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....

~~~~~~

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.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

Extorting the lifeblood out of Honduras

"For not wanting to give up his house"

Photo:  El Tiempo, Honduras

Extortion is a massive problem in Honduras. It's sucking the life out of businesses, transportation providers, entrepreneurs, neighborhoods, even schools and churches. Yes, even schools and churches in some areas have to pay extortion. Teachers and children are extorted daily in some schools. One 11-year-old was killed recently after his young extortioners graduated from charging him 10 lempiras a day at school to kidnapping him. Lots of kids quit school because it's too dangerous for them to go. Gangs pressure boys as young as 10 years old to join and girls are pressured to become 'girlfriends' or prostitutes.



If you are like I was, you probably have a hard time understanding what this extortion is. I used to think of extortion like blackmail – person-A did something and person-B extorts money to keep the secret – or protection payments – business owner pays a gang to protect his business against robberies by the same gangs that are doing the extortion. Especially confusing was how anyone could be extorted by telephone. This extortion is different; it boils down to 'You have something; I want it. Pay or die'. Anyone who has anything may be required to give up part or all of it to the extortionists. The extortion demand may be made in person, by someone hired to carry a note, or by telephone.

I was in a doctor's office when the doctor left to take a telephone call. She was very upset when she came back and I asked what was wrong. "Extortionists!", she said. "They've been calling me for weeks, saying I have to pay or they will kill my sons. They know their names and where they go to school! We want to get out of this damn country! We are trying to emigrate to Europe. We have friends there." "Did you report it to the police?", I asked. "Yes. The police do nothing."

Many people, right after filing a complaint with the police, report that they and/or their families have been threatened by phone. Who is calling, how do they have their phone number, and how would they know the person filed a complaint unless the police were involved? A few months ago, an entire extended family who were running a day care center was wiped out just two days after one of the women filed an extortion complaint with the police. It's not unusual that children, even babies, are killed in these massacres.

In La Ceiba, so many people were being threatened by telephone that many gave up their landline phones. After decades of no phone lines being available from the government monopoly – we were on the Hondutel waiting list beginning in 2002 and never were able to get a phone line! – Hondutel was so desperate that they began sending employees door-to-door to solicit customers for the estimated 20,000 excess lines they now had available. However, we were warned by several neighbors not to get a Hondutel line as many of their friends were reporting extortion attempts right after their new line was installed. They believed that Hondutel employees were selling the personal information of new customers.

Honduran police have captured some of the 'collectors' carrying as much as L.170,000, presumably a day's collections, but they rarely or never arrest the bosses behind these criminal enterprises. Based on what comes out in the news, a lot of the collectors are women and minors and I don't know if police even look for the bosses. In some cases the police are the bosses behind this. I can tell you this without a doubt, anyone who is making L.100,000 a day or a week or even a month, is not going to spend his days beating the streets around town in the hot sun to collect money. He would play the executive and hire other people to do it for him. It's just like with the paid assassinations: the assassins (who are a dime a dozen and easily replaced) are sometimes captured and prosecuted, but the persons who paid for the assassinations are never, ever prosecuted in Honduras.



In some areas, you pay to live there, you pay to work there, you pay to drive a taxi there, you pay to operate a corner store or restaurant, you pay to go to school. Many small and medium Honduran businesses have closed due to extortion – the 'tariff' imposed is greater than any profit made. Many others have had to cut jobs to compensate for the money lost to extortion.

A frail old lady had a small stand on the street in La Ceiba where she sold backpacks and purses. Finding a job in Honduras when you are over 35 is very difficult. When you are in your 60's, forget about it! But guess what, people in the "third age", tercera edad as it's called in Spanish, still have to live, they have to eat, and they still need a roof over their heads, so this enterprising woman started her own little business where she was eking out a very modest living. That was until the extortionists latched on to her. Initially she paid what they asked out of fear, but when they increased her weekly payment to L.1,000, she said that left nothing for her. She decided to close her stand. What will she do now?

People have abandoned their homes to the gangs in the most dangerous areas. They can't sell their houses because who would buy a house in such an area, and even if there was a buyer, guess what? You have to pay the gangs $20,000 or whatever they decide you owe to sell your home, too. What is the penalty for not paying? Death. Enough bus owners, taxistas, business owners, and other extortion victims have been killed to prove that this isn't an empty threat.

Why don't people stand up to this extortion?

Many people have stood up to the extortionists. Emilio Sánchez did.

