June, 2000

There is good news and bad news in Honduras.  The good news is that absolutely every “development” institution you can name laments poverty; they are all working ardently to end it, poverty being, after all, the greatest killer on the planet.  The bad news is that most of these institutions (and their personnel) have stakes in how the economic development system distributes wealth and poverty across the planet.

Moral of the story: lament poverty, but don’t ask why there is poverty; don’t look in the mirror.

More Studies, No Shame, No Strategy

The government of Honduras has publicly presented a “Preliminary Diagnosis on Poverty” and designed a “Strategy to Combat Poverty”.  Elaborated by Cabinet ministers, Congress members and “participants from Civil Society”, the Strategy aims at a “sustainable and equitable development model, where the human being is the main goal of the society.”  The Strategy will “establish a series of policies, measures, programs and projects that attack the symptoms and the roots of poverty, … recognizing that this is not an easy task.”

There it is, at last, a commitment not to put band-aids on the suffering of the poor, but rather to attack the root causes of poverty.  The time of justice is near, … Not!

So far, the principal development strategy of the Honduran government has been to implement IMF (International Monetary Fund) structural adjustment programs.  “First” world governments force Honduras to keep on paying its unjust foreign debt, which has already been paid 1.5 times even as the principal builds.  The Honduras government agrees to dedicate ever more of the country’s best land to export products to northern breakfast tables.  All of which increases poverty.  [elHeraldo, 00-03-21, p.20]

Ghost in the Machine

On the same page of the same newspaper, on the same day the Honduran government announced its “Strategy to Combat Poverty”, a headline reads: “10,000 citizens from Patuca facing hunger crisis”.  The United Nation’s World Food Program is sending an emergency shipment of 123 metric tons of food to 18 communities in the municipalities of Wampusirpe y Ahuas, in the department of Gracias a Dios [Thanks to God!].  1600 families along the Patuca River are the intended recipients.  The Canadian government (supporting IMF structural adjustment programs, debt payment and using more land for export products) provides $50,000 for the shipment of emergency foods.

This food comes from surplus production in North America and the European Community.  The beans and rice that get shipped in could easily be produced in the fertile lands of Honduras, but the fertile lands are owned by wealthy Hondurans and foreigners who produce bananas, pineapple, African palm trees, etc, for export to northern markets.

Once the emergency foods arrive, the poor won’t be hungry, until they run out of emergency foods, and then they will be hungry again.  [elHeraldo, 00-03-21, p.20]

Them Injuns Done It

Every year, tourists flock to the Copan Mayan “ruins” to marvel at the ancient Mayan civilization.  In mid-March, four Chorti-Mayan men – not archaeological objects -- were murdered by gunmen who work for local landowner, Juan Angel Cuevas.  The Cuevas family has an on-going dispute with the Chorti people who claim historical ownership of 84 manzanas of land in the community of Monte Los Negros.  The Public Ministry assures all that a full investigation will be carried out and justice done.

In 1995, men in the hire of the Cuevas family torched some Chorti huts.  A one year-old baby – Ismael Ramirez Leon – burnt to death.  Authorities mediated a “solution” whereby the Cuevas family was to give the Chorti families 5 manzanas of land, which never happened.  In 1997, the Cuevas family -- it is suspected -- murdered Chorti leader Candido Amador, from the Monte Los Negros community.

Sergio Tabora Castillo of the National Department of Criminal Investigation fears that there will be more problems “because the Chortis are armed.”  [LaTribuna, 00-03-14, .87]

Right to Health

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have made it clear that “if Honduras wants to attract international investment,” changes are needed in the health system.  The IHSS (Honduran Institute of Social Security) has given orders to suspend lab examinations and X-rays; there are only 15 days of medicine in storage; 80% of the equipment is old or in bad condition.  The changes that the World Bank and IMF are demanding are to “privatize” certain areas of the IHSS.  … Right to health?  Not if you can’t afford it. [elHeraldo, 00-03-21, 03-22, p18, p2]

Ghosts in the Machine

A “development” organization reserves a room for me in a swank hotel in hot Choluteca, near the Nicaraguan border, near the Golfo de Fonseca.  Organizations working to eliminate poverty provide aire condicionado and other delights for their consultants.

Who else has sat by this pool?  In the early 80s, the La Fuente hotel was officially not full of CIA agents and US military officers, officially not meeting with Salvadoran military and Nicaraguan Contra counterparts, smoking Cubans cigars, drinking Cuba Libres, denouncing Fidel Castro, doling out dollar bills and torture manuals.  Honduran soldiers guarded the door, while officers sat at the next table, cigars and rum, not hearing: “There are no Contras in Honduras, and the US is certainly not here supporting them.”  Young women frequented La Fuente in those days of “business”, knives and pleasure – jobs galore to help the local economy.

