No democracy in new Honduras Congress

New officers of the Honduras Congress

Images: La Prensa, Honduras

(Written Thursday, January 23, 2014, posted today due to numerous internet problems.)





Waiting for the Honduras congressional session to start this morning was a little anti-climatic. I felt like I was watching reruns of 'The Batchelorette' when I already knew who she chose. Last night, the online newspapers had already announced the new junta directiva that was yet to be voted on by congress today.



Today's Honduran congressional session was an exact replica of Tuesday's with a little less chaos. It was absolutely, shockingly, undemocratically unbelieveable!

The session

The session was opened with the usual parliamentary procedures. Then the show started. The provisional president once again called on Nacionalista Reinaldo Sánchez first, despite others who also had their hands up to speak. Sánchez presented president-elect Juan Orlando Hernández's slate of congressional officers and suggested that since 30 voting machines were nonfunctional, the voting be by show of hands.



Provisional (and now permanent) President of the Congress, Mauricio Oliva, announced the following in rapid succession:



We have a motion.

Is there discussion?

Sufficiently discussed, to voting.

Motion approved!

(Officers were sworn in)

Session is closed.



This entire scenario took about four minutes, two of which was Sánchez reading the motion. My head was spinning with disbelief.

Undemocratic display of power

Again the Nacionalistas could not resist a display of dictatorial power. In violation of parliamentary procedures, Oliva denied the other parties a chance to present their own motion or to discuss and debate Sánchez's motion as is the democratic right of every congressman.

Oliva did not even pause after "Is there discussion?" to look up to see the numerous raised hands before declaring the motion to be "sufficiently discussed". Nacionalistas and Liberales cheered loudly and applauded while the opposition parties stood in the aisle in disbelief with hands still raised hoping to be recognized. Two LIBRE members were holding large banners which said "Pido la palabra" ("I ask for recognition"). The 13 PAC diputados turned their backs as a group to the podium after also being denied the right to speak.



Why? Why act this way? Nacionalistas had already won the game. Their motion was already negotiated and guaranteed to pass. Why did they feel it was necessary to "put the boot to the neck" in another display of absolute power? Why couldn't they have showed a tiny bit of respect for the population who voted for opposition parties and allow everyone to at least discuss the motion that they knew was a shoe-in to win anyway? They had nothing to lose by taking the high road.



The only reason I can think of is that they wanted to provoke the opposition parties again. I know that sounds crazy. Why would they want that? Because more chaos would feed the "ungovernability" argument which the traditional parties are using relentlessly in the media to try to frighten the population.



The session itself was mostly orderly until near the end when opposition members realized that their democratic right to be recognized was again denied. Then the shouting started. Shouting and boos or applause from the audience is common and it's hard to tell how much of the noise was a result of that. By watching the first video below, I later discovered that the government channel didn't show much of the action, including the scene after the closure of the session where LIBREs were shouting "Dictadura!" and "Cabildeo!" The congress' television channel focused on the chairman and the Nacionalista side of the room. I don't remember exactly when or how the government channel ended their coverage or know whether or not it is edited, but watching this Channel 36 video was like watching a different session!

New Junta Directiva

The new 17-member junta directiva (board of officers) consists of 15 Nacionalistas (88%), the one and only UD congressman, who voted with them, and the one and only DC congressman, who also voted with them. Does that sound democratic to you?



Here's the distribution of the congressional seats by political party:



Nacional        48        37%

LIBRE           37        29%

Liberal           27        21%

PAC              13        10%

UD                  1       <1%

DC                  1       <1%

PINU                1       <1%



Total            128



As a result, the UD and DC parties have 100% representation. Nice. The three parties who formed a pact to reverse the tax paquetazo have 0% representation (LIBRE, PAC, and PINU). And almost one out of every three Nacional congressmen are members of the junta directiva.



Partido Liberal could have had representation if their party leadership hadn't directed otherwise. PL was trying to take the high road and show that they weren't exchanging votes for positions in the junta. Former presidential candidate Mauricio Villeda also proclaimed that Liberales would not accept any positions in JOH's cabinet - but that remains to be seen. It will likely happen despite the official party decree. To me this seems a reckless abandonment of the chance to provide some influence. While party leadership sees it differently, many Liberales are expressing disillusionment, further dividing an already divided party.

The spin

I watched several political talk shows where Tuesday's congress was debated. Many presented only one side, others were less biased. Popular host Renato Alvarez said that he had talked privately to a large number of moderate and knowledgeable analysts and politicians of several parties, including Nacionalistas. He said that the majority of them indicated that what the Nacionalistas did was wrong.



In this show, rather than responding to legitimate questions about what they had done, his Nacionalista guests repeatedly reminded viewers of Mel Zelaya's actions in 2009 (more fear factor). Ironically, what this administration accomplished in the past four years is not terribly dissimilar to what they were warning about in 2009 – consolidating money and power in the executive branch, weakening the judiciary and congress, and trying to debilitate the power of the media.



