Why Is the US Condemning Honduras For Fighting Corruption?
OCTOBER 25, 2022
The Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, together with the President of Honduras, Xiomara Castro. Photo: Twitter @VP.
By Brett Heinz and Beth Geglia – Oct 06, 2022
Xiomara Castro, the president of Honduras, won a major victory for democracy earlier this year when Congress repealed the country’s Zonas de Empleo y Desarrollo Económico law (ZEDE, or “Economic Development and Employment Zones” in English). The legislation enabled the creation of special governance zones, which have “functional and administrative autonomy” from the national government. The zones allowed investors to create their own governance systems, regulations, and courts, providing room for experimentation with privatized government to create a “legal environment adequate … to be competitive at the international level.”
This policy was highly controversial, earning the opposition of Honduran labor unions, campesinos, Indigenous organizations, and even the nation’s largest business groups. As described by the US State Department, the zones “were broadly unpopular, including with much of the private sector, and viewed as a vector for corruption.” When President Castro proposed abolishing the policy, the Honduran legislature repealed it unanimously.
The Biden administration has argued that corruption is one of the largest barriers to development in Central America. The Biden administration’s “U.S. Strategy for Addressing the Root Causes of Migration in Central America” promises to “[p]rioritize an anticorruption agenda .…” But when this goal conflicts with others, like promoting US investment, which is more important? A recent report from the State Department criticizing President Castro for eliminating the ZEDE law suggests that private interests take priority over public transparency and accountability.
“Commitment to Commercial Rule of Law”
The Biden administration’s agenda for Central America is ostensibly meant to address the “root causes” that lead to migration to the US. But the plan’s heavy reliance on attracting private investment from multinational corporations undermines many of its most laudable goals. By ignoring corporate exploitation of land and workers as a root cause of migration in itself, the White House’s plans will support some of the very businesses creating the problems that they hope to solve.
Each year, the US State Department releases “Investment Climate Statements” for countries around the world, identifying foreign policies which are viewed as beneficial or harmful to the interests of US companies. The reports serve as a signal to investors, but they also help to shape the government’s priorities when interacting with other countries and with US diplomats “working with partner countries to address these barriers .…”
The 2022 Investment Climate Statement for Honduras is the US government’s first time issuing such a report for the government of President Castro, who won a landslide victory in last year’s elections. One of the keys to her coalition’s success was their pledge to address the rampant corruption in Honduran politics embodied by the prior president, Juan Orlando Hernández (“JOH”), who is now under indictment in the United States on drug trafficking charges.
When Castro won last year’s presidential election, the State Department congratulated her and said it would assist in “fighting corruption.” Yet when it chose to comment on the repeal of the ZEDE law, the State Department condemned the move in harsh terms: “the [Honduran] government has exposed itself to potentially significant liability and fueled concerns about the government’s commitment to commercial rule of law.”
The report criticizes Castro for eliminating the unpopular policy rather than “pursuing reforms or seeking dialogue with the ZEDE investors.” The move, they claim, “contributed to uncertainty over the government’s commitment to investment protections required by international treaties.”
The US government’s condemnation contradicts their public anti-corruption commitments directly. Even though ZEDE promoters claim that the autonomy of the zones will provide alternatives for Hondurans and foreign investors to the “corrupt” Honduran legal system, the model actually combines a lack of public accountability and embedded conflicts of interest with secretive financing to create a perfect environment for corruption.
The zones are allowed to create “their own police, as well as agencies tasked with criminal investigation, intelligence, prosecution, and … a penitentiary system.” However, these private agencies are under no obligation to share information with local citizens and can even unilaterally decide to limit their cooperation with Honduran government authorities. One zone, Ciudad Morazán, has declared that Honduran police are not allowed inside “without an invitation and supervision.”
The zones themselves are approved and constituted in secret. The body formed in the 2013 law to oversee ZEDE development, the Committee for the Adoption of Best Practices (CAMP), has been scrutinized for its lack of transparency and its antidemocratic nature. While the original members of the international committee had to be ratified by Congress, the committee can replace its own members with no oversight. No one knows who is currently on it, despite multiple requests for disclosure filed by scholars and civil society organizations under access to information laws. A list of members from 2013 includes former members of Ronald Reagan’s Outreach Group on Central America and problematic actors such as Ebal Díaz, a former JOH advisor who may have recently fled the country to avoid a corruption investigation.