Emilio Sánchez Rodríguez (40) ran a small business out of his home in Comayagüela. On July 23, he commented to his mother that he was living in fear and that it was better that he sell his house and go somewhere else to rent. The next day he was abducted by gang members who took him to a 'casa loca' where he was tied up, tortured and burned. After hours of torture and mutilation, he was taken, still alive, to a street near his home where he was shot 40 times in broad daylight at 1 pm in the afternoon. A note was left on his body: "For not wanting to give up his house, sincerely, the diec18cho" (signifying the gang taking responsibility). The police have no suspects. 'Casas locas' are houses that have been taken over by gangs and are used for gang activities.

Emilio Sánchez left behind a wife and five children who now have the choice of living every day in fear that they will be next or abandoning their home. The day after Sánchez was killed, a young person was killed and his body was left with a sign that said that the rival MS gang "put him down because he didn't do what we said". The woman with the day care center mentioned above reported it to the police. That cost, if I remember correctly, five lives and it would have been more except that four children escaped through a back window when they heard the gunshots and ran to the neighbors.



More and more frequently, people aren't just being killed, they are being tortured and horribly mutilated. Their bodies aren't being hidden in empty fields, they are being transported back to the areas where they lived and dumped in open areas to further terrorize the people. Many recent murder victims have been dumped in big sacks and have written signs placed on their bodies as a warning to others.



Some of the taxi associations in La Ceiba stood up to the extortioners and refused to pay. One by one, those taxi drivers were killed until the others relented. A lot of bus owners and their helpers have been assassinated and/or their buses burned, most likely because they refused to pay. Extortionists often threaten to kill employees, wives or children in order to coerce cooperation. It's not an empty threat.

In one La Ceiba neighborhood where the gangs were trying to take control, one man was leading the neighbors to stand up to them. He had seen what happened in a nearby area and didn't want that to happen in his colonia. He was murdered after being tortured and his body mutilated. But it wasn't only him. His university student son was also tortured and murdered as was the man's brother who was only visiting at the time. The son was a friend of El Jefe's and he wasn't "involved in anything" except going to school to try to make a better life for himself.

What are the effects of extortion in Honduras?

With only an estimated 9% of homicides in Honduras even investigated by the police, there is no way to know how many people have been killed due to extortion. In some cases, relatives or friends know and say publicly that the victim was being extorted. But it's dangerous to even talk about it.



Though there is no way to accurately quantify the effects of extortion, various studies have reported that gross income from extortion is more than a billion lempiras per year in Honduras and that 40% of the population is affected by extortion. One congressman said that he personally knows at least 100 people who are paying extortion and are afraid to go to the police. He flatly states that the police have no credibility, especially when they lie to the people about crime, and admits that victims have valid fears.



An estimated 18,000 small and medium Honduran businesses have closed during the past year due to extortion. In La Ceiba alone, an estimated 200-250 businesses closed due to extortion in the first nine months of 2013, where extorsionistas may demand L.10,000-25,000 per month and even up to L.50,000-100,000 for large businesses. Based on those local figures, I would guess that the national effect is much larger than a billion lempiras.

One Walmart-owned grocery store in La Ceiba ignored extortionists and shortly thereafter was robbed by a pickup truck load of heavily armed robbers. A cashier was killed in the robbery. A few weeks later, a second robbery resulted in the death of a customer in the parking lot. Amazingly, to the best of my knowledge, neither of these robberies made the national news.

What is the government doing?

In Decreto 16-2012, Congress changed the law to provide for more severe sentences for those convicted of extortion. The penalty now is 15 to 20 years in prison. If a death is involved, the penalty is a life sentence.



After more than a decade of serious extortion problems, in 2012 the police set up anti-extortion units (Fuerza Nacional Antiextorsión de Honduras [FNA]) initially in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, later in La Ceiba, and possibly other towns, as well a dedicated telephone tip line. It's hard to know what effect the FNA has had, but 2013 statistics released by them indicate that they received almost 2,000 complaints, captured 452 persons of which 242 have been prosecuted, and saved the victims payments of about L.36 million. So far in 2014, FNA has arrested 274 extorsionistas, including 74 minors. However, after creative police math, the previous official reports of 158 arrests in 2012, 452 in 2013, and 274 in the first six months of 2014 now somehow total 1,003 extortion arrests. The police blame the population for not reporting extortion.



FNA also says that the majority of cases have nothing to do with gangs. They say, in fact, that the transportation associations themselves are involved with some of the extortions of transportistas. Every now and then there is a show of taking back a neighborhood, but the fact is that these neighborhoods were lost long ago and the police were perfectly aware of that and did virtually nothing for years. A former police commissioner denounced that one high level police official receives L.950,000 per month as a result of his cut of the impuesta de guerra (war tax). Other police have been captured in the act of extortion but its likely that they don't even lose their job for that until and if they are prosecuted and convicted.