Nacionalista legal expert Diputado Oswaldo Ramos Soto initially planted the seed that everything was being done appropriately in accordance with parliamentary procedure that is used all over the world. This was taken at face value and was regurgitated without any media investigation of "Robertson's [sic] Rules of Order" as Ramos Soto called Robert's Rules of Order. Opposition parties were called ignorant and told that they need to learn the rules (which they do but so does Mauricio Oliva). However, as time passes, it appears that more are speaking out about democracy and the basic principles of parliamentary procedure, which Wikipedia describes as:

"Parliamentary procedure is based on the principles of allowing the majority to make decisions effectively and efficiently (majority rule), while ensuring fairness towards the minority and giving each member or delegate the right to voice an opinion."

Diputado Antonio Rivera Callejas is the Nacionalistas number one damage control guy. He's everywhere, all the time, giving interviews. When asked why no other parties were allowed to speak, he now simply dismisses the question with, "They have four years to say all they want." (shown also in the video linked below.)

Propaganda

A dramatic new TV commercial debuted shortly after the session. I haven't been fast enough to write down all the dialogue but this will paraphrase it pretty well:



Image: a pendulum swinging gently.

Voice over and text (paraphrased): Democracy has to have balance, without alliances, in opposition as a balance, ...



Image: close up of wonderfully looking fresh vegetables in the market.

Voice over and text (paraphrased): ... for Honduras, for democracy, a vote for governability in exchange for the basic food basket of the Honduran people.



Image: pretty young Honduran lady cooking an ample meal: She says: "Thanks to God for the Liberal Party who gave back the food for my family!"



Here is a print ad with basically the same message:

Whether through neglect or design, both traditional parties are responsible for at least 15 years of dismally inadequate education. It's easy for politicians to assume their people will believe anything. However, people will soon realize that costs of their basic food items have risen permanently whether taxed or not. Some already recognize that PAC, LIBRE, and PINU were the first to propose tax reversals and that it would have happened anyway. Some even are aware that the majority of Liberales voted for the original tax paquetazo in the first place.