The unelected CAMP has a disproportionate amount of power in Honduras. The CAMP approved three known zones behind closed doors, and the committee has yet to publish information about other zones under consideration. In areas of low population density on the northern and southern coasts of Honduras, the CAMP has exclusive authority to approve new zones; no congressional approval is needed. The CAMP can even intervene in a zone’s internal policy-making and influence the selection of its leader, the “Technical Secretariat.” Meanwhile, there is nothing barring CAMP members from holding positions of power within ZEDE governments.
Indeed, corruption is one of the only reasons the ZEDE policy came into place. After the 2009 coup d’etat against Xiomara Castro’s husband, then president Manuel Zelaya, the coup government of Honduras launched their first attempt at creating special jurisdictions, much to the pleasure of wealthy libertarian investors from the US. Paul Romer, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who helped inspire the policy, quickly distanced himself from it, citing concerns about a lack of transparency.
The policy, then known as the “Regiones Especiales de Desarrollo” (RED) law, was quickly challenged by Indigenous, Afro-Indigenous, and land rights groups throughout the country. It was soon deemed unconstitutional by the Honduran Supreme Court. In 2012, the Honduran legislature responded by replacing four of the five Supreme Court judges. The only judge who voted in favor of the RED zones, Oscar Chinchilla, was subsequently made attorney general of Honduras. With all judicial opposition eliminated, the modified ZEDE law was reintroduced and formally added to the national constitution. Thus, the law’s very passage was made possible by Honduran elites bending the law to the benefit of investors.
Who Benefits?
The first zone to open in Honduras, “Próspera,” quickly became a magnet for controversy. It provoked resistance from the nearby village of Crawfish Rock, where the project interfered in local affairs and water access. More recently, the zone has joined the neighboring country of El Salvador in accepting Bitcoin as currency. While Próspera claims to adhere to anti-money-laundering standards, organizations from Fitch Ratings to the International Monetary Fund have cautioned that such a policy could increase opportunities for money laundering.
Who are the investors backing these zone projects? No one knows for sure. “Honduras Próspera, LLC” is a trademarked subsidiary of NeWay Capital, an investment firm based in Washington, DC. NeWay Capital’s CEO Erick Brimen refers to himself as “Founder and CEO of Próspera” and serves on the Council of Trustees that governs the zone. He has also suggested to the Financial Times that the Próspera project had the backing of the US Embassy.
Many of Próspera’s board members and known investors are associated with the libertarian “free cities” movement and conservative politics generally. One investor is Pronomos Capital, a fund led by Milton Friedman’s grandson and supported by far-right billionaire Peter Thiel. Another is Free Private Cities Inc., whose CEO remarked in an interview that Próspera may be selective about whom it allows into the zone: the private government “reserve[s] the right not to accept serious criminals, communists and Islamists.”
Despite the law’s repeal which authorized their existence, ZEDEs are still in operation today. The Honduran government is insisting they reorganize to follow the legal standards used by other special economic zones, but Próspera has suggested that it will ignore them. The company seized upon the State Department’s report to claim that it does not have to change, arguing that “[t]he repeal of the ZEDEs cannot be legally interpreted as the elimination of the existing ZEDEs.” Even in defeat, these private territories are refusing to acknowledge the higher authority of the Honduran government.
Accountability and Democracy Must Come First
In condemning the repeal of the ZEDE law, the State Department continues to place the interests of the US business sector above its own stated intentions in Central America. In fact, such a stance reveals a loyalty to “commercial rule of law” at the expense of democratic rule of law. By prioritizing US-based investment firms like NeWay Capital over basic transparency, accountability, and participatory democratic governance, the US government is contributing to the issues plaguing the region.
In a nation where corruption is already entrenched, private governmental zones with opaque cash flows and little oversight can serve as a breeding ground for foul play. If the Biden administration is serious about tackling the root causes of forced migration in Central America and genuinely wants to support constitutional democracy in the region, then it should recognize the end of the ZEDEs as a positive step forward.
https://orinocotribune.com/why-is-the-u ... orruption/
Honduras: Xiomara Castro’s Government, Advancing Along a Mined Road
JUNE 20, 2022
Five months with eyes on the re-foundation of Honduras and watching their backs
By Giorgio Trucchi — Jun 15, 2022
On January 27, Xiomara Castro took office as president of Honduras. It was a vibrant speech in which she made it clear that she was going to receive a country in bankruptcy, plundered, with a debt totaling more than 20 billion dollars, and with a clientelist structure practically intact of corruption and impunity, which in the last 12 years has been taking over public and private spaces.
