloaks every functionary, from the President of the Republic, to petty municipal appointees, with immunity (read: impunity) as concerns both civil and criminal statutes. Any functioning political officer, of almost whatever rank or class, is quite literally "above the laws" that apply to everyone else.

As a further protection against the possibility of being identified in connection with official misconduct, Honduras has enacted a "Publicity Gag-Law", that authorizes draconian punishments for any reporter, editor, publisher or broadcaster who calls public attention to any illegal behavior on the part of a "public-servant". With this kind of incentive to risk-free graft, it is not surprising that bribery and collusive defalcation of public funds is an established way of public life in Honduras.

With the prospects for hundreds of millions of dollars being funneled into Honduras to restore the devastation left by hurricane Mitch, small wonder that Honduras politicians are licking their lips in eager anticipation. Unless air-tight precautions are set up and administered with meticulous exactitude, the post-"Mitch" period will produce a corruption-fueled feeding-frenzy never imagined in this poverty-stricken land since Noah's original flood!

Firm promises of administrative rectitude are now being heard whenever a Honduras spokesperson gets within shouting distance of a microphone or a video-cam. The established refrain is to the effect that all manner of precautions are being taken to insure that every dollar of aid money goes straight to its assigned place.

Based purely on performance to date, experienced observers must be excused more than a modest amount of pessimism. Especially as long as the "immunity law" and the "publicity gag-law" remain on the books in Honduras.

If President Carlos Roberto Flores expects individuals and nations to pump great amounts of money and materials into his devastated country, the very least he might do - in the interests of offering minimal underpinning for their confidence - would be to remove these two prime incentives to political corruption from the statutes.

It is all well and good, of course, for him and his spokesmen to insist that "this time it's going to be different". No more stealing of relief funds. No more skimming of construction project budgets. No more bribes. No more political conspiracies that take funds out of relief activities, and put them into private pockets, luxury automobiles, and foreign bank accounts.

Everyone appreciates hearing reassurances of this sort. At the same time, however, the claims would have a more substantial ring to them, if the laws that encourage and facilitate these very crimes against the nation were taken off the books. Honest administrators do not need laws that licenses them to blatantly engage in activities that would land an "ordinary" citizen in jail.

Honduras has a lot of self-improvement to do before it can convincingly lay claim to being a reformed and trustworthy nation. As someone has said, "The whole world is watching."

Several months ago, President Flores made Honduras the seventh signatory to the International Anti-Corruption Convention. Nothing further has been heard of that supposed pledge of reformation. Repeal of "immunity" and the "publicity gag-law" will constitute two more long steps along the road to national respectability.

Responsible administration of "Mitch" relief funds, along with a free and unfettered press to monitor same will go a long way toward making "Tipper" Gore's prediction of a long and productive involvement in the Honduran struggle for recovery a firm reality, rather than a short-lived hope, followed by more decades of disillusionment.

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Lorenzo Dee Belveal - Author

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