Honduras between a rock and the hard place


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Honduras - Between a Rock and the Hard Place

By: Lorenzo Dee Belveal

After years of vapid explanations, and hollow denials, there is reason to believe that Honduras may, at long last, be ready to face up to its sorry reputation as a rogue nation, and perhaps even try to arrange some internal repairs on its tattered international image.

This wisp of hope stems from an announcement on May 2, 2000, that Presidente Juan Carlos Flores Facusse had appointed a special commission to evaluate and suggest reforms in the corruption-ravaged Honduras judicial system. Beginning with the Corte Suprema de Justicia, which has been authoritatively described as "plagued by corruption, blackmail, extortion and political pressure", and extending down through every level of subordinate judicial activity, the Honduras court system is a snake-pit of nepotism, cronyism, collusion, bribery and disgraceful professional incompetence.

It is highly questionable if the composite legal abilities are present in the courts and ancillary administrative offices to competently adjudicate cases and dispense a semblance of legal equity, even if the functionaries were so inclined. Which they clearly are not. But beyond the sheer lack of legal training and administrative oversight abilities, the entire juridical structure is so totally politicized that the corpus of both statutory and case law is regularly eclipsed by intra-party loyalties and political favors outstanding that, in the event, transcend both law and logic.

Begin with the fact that the Presidente of the Corte Suprema de Justicia and the sitting judges are all appointed by the victorious political machine, in each successive election.

Once appointed, these presumed paragons of judicial probity serve at the pleasure of the same people who appoint them and, in any case, they lose their jobs as soon as the next federal administration takes office. Such an arrangement provides the iron-clad guarantee that as often as a case comes to the bar, political clout, bribes, organizational loyalties and interpersonal influences will bear much more heavily on the outcome, than any visionary view of clear-eyed judicial equity and forthright statutory language.

Leo Valladares, the Human Rights commissioner, recently spoke to this issue, when he declared that, unless the Honduras judicial system is restructured from top to bottom, it is in serious danger of imminent and total collapse. Perhaps in response to his warning, Valladares was appointed a member of the commission set up by President Flores, which also includes prominent legislators, politicians and academics.

However, true to long-standing form, the Corte Suprema dismissed the Valladares declaration out of hand, as nothing more than libel and character assassination. Then they appointed a (friendly) judge to act as a special inquisitor/prosecutor in discrediting Valladares, and making him pay dearly for challenging the corrupt, venal and professionally inept Honduras court system.

Don’t be surprised if Leo Valladares is fined, fired, and even jailed, for blowing the whistle on the corrupt and incompetent judges and their political co-conspirators.

Early on in the Flores administration, I wrote that big things might be expected from the new Presidente, who won his election without any serious assistance from the Partido Liberal, which he ostensibly represented. You can read my hopeful ruminations on my WebSite at URL: http://ldbelveal.net/november30.htm The title is, "What Really Happened on Sunday, November 30, 1997".

It didn’t take long to find out that, political oratory to the contrary, the Flores view of statecraft was just more of the same shoddy product that had been the administrative hallmarks of the Rafael Leonardo Callejas and Juan Carlos Reina administrations. Namely: Take the money and run. But with one difference. Hurricane "Mitch" arrived and in its wake, so did millions of well-intentioned dollars and many, many tons of donated products, whose final distributive destinations still remain to be identified for a properly curious and justifiably suspicious citizenry.

So now, more than a year and a half after Hurricane "Mitch", and an unprecedented outpouring of both money and merchandise, intended to alleviate the suffering resulting from "Mitch", nothing much has changed. Donor nations and institutions clearly share a reticence to "keep the money coming", when so many dollars already provided seem to have accomplished so little. The nations that do continue providing help to Honduras, are insisting that their own engineers and project managers keep a tight grip on project purse-strings. That cautious tendency has been explained to this reporter as, "the only way we can be sure what happens to our funds."

This attitude has prompted Presidente Carlos Flores to deliver some tart speeches that are clearly critical, if not petulantly resentful, of those countries and institutions who have failed to measure up to the Flores expectations for his international benefactors.

At the same time, a veritable chorus of criticism has arisen from such disparate sources as Transparency International, and even the local Honduras press, leveling scathing criticism at the Honduras judiciary and other administrative areas, for all manner of mis- and malfeasance in its conduct of the public’s business. Discontent is running so high that not even the carefully engineered Honduras Publicity Gag-Law is able to keep the pesky reporters, publishers and broadcasters quiet.

The Flores incumbency is drawing to a close under a fortissimo chorus of national and international criticism. Perhaps Carlos Flores will find it expedient to follow the example of Juan Carlos Reina, and buy commercial space in Washington, D. C.'s "Mooney" newspaper, in which to run his own "swan-song" extolling the imaginary virtues of the worst do-nothing administration in the last fifty years of Honduras political history.

But, as ventured at the beginning of this piece, perhaps the Flores appointment of a committee to take a hard look at the befouled Honduras judiciary, represents either some genuine pangs of conscience, or an effort to leave a marginally sanitized court system. Or maybe it just represents another set of window-trimming, to cover his administration’s sorry legacy, until he can - in well-established Honduras style - cut and run, and leave it to the next administration to sweep up the broken glass he and his claque leaves behind.

Only time will answer this question.

In all fairness and candor, however, this reporter must admit to more than a little skepticism. Even the wispiest glimmer of hope has to be underpinned by a modest dollop of effort and good intentions, both of which - as the Flores administration heads for the exits - are presently sadly lacking.

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Lorenzo Dee Belveal - Author


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