A people devastated by poverty – almost 74% of the population and with 50% in absolute misery – and hopelessness. A growing number of people looking northward, not so much attracted by the “American dream”, but fleeing misery, violence and lack of opportunities.
A people that, in spite of everything, decided to go out massively to vote in November last year to punish the perpetrators of the coup, the white-collar butchers, the thieves and corrupt who put the country, its best lands, common goods, sovereignty and the very dignity of the nation up for sale.
A vote also for change, for the hope that a different Honduras is still possible. A vote for the woman who fought in the streets, together with her people, against the rupture of the constitutional order, the collapse of democracy, against bullets and batons, military and police, denouncing illegal detentions, physical and psychological repression, disappearances, torture and assassinations.
The expectations of a wounded people, disillusioned with politics and traditional politicians, were very high. Xiomara Castro’s promises were nourished.
In May, almost four months after taking office, the president made a first evaluation of the things done, the difficulties faced, the challenges ahead.
“With responsibility I have assumed the challenge of leading Honduras, a country subdued by a violent and corrupt narco-dictatorship, which handed over all control of the State to the oligarchy, in exchange for its complicit silence, in the face of the dismantling of our homeland,” said the president on national television.
“We anticipated the darkest forces and the most conservative and extremist sectors of Honduras, who tried to deal us an early blow by taking control of the Congress, but they failed thanks to the popular mobilization that accompanied me to defend what we won overwhelmingly at the polls”, she added.
The call for unity as a fundamental and essential element to face the offensive of the most retrograde and reactionary sectors of the Honduran society and to promote the re-foundation of the country, has characterized the political action of the new government, especially of the President.
In spite of the differences and conflicts within the ruling Liberty and Refoundation Party (Libre), the parliamentary bench of the first political force of the country seems to have found a certain stability.
In fact, this June 14, deputies met with President Xiomara Castro and Libre’s coordinator, Manuel Zelaya, to reaffirm that the collective and party unity is the same that was forged during the resistance struggle against the 2009 coup.
Likewise, they clarified that in Congress there is no independent bench within the Libre bench – as some media reported – and reaffirmed their total and unconditional support to the government presided by Castro.
Internal unity and parliamentary alliances made it possible to advance in the fulfillment of some of the electoral promises.
Dismantling the dictatorship
The Amnesty Law[1] was approved, facilitating the release of political prisoners and the return to the country of dozens of exiles, the bloody coup of 2009 was officially condemned, and the responsibility of the State was recognized in emblematic cases such as the murders of Vicky Hernández[2] (2009) and Herminio Deras[3] (1983), initiating a process of reparation for the victims.
For the Committee of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees in Honduras (Cofadeh), the new authorities are demonstrating to Honduran society and the international community the political will to generate a structural change in the approach to the issue of human rights and memory.
The Women’s Secretariat was also created and progress is being made towards the approval, in consensus with women’s and feminist organizations, of a comprehensive law against violence against women.
Likewise, the Hourly Employment Law was repealed, which for eight years has deepened the deregulation of the labor market, institutionalizing labor precariousness, promoting new forms of capitalist accumulation and generating a change in the correlation of forces in labor-management relations[4].
Similarly, all the norms and constitutional reforms related to the questioned Employment and Economic Development Zones (Zede) and their organic law[5] were repealed, as well as the controversial Official Secrets Law.
The general budget was reformed and increased by more than 2 billion dollars, prioritizing investment in social spending, especially health, education and social compensation programs, and job creation.
The gradual liquidation of trust contracts and public-private alliances, used by the governments that continued the coup as legal tools to privatize public finances, in the framework of shady deals that severely damaged the interests of the Honduran State, was promoted.
In this sense, a new decree has already been requested to Congress to allow the cancellation of trusts and to return the funds to the State’s coffers, while at the same time “the layers of inoperative public administration that served the dark management of public affairs” have begun to be eliminated, said the President.
In order to face the serious economic crisis, Xiomara Castro’s government initiated a fuel and electric energy subsidy program, benefiting 1.3 million families. It also undertook the task, not an easy one, of rescuing the public energy company (ENEE), which had been ruthlessly plundered for more than twelve years, and a new law was passed recognizing electric energy as a public good of national security and a human right.
The National Bank for Agricultural Development (Banadesa) was also authorized to place 40 million dollars in credits for some 7500 small agricultural producers at reduced interest rates. It is worth remembering that Banadesa was on the verge of being liquidated by the regime of Juan Orlando Hernández due to its high level of delinquency.