~~~~~~~~

Have you or anyone you know been threatened by extortion in Honduras? Please leave a comment.

One of my favorite comment exchanges

Someone just posted a comment on an old article about typical Honduran food and skimming through the comments, I ran across this old exchange that made me laugh (again).



Anonymous Nina posted a comment, Saturday, November 5 2011, 1:01 PM



this isn't helping me at all!!!!! i Hate this website!!!!!!





La Gringa, reply to Anonymous Nina, Saturday, November 5, 2011 1:49 PM



Why doesn't it help?!!!!! Do you have a homework assignment?!!!!!





Anonymous Nina reply to La Gringa, Sunday, November 6, 2011 1:25 PM



i cant find what im looking for... and yeesss i have a homework assignment due Tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! bllaaaahh!!!!!!!!





La Gringa, reply to anonymous nina, Sunday, November 6, 2011 1:50 PM



Should have started earlier like your mom always says!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What do you need?





Unfortunately, Anonymous Nina didn't reply so I don't know what she was looking for. I would have tried to help her! I just couldn't resist giving her a little bit of a hard time. If her question was about typical Honduran food, it was a shame that she didn't take the time to read through the 60 comments in which many Hondurans offered their insights about many other typical foods that I didn't include in the article. I think it is time to expand on that article!



Honduran comida tipica (typical food)



For a very good blog written by a Catracha with lots of Honduran recipes, most of which are in both Spanish and English, check out Cocina Hondureña y Mas.

How to harvest cinnamon

Our lopsided cinnamon tree after pruning

(It was more lopsided before)

We have a big cinnamon tree that we planted about 9 years ago. It was about 12 inches tall (30 cm) and cost around a dollar when we planted it. Cinnamomom zeylanicum (Ceylon cinnamon or true cinnamon) is a beautiful shade tree with small, dark, glossy leaves.

See the little berries towards the bottom

It blooms once a year with white flower clusters, followed by small, acorn-shaped 'berries' (terrible tasting – don't try them!). Tender new growth sometimes has a pinkish hue.



Even if you aren't interested in harvesting the spice, I highly recommend this attractive tree as an ornamental shade tree in your tropical garden. CURLA (north coast Honduran agricultural university) recommends that it be grown below 500 meters altitude, though it can be grown up to 1,000 meters (3,200 feet). Cinnamon trees can grow to 10-15 meters in height (~30-45 feet).