The new congress was officially installed on Saturday. Monday will be the first legislative session.

~~~~~~~~

Related Videos:

Note: To better understand the videos, the right-hand rows are Nacionalistas until the last two rows which are PAC and the three small parties. The front three left-hand rows are Liberales, following by the remaining rows which are LIBRE.



Video of Thursday's congressional session 



Video of Tuesday's congressional session In this video of Tuesday's session, starting about minute 12:30, you'll see that Africo Madrid declared Sánchez's motion approved before Nacionalista's (on the right) began raising their hands to vote.



Video of Tuesday's session with interviews of several diputados from different parties.

Honduran Blueberry-Lemon Cake

Lemon cake with Honduran blueberries

Ah, we need a break from all that seriousness, don't we?



Doesn't that cake look yummy? Before I came to Honduras, blueberries were my favorite fruit. Now I would have to say that mangoes are on top with blueberries being a close second. Imagine how happy I was to find that blueberries are grown in Honduras! Then imagine how sad I was to find that most of the crop is exported.



You can occasionally find blueberries in La Ceiba, where they are incredibly cheap compared to US blueberry prices, but a little more expensive compared to tropical fruits. However, blueberries aren't well known here so sometimes the store's supply isn't as fresh as it should be.



Lucky me, I have a connection so I get some nice fresh Honduran blueberries every once in awhile. I hoard them away in the freezer and dole them out like they are made of gold. Honduran blueberries are similar (or the same?) as the rabbit-eye blueberries grown in Texas: big and juicy. Combine those berries with some big, fat, juicy Honduran limes or lemons, if you prefer, in a sweet, moist cake and you have blueberry-lemon heaven.



I felt like baking a cake not long ago. I started searching my cookbooks for a lemon cake recipe (one of El Jefe's favorites). Then I remembered my blueberry stash in the freezer and a Lemon-Blueberry cake recipe I had made long ago. It was a lower fat-lower calorie cake recipe.



I started making it, when it occurred to me: Is my Catracho going to be satisfied with a low-fat, low-sugar cake? I don't think so! In fact, after he saw the cake later, his happy face turned downtrodden when I started telling him that I had a recipe from a low-fat cookbook. Then I went on to explain that I modified the recipe to fatten it up, which cheered him up considerably. Yes, that is shameful, but if you are going to eat dessert, it might as well be the real thing.



Here is my recipe. I hope you enjoy it:

La Gringa's Honduran Blueberry-Lemon Cake

3 1/2 cups sifted flour

2 tsps. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

-------

3/4 cup milk

1/2 cup lemon juice

1 cup mantequilla blanca (or sour cream)

1 tsp. vanilla

-------

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup butter, softened (1 stick)

-------

3 tbsp. lemon zest, divided use (~4 medium lemons)

1 1/2 - 2 cups cups fresh or frozen Honduran blueberries

1-2 tbsp. sifted flour



Glaze

1 1/4 cups powdered sugar

3-4 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp. of lemon zest from above



Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour a 10-cup bundt pan or, I'm guessing, two loaf pans or maybe 1 1/2 to 2 dozen cupcakes. This cake rose quite a bit so whatever you use, don't fill it more than about 2/3 full.



Combine 3 1/2 cups of flour with baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.



Combine milk and 1/2 cup lemon juice and let sit for about 5 minutes until it thickens. Add mantequilla and vanilla and whisk to combine. If using sour cream instead of mantequilla, I think I'd add an extra 1/4 cup of milk. Set aside.



In a large bowl, beat sugar and eggs about 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add softened butter and beat another 2 minutes. To the sugar mixture, alternate adding about 1/3 of the milk mixture with 1/3 of the flour mixture at a time, beating on low speed with each addition until blended. The batter will be thick.



Place blueberries in a colander, rinse if necessary. No need to thaw them if frozen. (It's preferable not to thaw because the juice then sometimes turns your batter grey). Shake off excess water and sprinkle berries with 1-2 tbsp. sifted flour. Toss the berries in the colander to lightly coat them with flour. Gently fold the berries and 2 tbsp. lemon zest into the batter.



Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan and bake for 50-55 minutes until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, invert the cake onto a wire rack to finish cooling. While still a bit warm, but not hot, pour the glaze over the cake. For loaf pans, I'd check the doneness of the cakes at about 40-45 minutes and for cupcakes, at about 20-25 minutes.

Glaze

Sift the powered sugar into a small bowl. Add 2-3 tablespoons or so of lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of lemon zest. Stir well. Add more juice until the glaze is the consistency you like. (Truth is I forgot to measure the juice.) Drizzle over slightly warm cake.



Enjoy!

If you try this recipe, please let me know how you like it. By the way, I call this Honduran blueberry cake not because it is a Honduran recipe but because it has Honduran blueberries – just to be clear. Of course, it would work with any type of blueberries.



Blueberry tip: Don't wash blueberries before freezing. Spread on a cookie sheet to freeze and then place into a plastic freezer bag. They will freeze separately better that way allowing you to measure out what you need, but more importantly, the skin tends to become tough if you freeze them after washing them.

Democracy

“To view the opposition as dangerous is to misunderstand the basic concepts of democracy. To oppress the opposition is to assault the very foundation of democracy.” — Aung San Suu Kyi



“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” — James Madison, US President (1809-1817)



"Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence" — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark



“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear." — Harry S. Truman, US President (1945-1953)



“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” — Theodore Roosevelt, US President (1901-1909)





"The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections." — Lord Acton



“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” — Benjamin Franklin

My thoughts

From my viewpoint, an awful lot of people are losing sight of the true meaning of democracy and instead are siding with the use of the very sort authoritarian and undemocratic actions that they claimed to be protecting the country from in 2009.



It's particularly sad and hypocritical that so much of the media is supporting the right of the Nacionalistas to suppress the opposition's right to speak. In recent years, both Liberal and Nacionalista governments have threatened freedom of speech in the media several times.