Shortly thereafter, La Fuente filled with United Nations officials and international “aid” givers; buckets, blankets, shovels, food and medicine for camps full of refugees fleeing the repression of the Salvadoran military, caused by the likes of ‘those men, sitting just over there’.  Hundreds of thousands of people filled refugee camps, miserable but livable places, close, but far away from La Fuente where aid officials would come to commiserate, send off daily briefings, wipe the dirt and sweat from their eyes, jump in the pool and have a drink or two.

After the US’s Cold War ended, the CIA schemers and international redeemers went home.  Slow times for La Fuente, … until Hurricane Mitch.  La Fuente was back in business, again filled with officials from the international development industry, visiting washed out communities and mud-slide mountains in the day, gathering by the pool at night to share tales of lost lives and crushed communities, email reports of poverty and pandemonium, and finish it off with a few Cuba Libres and cigarettes.  No young women or Cuban cigars this time round, but still lots of business.

Ghost in the Machine

A ‘new’ study by the Ministry of Employment, the Honduran Institute of Children and Family, and UNICEF (UN Fund for the Protection of Children) concludes that 2,000,000 children and adolescents in Honduras live in poverty, obliging them to work in exploitative conditions. [‘Old’ news]  On a monthly basis, children between 10-14 years might earn 100-500 Lempira ($7-35).  Some of what they produce may end up in “first” world stores at “affordable” prices.  In their elegant and elaborate study, decrying child poverty, the experts come up with no explanations as to why there is so much poverty. [elHeraldo, 00-03-21, p.21]

Rule of Law

The Ministry of Security is legalizing armed civilian “vigilance” groups in Honduras, “because there is so much crime”.  And there is a lot of crime.  In the North-east of the country, along the Caribbean coast, COPA (Coordinadora de Organizaciones Populares del Aguan) leaders receive death threats from armed civilian groups, perhaps in the hire of land owner Miguel Facusse, uncle of the President of Honduras.  COPA advocates for the land rights of the Garifuna population and protection of the environment from rapacious foresters who covet Honduras’ best land to export African palm tree oil and host international sun-seeking tourists.

The thugs have attacked Garifuna campesinos, burnt the homes and property of local leaders and killed a few leaders.  Sounds like death squads to me. [El Tiempo, 00-03-13]

Faces

The human rights work and political-economic analysis of historical and structural inequalities that I am involved with touch only a part (albeit an important part) of the human experience.  There is also the toothless smile, on the friendly wrinkled face, of the poorest of poor old women, carrying a huge bucket of water, along the road.  There is the anger and tension of the well-manicured man, driving an urban Ranger, cell-phone in hand, not seeing the people of the street, and hating them anyway.

The US Will Also Help Fight Poverty!

The director of the US Agency for International Development announced --to orchestrated fanfare-- that AID will provide $400 million dollars to finance programs to fight poverty.  Part of these funds were used to help the government carry out its Preliminary Diagnosis, leading to the design of a Strategy to Combat Poverty.  Soberly, the AID director warned: “It won’t be easy to reduce the levels of poverty.  Nevertheless, once the underlying problems and causes of poverty have been identified, it would be easier to achieve higher levels of development.”

There it is, again, a commitment to not only put band-aids on the suffering of the poor, but actually attack the root causes of poverty.  “The time of justice is near, … Not.”

With no apparent understanding of the inherent contradictions in the AID economic development policy, the AID director went on to say that “a program would be initiated to support those sectors of Honduras that produce cantelope, watermelon, bananas and platanos for export.”

Using ever more of the best arable lands, exporting ever more crops will not help the poor majority, but will certainly help the minority landowners, plus “first” world consumers who enjoy fresh fruit at “affordable” prices.  [elHeraldo, 00-03-25, p3]

Death squads

Human rights and union activist Jairo Ayala is dead, but not just killed.  First he was tortured and dismembered.  Recently, Jairo had brought a complaint to CODEH (the Committee for Human Rights in Honduras) against three members of the Ministry of Security, alleging they made death threats against him. 

To dismember someone, in such a way, is to say to other human rights and union activists that they are being watched, and that they too might be captured, and have their genitals cut, like Jairo Ayala, or … whatever … before being assassinated and dumped in a public place.  [El Tiempo, 00-02-12]

Trickle Down Tuberculosis

“The situation of Tuberculosis is serious in Honduras,” conclude experts from the PanAmerican Health Organization, US-AID and the Honduran government, participating in a panel discussion on the International Day of Tuberculosis.  The experts argued that the “key to stopping the disease is in the treatment of the patients … because the disease is treatable”. 