Tree at about 1 1/2 years (Nov. 2006)

Cinnamon needs to be grown in tropical climates where temperatures are mostly in the 27-30°C (80°-86°F) range and the rainfall is heavy, 1,500-4,500 mm per year (~60-180 inches). It does not like prolonged dry periods. Be careful where you purchase the tree, though, as my CURLA tropical fruit book mentions that the trees grown from seed in the Lancetilla botanical garden are subject to fungal problems. CURLA propagates from cuttings of a Puerto Rican variety which doesn't have problems with fungus or insects on the north coast.



We've trimmed the tree several times to remove low hanging branches and to try to correct its lopsidedness. This was caused by dog damage, overcrowding, and rainy season neglect when it was young. The tree generally has a very nice shape which doesn't require much, if any, pruning. Trimming emits the most wonderful smell of cinnamon (canela in Spanish), as does crunching up a leaf. I always wanted to harvest the cinnamon but didn't know how. (We didn't have internet for several years.) This time I searched until I found some information that made it clearer how it was done so we decided to give it a go.

How the professionals do it

On cinnamon plantations, I've read that they allow the young tree to grow for 3-6 years until it is 2-3 meters tall (~6-10 feet) and then cut it back a few inches above the ground. This allows multiple new stems to shoot up. The cinnamon can be harvested from this first cutting. The new stems are allowed to grow for 2-3 more years and then the cinnamon is harvested by cutting the stems almost to the ground again. In this manner, the individual plantings can be kept going for many years. There is the added benefit of having long, straight, mostly branchless stems from which to harvest the cinnamon. I may try that with some of the many seedlings that pop up under the tree every year.

The best time for harvesting cinnamon is right after the rainy season, but not while the ground is saturated. Unfortunately, we trimmed this tree right before the rainy season, so we soaked the wood overnight. This supposedly is to make the bark easier to remove, though we aren't sure if it made much difference. I'll skip this step next time unless the bark proves hard to remove.



The recommended sizes for harvesting the cinnamon are branches or stems with diameters from 1.2 to 5 cm (about 1/2 to 2 inches). Smaller diameter branches don't have a thick enough layer of cinnamon and larger branches are used for making cinnamon oil because the cinnamon will be bitter.

The harvesting process

First, any leaves and small twiggy branches shooting off the branch that you are going to use should be removed. Unless you are a pro, you'll probably want to cut the branch into shorter, easier to handle pieces. Around 60 cm (24 inches) worked well for us.



Then the dark outer bark is scraped off being careful to remove it all but not to scrape into the thin orange cinnamon layer. A paint scraper worked well for this. Initially, the cinnamon may appear yellow, but after exposed to the air for awhile, it will be more orange.

Next the branch is firmly rubbed all over to loosen the cinnamon layer from the wood. We just used a short piece of wood to rub the cinnamon layer but in Ceylon they apparently use a special tool, a brass rod. It was mentioned that you shouldn't use any other type metal for the rubbing as it can darken the cinnamon.



A long lengthwise cut is made through the cinnamon layer with a sharp stainless steel knife and one or more cuts are scored around the circumference of the branch, depending upon the section length you feel comfortable working with. Ceylon professionals cut the entire length of 1-2 meter branches into one piece of cinnamon, but being beginners, and not having long straight twigless branches like they grow specifically for this purpose, we had better luck sectioning the cinnamon into about 4-5 inch cinnamon stick-sized pieces. 'Knots' from side branches make it more difficult to remove the cinnamon in large sections.

After scoring the sections, begin to carefully pry up the cinnamon layer in as big a piece as you can with a knife or metal spatula. With practice, you'll be able to remove most sections in one piece. The cinnamon will quickly start curling up into a cinnamon stick as it dries. A few pieces can be rolled together or a big piece can be filled with the smaller scraps of cinnamon to make cinnamon sticks.