"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." –Voltaire



"Puede ser que a alguien no le guste la izquierda o la derecha, pero si es demócrata debe defender su existencia" –Piedad Córdoba Ruiz

How many times in history has someone said that it's okay to be authoritarian for the greater good? How many times was it for the greater good?



If you understand Spanish, please watch these video interviews (December 2013) with an open mind. Liberal Diputado Dario Banegas, who I respect greatly, discusses the dictatorial nature and intolerance of Mauricio Oliva who was presiding over the old congress. Banegas and PINU Diputado Mario Rivera also discussed their concern over the mass of laws passed after the election which put too much power in the presidency. Banegas said that JOH spent four years passing laws consolidating power in the congress and then, during the last month (after his election), managed to get a boatload of laws passed that move that power to the presidency.



These two men were the only diputados that I saw in many sessions of Congress in December and January who spoke out against the railroading of laws through without analysis and discussion or even the ability to read the law before it was passed. In this video, both warn of the consolidation of powers in the presidency and the weakening of the powers of the congress. This, in my opinion, is something to be concerned about.



From my last article: Ironically, what Nacionalistas have accomplished in the past four years is not terribly dissimilar to what they and Liberales were warning about in 2009 – consolidating money and power in the executive branch, weakening the judiciary and congress, and trying to debilitate the power of the media. This is something to be feared no matter which party is doing it.



It's just a fact that a large portion of the Honduran population do not believe that they are represented by the traditional parties – even among those who vote for them. In fact, thinking back, I can't remember anyone I know ever telling me that they felt represented by their congressmen. For many years, the only way people believed they could be "heard" was by protesting in the streets or in front of government buildings.



Now Honduras has two new parties who were able to obtain 39% of the congress in their first election. That is a major accomplishment. Just imagine how those voters feel to see that they still have no representation in congress because the traditional parties won't allow them to participate.



That has to change.

Honduras solves its crime problem

Cartoon by Dario Banegas, La Prensa, Honduras

Honduras has solved its crime problem in the only way the Honduras government knows how — manipulate the statistics!



Honduras' Observatorio de la Violencia (OV) has announced that they will no longer provide crime reports and statistics because the Honduras Minister of Security has refused to provide data to the OV.



Note: See update Observatorio will continue to provide crime reports using other sources.



The Observatorio has been the only objective source of Honduran crime information since 2005. It is supported by the United Nations and the Swiss Cooperation Agency. It operates out of and under the supervision of UNAH, the national university system. In 2011, after the UN proclaimed Honduras the "Murder Capital of the World" and the Rector of the UNAH system's son was killed by police, worldwide attention was devoted to Honduras' crime statistics.







Then President Lobo and his Minister of Security began putting on hundreds of "shows" — road blocks where police check auto registration and driver's licenses — to show that the police were hard at work on crime. Numerous government announcements began coming out that "Crime has been reduced in Tegucigalpa by 70%", "No murders have occurred in San Pedro for six days", and President Lobo once even had the audacity to proclaim that "crime has been reduced to practically zero". After a decade of rising murder rates, all this supposedly happened practically overnight. But the people weren't buying the propaganda. They knew better. So did the OV. The 2011 homicide report showed a significant increase over the already high levels.

Numbers within the columns indicate the homicide rate per 100,000

Shortly after Minister of Security Arturo Corrales was appointed by President Juan Orlando Hernández, the battle of the crime statistics began. Police would announce the number of murders or reduction in murders with nothing but their word to back it up, but the OV would announce a higher number. In addition to police and morgue reports, the OV compares all of the murders against the national newspaper reports. They were often finding that newspapers reported murders (complete with details and photos) that weren't included in the police statistics. In the months preceding Corrales' denial of data, the following chart shows the types of discrepancies that the OV was finding.

Click to view larger image

I've discussed in the past the many reasons why the police statistics are understated but just briefly, a) murders aren't reported, b) murders are reported but are deliberately not recorded by local police, c) bodies are just buried by perpetrators in clandestine mass graveyards or they just disappear and are never processed by the morgues, and d) there are no reporters in most of the towns in Honduras. Now I would add to that list deliberate government manipulation of murder statistics. Similarly, the OV statistics are understated because there are no reporters in much of the country's small remote towns. I believe that even though the OV statistics are more accurate, they are probably understated by a minimum of 10%, possibly more.



About mid-year 2013, Minister of Security Arturo Corrales began prohibiting police from talking to reporters and refusing to provide data to the OV. He then announcing that the OV statistics couldn't be accurate only the police could determine whether a death was a murder or not — that's a bold statement considering that the majority of violent deaths go uninvestigated. He is apparently saying that without an autopsy, a death cannot be considered a homicide. He realizes, of course, that many murder victims are not autopsied. For the state of Olancho alone, 232 bodies of a total of 278 violent deaths were not sent to Tegucigalpa for autopsy during the first eight months of 2010, resulting in an 83% understatement for that period. It doesn't take an expert to determine that someone shot five times in the back of the head is a murder victim, autopsy or not.



The OV struggled through 2013, gathering and analyzing what data they could obtain from the Criminal Investigative Unit, the police stations, the morgues, and newspapers, and completed the 2013 reports, which of course showed a reduction in murders from 2012, but still not as large a reduction as Corrales claimed. Despite outraged denuncias of lack of transparency, both within Honduras and internationally, no action was taken to support the OV. Corrales' decisions apparently have the support of President Hernández, since he certainly has the power to make Corrales provide the data.