Way down in the article one reads: “This disease is closely related to the person’s conditions of life, such as guaranteed access to potable water and a daily nutritious diet, and to health services if necessary.”  There, again, is that nasty issue of poverty.  [elHeraldo, 00-03-25, p5]

Trickle Down Leishmaniasis

In the past three months, the government has detected at least 600 cases of Leishmaniasis that comes from the Leishmania parasite, transmitted via mosquitos.  It attacks all ages, particularly children under the age of 5, producing fevers, loss of appetite and weight, and increasing the size of the kidney.  Fatal stuff, without treatment.

Prevention of this disease is based on having clean living conditions, where mosquitos don’t breed and feed, and guaranteed access to potable water and a nutritious daily diet.  Most cases of Leishmaniasis have been detected in the region of Olancho, an impoverished region of the country.  Shh, don’t say the “p” word.  [elHeraldo, 00-03-25, p18]

Welcome to New Orleans, Y’all

This time it is the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) that hosts the anti-poverty party.  From across the Americas, politicians and business “leaders” have checked into five star hotels in this city, famous for food and fun.

Carlos Flores Facusse, President of Honduras and member of the country’s largest land-holding family, gave a brilliant presentation on how best to respond to “natural disasters” -- in reference to Hurricane Mitch.  Drawing attention away from the unjust economic-development model, long supported by international “development” institutions, Flores declares that “no country in the world, even the rich ones, can ever be prepared to deal with such an enormous tragedy that was Hurricane Mitch,” and of course this is not true.  The biggest killer was not the rains, nor the floods and mudslides of Hurricane Mitch, but the preceding conditions of poverty and vulnerability in which most Mitch victims lived.

The black ties and high heels gathered here will not say that the real “disaster” is an economic development model that distributes wealth up to the north and to the wealthy sectors in the poor countries; and distributes poverty, vulnerability and despair down.

“A Moral Insult”

Even Michael Camdessus, out-going chieftain of the IMF clan, came to New Orleans to sagely opine that “poverty represents the true threat to the stability of a globalized world.  The gap between rich and poor countries has increased, and this is a moral insult, and it is a loss of economic opportunity that leads us to problems of social explosions.”

Michael takes a bow, a brave man addressing hard issues.  Applause aplenty, but please, no questions about how this immoral gap between rich and poor is a direct result of, and grew enormously during Michael’s tenure at the IMF and the worldwide implementation of structural adjustment programs.

Right to Water

Half a million people in Tegucigalpa, a city of one million, have no access to potable water.  In the poor barrios, a family pays 10-20 Lempiras for a small barrel of water (sometimes more, if their barrios is higher up the steep mountainside), and most people don’t earn 20 Lempiras a day ($1.50).  For being poor, they pay more for what little water they can buy in plastic jugs, “on the open market”, in their isolated, hard-to-get to barrios, than the wealthy folks pay for water that gets delivered into their hot water tanks. … The National Water Service (SANAA) is collapsing, losing $150,000 per month.  Fear not, a privitization plan exists.  A bill is before Congress (whose members may well be incorporating Private Water Inc. right now) that will drive the price of water up.  [elHeraldo, 00-03-27, p2]

And From the Oasis, We Shall Build a Desert

“Honduras is a half-step away from creating a desert in its territory,” reads a headline.  To understand this “calamity”, the article talks about how “the poor cut trees to bring home loads of firewood on their backs, to cook their [paltry amounts] of food” in marginalized barrios, on steep mountain sides.

The article does not talk of how the poor moved to over crowded cities when their lands were appropriated to produce food for exports.  The article does not mention the corruption in COHDEFOR (Honduran Government Corporation of Forestry Development.  [There is a case in the courts against the former head of COHDEFOR for falsifying documents and selling illegal commercial logging permits].  The article does not talk of the landowners and military chainsaw experts illegally cutting trees for export to northern markets or luxury homes of their own.  [There are regions of the country where people don’t enter for fear of roving para-military bands in the hire of narco-traffickers and wood exporters.]

Right to a healthy, sustainable environment, … Not.  [elHeraldo, 00-03-27, p22]

A “social explosion”

This time, it is Madeleine Albright’s turn.  The US Secretary of State has also come to New Orleans to argue emotionally that the issue of poverty must be on the agenda of every international agency, because if it is not attended to, “there might be an enormous social explosion.”  Her concern is about a “social explosion” … you know, when poor people take to the streets, protest, throw rocks, get beaten by the police; maybe even rise up like those Injun Zapatistas in Mexico.