The sticks needs to thoroughly dry in the shade for about a week. Sun will leach out the flavor. I also put the cinnamon sticks in a barely warm, turned off oven to help them along since we have such high humidity here. Wow! Did my kitchen smell good!

After it was dried, I ground some cinnamon in a coffee grinder. I had to do it several times to get all the chunks out, but eventually I ended up with a jar of finely ground cinnamon. I put the rest of the sticks in a glass jar. I use the sticks for cinnamon tea, a new favorite of mine.



It's a lot easier to show than tell, so here is a video that our part time garden helper Ever helped me to make. He did a great job explaining.







Watch my video on YouTube if it is not showing above.

This turned into quite a popular project, with some neighborhood kids coming to learn how and Yamileth, my housekeeper, getting enthused about helping, too. She told me that her neighborhood pulperia charges three lempiras for a very tiny piece of canela about two inches long. The boys told me their mom was going to make arroz con leche (rice with milk, sort of a rice pudding) with some of their cinnamon. We all have enough cinnamon to last a long time. The boys have since come back to get some of the seedlings to try to grow their own cinnamon trees.

This was also a very 'green' project. We accomplished trimming the tree, used the small twigs and leaves in the compost, harvested enough cinnamon for workers and friends, and gave the left over wood to a poor man who sells leña (firewood) to those who still cook with wood stoves. No waste at all.



Soaking the branches might have removed some of the cinnamon flavor. The soaking water certainly turned into cinnamon tea. But my sister-in-law says that it takes much less of our cinnamon to make tea than it does the cinnamon she's bought in La Ceiba before, so I'm not sure. We have some more trimming to do where the tree is hanging over the fence but I'm going to wait until after rainy season next spring as recommended. It will be interesting to see if the flavor is any different next time.

Uses

This cinnamon is very sweet and mild, which was really good in iced coffee and made a great flavored cinnamon ice cream. I've used it in cinnamon bread, cookies, and a few other recipes. I used a little more than I do with store bought cinnamon, which has a harsher flavor.



Besides a cooking spice, cinnamon tea has been used in home remedies for thousands of years but has recently become very popular as a means to aid weight loss, blood sugar control, stomach upsets, and other health concerns. Scientific studies sometimes disagree, but users swear by it.

Two varieties of cinnamon

Less expensive Cassia cinnamon is more often found in US grocery stores, though you can get Ceylon cinnamon (true cinnamon) in specialty stores and online. Cassia is stronger flavored and is considered a less desirable cinnamon. Some people even consider it unhealthy because it has much higher levels of coumarin, which can cause liver damage.

Image from Cinnamon Vogue

Ground cinnamon will generally be labeled as to the type but other ways you can tell which type you have is that Ceylon cinnamon is lighter colored, more of a golden or oranish brown, while Cassia cinnamon is dark, reddish brown. In stick form, Cassia is much thicker and the stick usually consists of one layer, hollow inside. Ceylon sticks may consist of several thinner layers or small pieces rolled up inside like a cigar. You can break the Ceylon cinnamon sticks and cannot break the Cassia. 80% of the world's Ceylon cinnamon still comes from Sri Lanka, formerly called Ceylon. Indonesian, Vietnamese, and Chinese cinnamon are all forms of the cheaper Cassia cinnamon.



If you buy a tree, make sure that you get true cinnamon, Cinnamomum zeylanicum. I believe it is still sold at CURLA here in La Ceiba. You might consider buying two, one for growing a shade tree and one for harvesting the spice. That way you can have the best of both worlds: a beautiful shade tree and your own small cinnamon plantation.

More cinnamon info

To see how Ceylon professionals harvest cinnamon, check out this beautiful video, The Cinnamon Story. They are amazing! This man was getting cinnamon pieces at least 1-2 meters long. In the last part of this video, they are making cinnamon oil. There is no 'cooking' involved in harvesting the spice, though drying ovens or rooms are used to speed the drying process on cinnamon plantations.



For everything you ever wanted to know about cinnamon, check out Cinnamon Vogue.