Minister Corrales has additionally discussed setting up "Observatorio" committees in each of the approximately 300 municipalities to oversee the police data. One way to make sure that nothing gets done in Honduras is to appoint a committee to handle the project, even better 298 municipal committees. Committees usually consist of some number of government officials, one church member, one person representing civil society, one person representing labor unions, etc. Citizen appointees often have no particular expertise in the area or special knowledge or ability to analyze the issue, and may not even have an interest in the subject. It's not unusual that some committees never even meet, or if they do, they don't take their responsibilities seriously. In any case, they are always outnumbered by government representatives who control the show and make sure that even if the committee comes up with concrete results or suggestions, those results are never acted upon but instead languish in a Minister or President's desk for years.



The police circumvented the transparency issue by developing their own crime data website. While there are some good things about this website, let me count the ways it is inadequate and inaccurate:



1. Data from one page to another on the site isn't consistent. For example, a data report on 2013 murders in the state of Atlántida results in 464 murders. The interactive map reports 309 for the same state and period. Also shown on this map is an unknown figure of 56 which, if it is supposed to be included, results in a total of 365 murders.



2. The interactive map gives numbers, but no indication of the size of the areas covered by those numbers. The map is a major road map, with the state lines only lightly marked. Those state lines disappear at larger and smaller zoom levels. Numbers are sometimes reflected within one state's borders when they actually relate to another. Additionally, there is no population data. The worldwide standard manner of reporting homicides per 100,000 population is not used at all on this website. The various OV maps and charts were much more informative.



3. The interactive map is inaccurate. It gives different results for the same searches. As discussed in 1. above, the first couple of times I searched for homicides, all sexes, departamento (state) of Atlántida, all municipalities, from 1/1/13 through 12/31/13, the results showed 309 vs. the total of 464 reported in the data section. In another map search of all states, Atlántida was shown to have 457 murders. When I went back to double check, it showed 327 murders plus some miscellaneous numbers, some of numbers are shown in locations that aren't even in Atlántida. Here is a screen shot:

Click for larger view

If you individually select each of the eight municipalities in Atlantida, you get these results: La Ceiba* 280 murders, El Porvenir 27, Esparta 16, Jutiapa 21, La Masica 14, San Francisco 14, Tela 74, and Arizona 8, which totals 454, yet another number that doesn't agree with either the basic data or the statewide data. I have no idea what the 56 to the west of La Ceiba represents. No combination of municipalities in that area gives a result of 56. The blue 2 appears to be over Sonaguera which is not in Atlántida and the 78 appears to be in Yoro. However, if you add those four numbers, you get 463, which is close to the Atlántida total given in the data section.



*In the data section, the report for Registro de Fallecidos (register of deaths) shows that La Ceiba reported 288 deaths in 2013.



If all of that isn't bad enough, I rechecked Atlántida's eight municipality figures and the second time, San Francisco became 13 instead of 14, and Arizona became 9 instead of 8. Apparently, it is possible to make the same selections and receive different results each time.



3. The interactive map is unreliable. The numbers reported change as you zoom in or out. For example, if you zoom in just enough to see a number for Sonaguera (southeast of La Ceiba), the map shows 195 plus 139 in Tocoa and 2 in an unnamed town for a total of 336 murders in the state of Colón. Zoom in one more click and you see Sonaguera 53, Trujillo 62, Tocoa 103, Bonito Oriental 16, plus 5, 2, and 2 in which the towns aren't shown for a total in Colón of 243 murders. (The 22 in Jutiapa is in the state of Atlántida.) Zoom in one more click and you see Sonaguera 38, Trujillo 61, Tocoa 100, Saba 14, Taujica 2, and 2, 5, 2, 2 for which no towns are shown plus 2 blue pins with no numbers, for a total of 228 Colón murders. The data section of the website indicates there were 244 murders in Colón.



4. Data is not "linkable" or downloadable for researchers.



5. Data is missing or duplicated. On the Registro de Fallecidos for Atlantida, I happened to notice a 10-year-old victim named Bairon Noe Muñoz on page one, victim #145. Then I saw the same exact murder also reported on page two, victim #274. The total number on that report is 464 so either his murder was counted twice or at least one other murder victim is omitted.

Click for larger view

I then searched for Héctor Ramos, a well-known La Ceiba businessman who was kidnapped and then murdered after the family had agreed to pay the ransom in December 2013. He was not included on the list on the statewide report. However, in searching for Hector, I found three other Hectors who were also duplicated, Hector Cruz, victim 149 and 278; Hector Sevilla, victim 183 and 312; Hector Coca, victim 191 and 320. In searching the Registro de Fallecidos for La Ceiba, I again found that Hector Ramos' name was missing and the three other Hectors were duplicated, but a fourth Hector, Hector Rivas, was listed who was not included on the Registro de Fallecidos for Atlántida.



I searched for another high-profile murder victim, Nedenia Post Dye of the Post cereal family whose December 2013 murder on Roatán made international news. She was not listed among the 21 victims on the Islas de la Bahia Registro de Fallecidos. Then I searched for Juan Ramón Lopez, who was killed February 7, 2013 near Tocoa, Colón. He also was not listed.



6. Listings of murder victims are not arranged in any order within municipalities and states. To see if a specific murder victim is listed requires scanning through hundreds of names. To search for all the duplicates like I found in 3. above would be impossible.



7. 2014 data is not available in either the detailed data reports or the map. If you wanted to verify that a murder victim was listed or compare last week's newspaper reports with the police data, I guess you would have to wait until next year.



8. Data is laughable in some cases. For example:



