August 11, 1998

Esteemed Presidente:

Since your diatribe against the United States congress, for suspending $4.1 million dollars in aid to Honduras was carried in the public press, on Tuesday, August 4, I have decided to respond similarly.

Your chief allegation was that the United States is trying to blackmail Honduras into "freeing a murderer". I would remind you that, at the time the money was put in suspense, Mr. Gus Valle, a United States citizen, had been imprisoned for more than five (5) years, but had never been formally charged nor tried. In the absence of "due process", nobody is in a position to declare the nature of his crime, if any. Not even the Presidente of the Honduras Corte Suprema de Justicia

You are quoted in an Associated Press story as saying, "``I will not traffic in the nation's justice due to pressures from the United States, which respects its own laws but does not do the same with the rules of other nations,''

You are, without doubt, the individual in Honduras most qualified to define "the nation’s justice". However, most fair-minded people support the idea that imprisonment for several years without charges or trial in a court of law falls far short of even the most minimal requirements of civilized law. In view of this infamous departure from anything approximating appropriate judicial handling, the funds that had been earmarked for judicial reform in Honduras, were placed in suspense until the long-pending Valle case was definitively dealt with.

Perhaps you are unaware of the level of publicity this judicial outrage has received in the United States. The particulars of the Valle case have been thoroughly aired on national television, radio, and in the print media. Beyond this, an avalanche of mail from concerned private citizens has gone to Congressmen and Senators. In virtually every instance, those messages have been in firm opposition to any more funds being lavished on a country that demonstrates such high disregard for the basic tenets of common law, logic, and basic human rights.

Your essential outrage seems to be prompted by what you perceive to be a lack of  respect for Honduran judicial procedures. This is an opinion that you are entitled to hold, by virtue of the lofty position you occupy in the judicial hierarchy. As a well-traveled and experienced journalist, however, I can tell you that the rest of the civilized world is not much impressed by hollow claims to law-abiding status, when the pose is not supported by some degree of parallel performance.

Claims of sovereignty, assisted by poor or no communications links to the rest of the world have long allowed rogue "sovereign" nations to pursue their chosen courses in the dispensation of whatever kind of drumhead "justice" best served their covert national purposes. The same statement may be safely made as concerns human rights. While such behavior may still be indulged, these guilty procedural secrets can no longer be hidden. Global communication is a fact of 1998 life.

This is being called the "Information Age". Some of the most crucial information that is presently being shared, has to do with the kind of lop-sided law and institutionalized abuse offending governments are imposing on their citizens. Sovereignty no longer confers blanket authority for political impunity and public exploitation. Countries that continue to insist on their "divine right" to abuse the powers of government, without regard for international opinion will pay an increasingly high price for the privilege. By virtue of the informational explosion, all governments must learn to operate in a veritable fish-bowl. It may now be safely assumed that everyone knows everything about everybody!

Honduras may beneficially consider the Gus Valle case a wake-up call. The almost automatic infusions of money that Honduras has been receiving from the United States, since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s "Good Neighbor Policy", are at an end. The citizen-voters of the United States will no longer permit it. And when the voters speak in the United States, officials listen - especially in an election year.

If Honduras wants the continuing financial support its big neighbor to the north, it is going to have to begin deserving it. Noblesse oblige is no longer enough, all by itself. The Gus Valle case is just a preliminary example of what can happen when absurd "legal processes" outrage the moral sensibilities of American taxpayers, and from whom Honduras is constantly seeking financial assistance.

In a nutshell, Honduras, as a sovereign nation, enjoys the prerogative of conducting its affairs as it sees fit.  By the same token, your American benefactors have their own  prerogative of turning off the money valve, when your cavalier disregard for reasonable behavior exceeds what they consider to be acceptable limits.

It is unlikely that you will ever receive a letter of this sort from a member of the United States diplomatic corps, or a first-rank American politician.Their "messages" come couched in soft phrases and carefully tailored diplomatic parables. This letter should be much more easily deciphered and understood. I offer it as a fair reflection of the American public attitude in the area of international relationships.

It’s time for Honduras to wake up and sample reality. Times are changing, and Honduras has no choice but to change with them

                                                     Most Sincerely,

                                                     Lorenzo Dee Belveal - Correspondent