Her concern is not about the social explosions that happen everyday, across the planet, when tens of thousands of children and infants are killed by a million causes related to poverty, in the quiet of their shacks, beyond the tracks that Albright has probably never crossed, except to inaugurate a water pump, posing before the cameras, before being whisked away.

Nail in the coffin

On the last day of the poverty party in New Orleans, the IDB concludes that more funds will be destined for Central America to open the countries to more foreign investment, that will strengthen the economic model … that has created more human created disasters – poverty – than any Hurricane Mitch every will.

Hear No Evil

Not discussed in New Orleans was the debt “crisis”.  Lament poverty, of course.  Curse high infant mortality rates, yes.  Wipe a tear for they who work for $1 a day, sort of.  But discuss the economic model that created the foreign debt and forces the poor to pay for it … .

Post-Mitch, Pre-Mitch, Perma-Mitch

In San Pedro Sula, police and security forces used tear gas and violence to physically remove hundreds of people – victims of Hurricane Mitch – who were occupying a property to protest that they were not included in housing projects.  120 people were detained; 12 injured.  Group leaders were detained because they “illegally directed meetings that violated the internal security of Honduras.”

To live and die in poverty [systematic violations of economic, social and political rights] is not a crime, but to protest poverty violates the national security … .  Damn communists.

“New Capital”

In one of the highest points of Tegucigalpa, 5000 families live in conditions of absolute poverty.  Most are Mitch victims, who have come from other parts of the country and created this new neighborhood, Nueva Capital, that has an extraordinary view of the city, and not much more.  Before Mitch, 700,000 families did not have adequate housing; now, 1,000,000 families don’t.

Ungrateful lot

The search continues for the causes of poverty, though at every turn we come back to the same old conclusion that it is the poor themselves that work all the time, as hard as they can, to keep themselves in poverty.

“Food for Work Projects”

A UN World Food Program study concluded that Honduras’ food deficit will increase from 200,000 metric tons of food in 2000, to 500,000 metric tons in 2005.  “Food security” is a bizarre concept, agreed upon by “development” experts, which has to do with avoiding death by starvation; it does not mean three square meals a day, decent housing, work, health and education.  “Nevertheless,” the article continues, “the international community of donors will continue with its policies of giving food products to the poor in exchange for work, while promoting the diversification of producing foods for export.”

The plan: Rich countries send surplus foods (ie, foods over-produced in the north and paid for by northern governments to the farmers) to the poor in Honduras.  These government-subsidized imports from the north undermine local markets and production.  As a reward for being poor, the poor must work on public projects [road-construction, for example] in exchange for a bag of food every day.  Meanwhile, the northern governments will still pressure Honduras to use more and more of its best lands to produce food products for export to northern markets.

Why oh why are there so many impoverished people in Honduras?  [LaPrensa, 00-04-01, p13]

Ghost in the Machine

Not to be left out, the UNDP (United Nations Development Program) opines that “bad administration is often the principal obstacle in the way of implementing sustainable initiatives to end poverty.”  The UNDP has put what they call “good governance” at the top of their list of obstacles to poverty alleviation.  “Without good governance, reliance on trickle-down economic development … will not work,” the report concludes.

There it is.  Crystal clear.  Trickle-down economic development is the correct model; no questioning that.  The essence of the economic development model is to create lots of wealth amongst the wealthier sectors; the more the better.  Then, the solution to poverty lies in what trickles down … .  Good governments are needed to guarantee the wealth accumulation at the top, and the supposed trickle.

Yet there is no discussion in this report of how it is mostly poverty that trickles down; of where these bad governments came from.  No mention that the US government pumped over 1 billion dollars of military support into the coffers and bunkers of the Central American military governments in the 1980s alone.  No mention of the billions of dollars in “development” aid that the World Bank, IDB and the UN pumped into the coffers and private accounts of these oligarchical governments over the past 50 years.  Billions of dollars that never “trickled down.”  [elHeraldo, 00-04-05,p24. Miami Herald, 00-04-05, p6]

Good News & Bad News

The good news is that the Central American Bank of Economic Integration will lend Honduras $251 million dollars.  The bad news is that this loan will be for Honduras to pay off the interest of previous loans.  Well, not even.  It will be to consolidate numerous short-term loans with one long-term loan.