a) The "Detinidos" (detained) section of the June 15, 2014 weekly report compares the number of detainees for faltas varias (minor issues) for January 1 through June 15 as 29 in 2013 and 23,978 in 2014. First of all, 'detained', like 'suspended', is a word with no defined meaning which is used by the police department to confuse the media and population by implying one thing when what actually happened is something different. Detained could mean that a criminal was apprehended and put in jail. It could also mean that police stopped a vehicle for 5 minutes or that a teenager was thrown into jail overnight for absolutely no reason and then released the next day with no charges. If I had to guess, these 23,978 would largely be made up of the number of innocent citizens stopped at road blocks to allow the police to check their driver's license and auto registration.



b) Similarly, the "Patrullajes" (patrols) section of that same report include numbers which can only be a result of creative accounting. I'd like to believe that the police are doing more patrols -- I want to believe that! -- but if that is happening, it is primarily in San Pedro and Tegucigalpa and I simply can't believe these numbers: patrols on foot, 2013: 4,837, 2014: 38,007; patrols in vehicles, 2013: 2,524, 2014: 63,855; patrols in motorcycles, 2013: 13, 2014: 19,755. And what is the definition of a patrol? Is it an 8-hour shift or a 10-minute drive around a couple of blocks?



c) For the week ending June 15, this report shows a 24% reduction in homicides. Sorry. I do not believe that for one minute! Overall, the police are showing an almost 18% year to date reduction in homicides. I don't believe that either. I imagine that there are file cabinets full of cases awaiting an investigation or determination that will never happen. I've seen one of those file cabinets in La Ceiba!



d) In the data section for La Ceiba, a municipality of around 250,000 population and the third largest city in Honduras, the police report one robbery of persons and two robberies of homes! The actual numbers would be closer to 1,000 times those numbers. This can't entirely be blamed on the police because the vast majority of crimes are never reported as people know that it is a complete waste of time or that the police might even be involved.



There are some good things about the website, if it was accurate. Listing the victims by name could result in more credibility for the police statistics. Unfortunately, it did the opposite for me since I couldn't find any of the victims I looked for. Additionally, being able to zoom in on the map to the aldea (town) and barrio level to show where the murders occurred is also helpful.



Overall, using the website is tedious and inefficient. To check several categories or departments for any period, you have reenter each of the selections all over again, and click back through 12 calendars to select dates each and every time. Compiling usable data for comparison purposes or even searching for a specific murder is near impossible. The website definitely was not designed with users needs in mind and was not adequately tested to ensure accurate results.



I'm convinced that this was the point of the Sepol website: To be able to say that the police are transparent, while at the same time not providing usable or accurate data and analyses. Having the notoriously corrupt police department provide the only source of information is like having soccer players decide whether or not they have committed a penalty. There is no reason that the Observatorio de la Violencia not continue as the only serious and objective source of Honduras' crime data. The Sepol website is not going to fool anyone, least of all the UN, who ignores government statistics that they find unreliable.



In order to provide real transparency, President Juan Orlando Hernández should order the Minister of Security to provide any and all data requested by the OV. Unfortunately, the truth is not helpful in attracting business and tourists to Honduras which is the President's focus. But the truth is what it is and the Honduran government should be doing more to protect its population and less in trying to obfuscate the facts.





See the update, June 23: The Observatorio will continue publishing crime reports

The Observatorio will continue publishing crime reports

Julieta Castellanos

UNAH Rector Julieta Castellanos announced today that despite the difficulties, the Observatorio de la Violencia would continue to provide crime bulletins utilizing "other sources". Minister of Security Arturo Corrales has still not responded to her latest request for access to the data. He's probably circling the wagons now to put a lock on her other sources. President Hernández has had no comment on the lack of transparency.



"The style of Arturo Corrales is this: close the information. This is where one sees that the state doesn't feel compelled to render accounts," said Castellanos. She lamented that this shows a lack of democracy.



The Observatorio will be looking to establish strategic alliances with civil society and local government to control and prevent the violence phenomenen in Honduras. OV currently has local Observatorios in seven of the larger more violent towns and has plans to open others in Olanchito, Santa Rosa de Copán, and the Aguán Valley.

Failed Police Purification

Police purification was our big hope in Honduras for a year or so until even the most optimistic had to give up. The police still go on with the pretense but nothing is happening. All the international experts who were assisting, including the US, gave up and left long ago.



I ran across an March article on the UNAH newspaper site about this so I should give you an update. Julieta Castellanos reported that 90% of the police who failed the confidence tests (drug and lie detector tests and financial audits) are still working for the police department. She commented that there is incoherence and lack of coordination and investigation in the institutions responsible for the process.



Castellanos went on to say that the Minister of Security, the authorities of the Ministerio Público (attorney general), and the Tribunal Superior de Cuentas (general accounting office) seem to have a resistence to investigate the higher level officers for fear that they will investigate them.

Josué Murillo, coordinator of the Alianza por la Paz y la Justicia (Alliance for Peace and Justice) (APJ) questioned that instead of firing police who didn't pass the confidence tests as the new law allows, an agreement was reached to allow several high level officials to retire honorably complete with benefits. He lamented that there are still police involved in illicit acts. Carlos Hernández, member of Association for a Just Society (ASJ in Spanish) said that only 29 police have been fired and the lack of action results in bad morale for the agents who agree with police purification. (Both of these are great organizations that do an incredible job of exposing corruption and occasionally even getting the government to work with them to make improvements.) Ironically, the photo above is of newly inaugurated President Hernández signing a transparency agreement with Transparency International and ASJ (who is the local TI representative organization).