Finally, the Secretariat for Transparency and Fight against Corruption was created, a dialogue was initiated with the United Nations for the installation of an International Commission against Impunity in Honduras (CICIH), one of the most heartfelt demands of the Honduran people, broad powers and autonomy were granted to the Specialized Prosecution Unit against Corruption Networks (UFERCO) and an Anti-Corruption Commission was created in the National Congress.
Several measures were also taken in the areas of health, education and environmental protection, such as the creation of “green battalions” to defend forest reserves and combat illegal logging.
“It is like walking along a mined road, but we are moving forward. This privatizing model and the most ruthless accumulation of wealth is living its most savage phase that destroys everything. They are capable of doing whatever they have to do to ensure their profits.
I have received a country in ruins and I am building the basis for human development, respect for the environment and justice. The future is ours, nothing is immutable, history is made by the people, in dialectics and always tends towards the liberation of the most neglected”, said President Castro.
“The new government found a totally denaturalized State, that is to say that it does not fulfill its social functions in favor of the population, but has become a machinery to enrich even more the ruling classes.
We are talking about the new national oligarchy, linked mainly to Colombian, Israeli and US transnational capital, and to corrupt sectors of traditional politics,” explained Gilberto Ríos Munguía, political analyst and leader of Libre.
“Corruption is strictly linked to the capitalist system and model. It is estimated that through corruption something like 3 billion dollars are lost every year, that is, almost 33% of the general budget,” he added.
“Fighting this state of affairs is essential, even if it leads us on a collision course with the oligarchy and big capital. The government, alone, is not going to be able to. It needs all possible support,” warned Ríos Munguía.
Successes and challenges
The Centro de Estudios para la Democracia (Cespad) made public the document “Four months of administration: successes and challenges of Xiomara Castro’s government”, where a first assessment is made, focused on key issues such as, for example, rule of law and human rights, transparency and fight against corruption, environmental justice.
Cespad valued as positive the effort of the new government to modify national priorities, strengthening the role of the State in national development, reversing the privatization of public goods and recovering social spending.
At the same time, it was concerned about the high level of public debt and military spending, as well as “the weak signs of demilitarization of the State and society”.
The report evidenced “notable progress in the area of anti-corruption and transparency”, as well as in “territorial and environmental management”. However, it also points out the need to quickly promote “strategic political actions aimed at dismantling the extractivist policy of land dispossession and the agrarian policy of land concentration”.
Regarding women’s rights, Cespad urges the new authorities to establish “a strategic route to turn the historical demands of women into public policies and affirmative actions”.
Among the major challenges for the new Castro administration, the report highlights the renegotiation of the public debt and the reduction of military spending, more resources for public investment and to address the major problems affecting the historically excluded sectors of Honduran society.
Likewise, to advance in the transformation, democratization and demilitarization of the State and society, to carry out an agrarian reform with a gender focus, to proceed with the dismantling of the regulations and the extractivist model and to advance in the establishment of an independent justice system, among other points.
Popular power
According to Ríos Munguía, for the government it is fundamental to work on three strategic axes: strengthening the party and its structure at national level, maintaining a multi-party alliance as far as possible, and strengthening the relationship, collaboration and exchange with the social and popular movement”.
In December of last year, prior to the inauguration of Xiomara Castro, the Transition Commission set up several tables where different sectors of Honduran society presented their demands[6].
In particular, the Transition Commission for social movements covered three axes: national sovereignty, access to indigenous and peasant land, human settlements; extractivism, defense of water, environment, animal welfare and autonomy; public institutionality of environment, land and territory; and the protection of the environment.
From these meetings, 33 proposals were systematized and the next phase was the search for legal tools and funds to support these proposals.
In mid-May, the National Meeting of Popular Power for the Refoundation was held, where dozens of activists and organizations met with the objective of advancing, from the autonomy of the social movements, towards the re-foundation of society, through the construction of proposals to be implemented by the new government.
“There will not be changes without popular support. I am inclined towards a strong alliance and unity of the social and popular movement with the government, in full autonomy and based on programmatic proposals”, stated Sosa.
Notes
[1]
http://www.rel-uita.org/honduras/amnist ... ciliacion/
[2]
http://www.rel-uita.org/honduras/estado ... hernandez/
[3]
http://www.rel-uita.org/honduras/una-re ... oscuridad/
[4]
https://www.pressenza.com/es/2022/05/ho ... -por-hora/
[5]
https://nuevanicaraguaymas.blogspot.com ... -zede.html
[6]
https://nuevanicaraguaymas.blogspot.com ... olcan.html
(Internationalist 360)
https://orinocotribune.com/honduras-xio ... ined-road/
Honduras: Garifuna Communities Threatened at Bay of Tela
OCTOBER 27, 2022
Featured image: Garifuna woman, from the Tela Bay, singing traditional songs. Photo: Radio Progreso (Honduras).