Trickle Down Birthing Complications

Every 31 hours in Honduras, a woman dies of pregnancy and birth complications.  Some 280 women die every year of mostly avoidable complications.  And these are figures of births that take place in hospitals.  Most women don’t give birth in hospitals.  Honduras’ rate of 150 deaths per 100,000 births compares with 10 death, per 100,000 in the “wealthy” countries, and countries like Cuba that have strong health systems.  [elHeraldo, 00-03-29, p18]

Pre-Mitch, Post-Mitch, Perma-Mitch

Thousands of Hondurans still live in refugee centers, “temporary” homes the size of a small bedroom.  Entire families (and some cousins and others) live together, on top of one another, as many as 8 per box.  As before Hurricane Mitch, now after: their lives are characterized by poverty and no opportunity.

As before Mitch, now after: male violence against women and girls (more often than not their wives, girlfriends and daughters) is widespread.  And the NGOs can barely keep up; documenting a few of the cases; a “lucky” few girls and women get refuge in shelters.  Most have no one to talk to (though their screams are heard), no place to go, and nothing to do, but wear the bruises.

(Not) The Cure to Poverty

The program is called “Vaso de Leche” – A Cup of Milk --, and it has the support of the Mayor of Tegucigalpa, the Association of Diplomatic Wives, embassies from around the world, the business community of Honduras, etc.  Many attend the inauguration of this years’ program.  In Tegucigalpa, close to 20,000 primary school students, in the poorest 19 barrios, will receive [“until funds run out”] a cup of milk and a nutritious cookie.  The program will also offer a “de-parasiting” service in the schools, for the children who live in conditions that breed parasites and malnutrition.

The Vaso de Leche program was initiated because children come to school hungry, and faint or falling asleep in class, before going home hungry.  Now, they will still go home hungry, but perhaps they won’t have fainted in class.

Total cost, 1.5 Lempira (10 cents)\ day \ per student, and each cup of milk and each cookie are needed by the students.  And this project will do absolutely nothing to change the reasons why these children are poor, why they will grow up to be poor adults underpaid for working too hard, to then have their own children, in conditions of poverty.

Ghost in the Machine

The Worldwatch Institute reports that 1.2 billions human beings are chronically underfed and malnourished.  Hunger, disease and death mark their days.  Many of these folks live in places like Honduras.  Just as many people, Worldwatch says, are chronically undernourished, not for poverty but for eating crappy food, low on vitamins and nutrients.  Every year, close to 20,000,000 people die of malnutrition and starvation and over 1.2 billion more survive underfed and malnourished.  Meanwhile close to 500,000 US citizens spend $10 billion on liposuction procedures.  So it goes.

80% of all malnourished and starving children live in countries that produce food surpluses – ie, Honduras whose best lands are owned by the oligarchy and mostly US-based companies.  They pay workers 2 bucks a day, or so, to export foods to rich countries.  Perhaps 70% of all children born in Honduras would immediately be put in intensive care, had they been born in the US or Canada.  [Honduras This Week, 00-03-04, p13]

5% full

18 years after he committed the crime, ex-coronel Manuel de Jesus Trejo Rosa is finally in jail [a comfortable military cell, at that] for the disappearance, torture and murder of Nelson Mackay in April 1982.  The remains of Nelson were exhumed in 1994 by a forensic anthropology team, initiating the legal process.  This is one of the first cases whereby a ranking “intellectual author” of the US-backed repression of the 1980s has gone to jail.  Normally the cup of justice is 95% empty; today it is 5% full.  [elHeraldo, 00-04-04, p3]

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Conclusion

Using the present model of economic development to address poverty is like throwing gas on an unwanted fire.  It's not working.  We in the “developed” nations, and our multitude of “development” institutions, cannot be said to be really seeking the ghost in the machine, the source of this fire burning up lives, this poverty increasing.  Though we lament the poverty, and hear the sadness of the suffering, we are yet to admit that conditions of poverty are not “God-given.”

A positive conclusion to this litany about poverty and “development” will only come when the global north and the rulers of southern nations take a clear and honest look at the origins of poverty, at how our institutions (the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, private banks and companies, our governments, etc.) often serve to create and keep in place the very political, economic and legal structures that create and maintain poverty.

There is no lack of literature about these issues.  There is no lack of experts who can map out different and more just models of economic development.  Across the planet, non-government and community-based organizations are intelligently and diligently [often at great personal risk] working to address the ravages of poverty and transform the underlying causes.  While these courageous people need changes in many of their countries, they also need serious changes at the international level.  What is still lacking is the political will, at the highest and most powerful levels of the world order.

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