Here we are approximately 2 1/2 years from the time we were told that the police would be "purified" in six months. Press conferences told us over and over again that 100 police were 'suspended' here, 100 there (that magic meaningless word 'suspended'), yet we would later find out that these police had only been transferred to other duties or at best were on paid leave. Even police who had outstanding arrest warrants (including for bank robbery and murder!) or who were tried or awaiting trial for kidnapping, robbery, or extorsion were still on the payroll. If you think I'm exaggerating, take a look at this sample of old articles in which I documented newpaper reports of police crimes for a couple of months:



From the 'too odd to believed' criminal cops files

Continuing police crime, November 25



By the way, in most of places in which I mention police agents being suspended or fired in those articles, that was deliberate misleading of the media by the police.

A corrupt – and I mean corrupt – police agent

When we talk about corrupt police in Honduras, we aren't talking about minor things like taking a bribe for not issuing a traffic ticket. One of the worst examples is Santos Arnulfo Padilla Rodriguez.



In 2010, police agent Santos Padilla was charged with the kidnapping of a North American couple and the theft of their vehicle. He was tried but released because the victims were too afraid to testify in court — Padilla had threatened their lives. He had also been investigated along with his partner, Wilfredo Figueroa Velásquez,  for robberies, extortion, and paid assassination. He was known as "Trigger Happy" by other police in his unit for his propensity to shoot out tires of anyone who didn't stop at a road block or to even kill and 'disappear' them. According to another police agent, Padilla would shoot suspects, gang members, or anyone who caught him in a bad mood. Amazingly, none of this affected his job with the police department at all.



He was one of the four police who killed Julieta Castellanos' 22-year-old son and his friend in October 2011. Initially police tried to cover up the evidence but due to public outrage, the four officers were taken into custody. Incredibly, these suspects were given "the weekend off" by their superior and told to report again on Monday. They, of course, disappeared with not much effort on the part of the police to find them. Padilla turned himself in a year later. He and the others were ultimately convicted in December 2013. He was ordered to serve 87 years in prison. Four other police were involved but were never arrested or tried, including a higher level officer who allegedly gave the okay to "get rid of the problem".



In June 2014, Padilla was convicted of killing another four young men in September 2011 and condemned to an additional 66 years in prison. Padilla was a mass murderer on the police payroll, wearing a uniform and carrying a gun and the police knew he was trouble for at least a year before any of these murders occurred. If the police had taken action against him in 2010, six (or more) young men might be alive today. There is really no telling how many crimes he was actually involved in that were not investigated or how many more like him are still on the police force.

Another strike out on the Victim Registry

I looked up another 2013 murder victim today on the Honduran police website, Isiaha Alexis Perez Reyes. He was the 18-year-old brother of a friend of ours. Isiaha was severely tortured, then murdered by gunshots, and then his body was thrown in the Rio Cangrejal. Police recovered his body a day or so later. He was identified by the family and autopsied. There was no question of not knowing his name or whether or not it was a case of murder, yet his name was not listed on La Ceiba's register, as was the case with every victim I've looked up so far. Just to be sure his name wasn't mangled, I searched by his first name and both last names each separately. Nada.



I again found duplicate victim listings on the register: a duplicate Perez and a duplicate Reyes.

Updated US Travel Warning for Honduras, June 24

Map of Honduras

The US State Department issued a new travel warning today for US citizens planning to go to Honduras.



Here are some of the highlights [emphasis is mine]:



The Department of State continues to warn U.S. citizens that the level of crime and violence in Honduras remains critically high....



U.S. citizens are victims of crime at levels similar to those of the local population, and do not appear to be targeted based on their nationality. Although Roatan/Bay Islands, Copan Mayan ruins, and other tourist destinations and resorts have a lower crime rate than other parts of the country, thefts, break-ins, assaults, and murders do occur and are still high by international standards. In 2012, the Government of Honduras increased police presence and established special police forces in areas frequented by tourists, such as the Copan Mayan ruins and Roatan....







Tourists traveling with group tours also report fewer criminal incidents. However, the San Pedro Sula area has seen armed robberies against tourist vans, minibuses, and cars traveling from the airport to area hotels, and there have also been armed robberies along the road to Copan. Visitors are strongly urged to exercise caution in discussing travel plans in public.



Several U.S. citizens have reported being robbed while walking on isolated beaches....The vast majority of cruise line passengers in Honduras experience no problems, but incidents of armed robbery and carjacking have been reported. Coxen Hole on the island of Roatan should be avoided after dark. The vast majority of serious crimes in Honduras, including those against U.S. citizens, are never solved.



Members of the Honduran National Police have been known to engage in criminal activity, including murder and car theft. The government of Honduras lacks sufficient resources to properly investigate and prosecute cases, and police often lack vehicles or fuel to respond to calls for assistance. In practice, this means police may take hours to arrive at the scene of a violent crime, or may not respond at all. As a result, criminals operate with a high degree of impunity throughout Honduras. The Honduran government is still in the early stages of substantial reforms to its criminal justice institutions.



Kidnappings remain a concern and are believed to be underreported. Since January 1, 2012, four cases of kidnapped U.S. citizens were reported to the U.S. Embassy. The kidnapping victims were all subsequently released, sometimes paying large ransoms to their captors.



.....Most of Honduras’ major cities (Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula, La Ceiba, and others), as well as several Honduran “departments” (a geographic designation similar to U.S. states) have homicide rates higher than the national average for 2013, including:



DEPARTMENT CAPITAL

Atlántida La Ceiba

Colón Trujillo