Garifuna territory, October 24, 2022 (OFRANEH)— Recently, the communities of Tela Bay (Triunfo de la Cruz, San Juan, Tornabé, Rio Tinto and La Ensenada) have faced a cruel and cowardly wave of threats, persecution and attacks against their leaders, particularly against the young “Leménigi Durugubuti,” the Rastas group and their Land Defense Committee. All of these attacks, made possible by the complicit passivity of the local and national authorities in Honduras intended to impose fear on the population and for the monopolization of the territory by third parties who seek to remove and displace the communities.
These Garífuna communities, located in the Bay of Tela, not only fight for their territory with organized crime gangs, but also with the monocultures of death, with the tourist industries which aim to displace them, mainly Indura Beach Resort, Shores Plantations, Marbella, Playa Escondida, Rosa Negra and other properties which were improperly acquired and legalized by the Municipality of Tela. Today, they develop large-scale cattle ranches and build beach houses within Garífuna communities for the rich who control the country.
This week the groups in power, and the elites of the transnational capital have released an audio clip that contains fearful death threats aimed at those who defend the territories of the communities of Tornabé, San Juan and Triunfo de la Cruz. In the audio clip you can clearly hear a recorded conversation between a member of the community and one of the third parties issuing the threats. Armed men have also been reported patrolling the communities and asking about the homes of the compañeros who defend them.
It is worrisome that criminals are using Garífuna people to identify and to send death threats to the leaders of their own communities. Moreover, a member of the San Juan community also stated that certain third party groups have offered him money to identify and hand over some leaders of his community.
The community of Triunfo de la Cruz relives the tragic morning of July 18, 2020, where an operation of more than 30 heavily armed men, commanded by official forces of the Honduran Investigative Police Department (DPI), disrupted the peaceful community, kidnapped then disappeared the community president of the board of trustees, Sneider Centeno, along with three other young people, with the aim of removing him from the board of trustees, and to silence his demands for respect and the restitution of the territory belonging to his community. The operation occured during a day with a strict curfew (COVID-19), in which only security forces of the country could move about freely. These forced disappearances occurred along other acts of violence, murders, persecution and intimidation against land defenders of the Garífuna ancestral territories.
The Garífuna communities rely on precautionary measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). They have filed innumerable complaints and have even resorted to the protection mechanism. Additionally, in 2015 the Inter-American court issued a ruling in Triunfo de la Cruz and Punta Piedra for violation of the right to collective property of both communities; meanwhile the community of San Juan this year held a hearing before the same instance for a similar case.
The non-compliance with the ruling of the Inter-American Court, not only shows the lack of will of the State of Honduras to respect the human rights of the Garífuna people, which are internationally recognized, but also deliberately puts members of the Garífuna communities in danger and increases conflict in these communities.
The Inter-American Court has stated that “the lack of land protection and the disregard for the special meaning that this land has for the Garífuna community of Triunfo de la Cruz, implies that in denying of the exercise of territorial rights, it impairs the values which are representative of the members of these peoples, who are in danger of losing or suffering irreparable damage to their life and cultural identity and to the cultural heritage passed down to future generations.”
Workers Building New US Embassy in Honduras Strike Over Severed Fingers, Illegal Contracts
Those who have mobilized at the national and international level, allies, organizations and governments in solidarity, have been called to maintain the demand for justice and an end to the persecution and threats to the leadership of our Garífuna people. Additionally, Indura Beach Resort, Shores Plantations, Marbella, Playa Escondida, Rosa Negra and others, are being held responsible for any attack that causes emotional, physical or damage of any other nature towards the defenders of the Garifuna communities of Triunfo de la Cruz, San Juan, Tornabe, Rio Tinto and La Ensenada.
Stop the implantation of terror in our Garifuna communities!!
The Garifuna People deserve to live in peace!
Our youth deserve another future!!
Stop institutional racism against our Garifuna people!!
We demand compliance with the rulings of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the Garifuna People!!
We demand Truth and Justice for the Forced Disappearance of our Youth from Triunfo de la Cruz!
Honduran Black Fraternal Organization, OFRANEH
https://orinocotribune.com/honduras-gar ... y-of-tela/