Cortés San Pedro Sula

Ocotepeque Ocotepeque

Yoro Yoro



There are no reliable statistics for the department of Gracias a Dios; however, travelers to the area should note that it is a remote location where narcotics trafficking is frequent, infrastructure is weak, government services are limited, and police or military presence is scarce....

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The travel warning notes that Honduras has had the highest murder rate in the world since 2010 and also gives both the Minister of Security's calculated murder rate for 2013 (75.6 per 100,000) and the Observatorio de la Violencia murder rate (79 per 100,000). I believe shows that the US government does not rely on the Minister of Security's "official" statistics.



Please read the entire warning at the US State Department website. It includes links to other information as well as safety and reporting tips.



This time the State Department did not include the number of US citizens murdered since 2008. In the December 2013 travel warning, it was 50 US citizens, of which only two cases had been solved. With each warning, the State Department changes the period for which they report the number of murders of US citizens so that it is impossible to quantify the current year. Very annoying.



I was looking at my blog about the June 2013 US Travel Warning and I see that I predicted that the Minister of Security would be manipulating the 2013 crime statistics! At that time, Corrales had forbidden police agents from talking to reporters. About that same time in 2013 was when he stopped providing crime data to the Observatorio.



Recent related articles:

June 22: Honduras solves its crime problem

June 23: The Observatorio will continue publishing crime reports

Passionfruit (Maracuyá)

Passiflora edulis – Passionfruit vine

That is my passionfruit vine. Here's another photo of it growing around a banana plant.

Click any of the photos to view larger

Here the vine is continuing its journey over some other plants.

And here climbing over my macadamia nut tree.

Here is another vine climbing up to the top of my crepe myrtle tree.

And here it is reaching for the roof on top of my variegated hibiscus. When it takes hold, it does not want to let go!

I should have paid more attention to my CURLA tropical fruit book. I read about passiflora edulis when I first planted the seeds but then my part in the project (severe pruning) was quickly forgotten and I left the vine to do its own thing. According to CURLA, in this area the vines can reach a kudzu-like 80 meters (~260 feet) in length if left untrimmed.

Did you see the fruits? No? Me neither. Not a one! I've only seen about five flowers, one at a time, which promptly fell off instead of producing fruit. I think we planted them about a year and a half ago so maybe it is too soon. The vines were almost completely defoliated by butterfly larvae last year so that setback might have something to do with the lack of fruit, too. Since I don't have a flower to show you, this is a photo from Wikipedia.



I bought some passionfruit recently from Axel, a little boy who comes around every now and then selling lemons, mangos or other fruit. When he found out I like maracuyá, he came back again a couple of days later with a bigger bag for me. Enterprising little boy! I told him that I have plants but not any fruit and got him to inspect my plantings. He was impressed with the size and said that if his plant was that big, it would have 100 fruit on it. Thanks a lot! Rub it in. He and his brother Juan also pointed out that someone was macheteing my plants and probably cutting off all the potential flowers and fruit. Hmmmm.



If you aren't familiar with passionfruit (maracuyá in Spanish), there isn't much fruit inside – it's mostly brown/black seeds covered with a sort of gelatinous yellowish covering, a little juice, and a couple of small blobs of soft orange pulp. It's like the inside of a juicy, seedy tomato, except that the juice is yellow and the tiny seeds are crunchy. The flavor reminds me of grapefruit with a bit of a tropical twist and the crunch of the seeds is really nice.

Yellow Passionfruit

The first time I ever opened a passionfruit, I had no idea what I was supposed to do with the seeds. How could you separate the seeds from the fruit? The recipes that I found called for passionfruit pulp. What pulp? Well, it's simple: you use the bit of pulp, the juice, and the seeds, too. In this photo, I'm cutting into Axel's fruits and scooping out the insides. The rinds are thrown away. The edible part inside easily scoops out with a spoon.

The most common way maracuyá are used in Honduras (that I'm aware of) is to make juice or licuados (smoothies). You can blend the fruit, seeds and all, with sugar and water (about 3-4 parts water to one part fruit, sugar to taste) and strain it, or just mix it all together and serve the juice with seeds. I prefer it with seeds. Passionfruit goes really well with yogurt, but my absolute favorite is passionfruit ice cream, with seeds, of course. Those crunchy seeds give you a burst of flavor when you bite into them.

Passionfruit is also used in jams, cocktails, as toppings for cheesecake and flan, and in other desserts. A nice thing about passionfruit is that if you get a super harvest, you can freeze the excess pulp and seeds with no loss of flavor or texture and it doesn't take up much space at all.



Passionfruit is sometimes available in the grocery stores here in La Ceiba and probably more often in the market. The smaller purple variety is more orange inside and less acidic but the plant is more susceptible to problems. Maracuyá keeps for a relatively long time and is still good even after it gets all wrinkly.



The attractive vines are easy to grow from seeds. Axel suggested I plant some seeds from his fruit to see if they do any better. I'm going to do that and if I get a bumper crop, I'll share the fruit with him.

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Below are some links if you'd like to know more about passionfruit:



Tropical Permaculture: Growing Passionfruit Vines



Wikipedia: Passiflora edulis



How to (Select and) Eat Passionfruit



One of my favorite sources of tropic fruit information is Fruits of Warm Climates by Julia F. Morton. The book is available online at Purdue University. I enjoy reading about the history of the fruits and the various uses in different countries. Here is the page on passionfruit.



Frutales y Condimentarias del Trópico Húmedo (Fruits and Spices of the Humid Tropics) covers well over 100 tropical fruits with photos of the fruit, flower, leaf, and the plant at various stages of growth. The book includes some information from Julia F. Morton's book, as well as specific local information (best varieties, growing and harvesting conditions, as well as common pests) based on trials done by CURLA and the Lancetilla botanical garden and consultations with local experts. The book is available for about $20 at CURLA University here in La Ceiba. It's in Spanish, of course.