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The Squandering of Venezuela's Wealth

Separating fact from fiction, Hugo Chávez has done little in his past 13 years to further Venezuelan's expectations of much needed prosperity and at least a decent quality of life.

By Jerry Brewer
As Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez approaches his latest reelection possibility, his dominated official government press cadre has risen yet again to purport, "With a socialist-oriented program for the country, the president continues to maintain popular support with an approval rating of over 60 percent, according to recent polls." Moreover, "The survey showed that 59 percent of Venezuelans believe the Bolivarian Revolution has improved the country's economic and social situation." The obvious question is, what are the true poll "sources" and exactly what is the content validity?

Beloved Community vs Beloved Economy

So, here we are as a nation, caught between two American Dreams: Beloved Community and Beloved Economy. Here we are, torn between two pursuits -- a spiritual quality of life and a materialistic style of life.

By Brian McLaren
You know how synchronicities happen. It's not just the song you're listening to or the book you're reading, but what you're eating or who you're with or where you are when you do so. So I was re-reading Adam Hamilton's Enough: Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity recently, "synchronicitously" with a mistake and a holiday. The mistake had to do with some yearend giving back in December. We make it our practice to give away a minimum of a certain percent of our annual gross income each year, and so before December 31 we made sure to write several checks to some charitable organizations we care about, proportional to our estimated annual income. Last Friday, my wife realized she had overestimated my income by quite a bit, which meant we had given away "too much" money.

Mexican Drug Cartels: A Transnational Killing Machine

Many of these transnational criminal organizations (TCO) appear to own the police, the judiciary and the prison system. They have viciously murdered and tortured government officials, police officers, journalists and citizens. With their virtually limitless funds and unlimited access to weaponry, they clearly have the ability to destabilize an entire hemisphere.

By Jerry Brewer
The fact is that in recent times we have heard the terms "drug war, war on crime" and "war against terror" ad nauseam. A vernacular that often seems to move us into complacency and formulates naive opinions that this is simply political rhetoric or a tool for aspirants to political office. However, a prolonged law enforcement campaign as we are seeing throughout the Americas doesn't appear to measure up in factual detail to anything short of ongoing and imminent conflict. The enemy is a transnational and systematic killing machine. The enemy's focus is a superior armed and capable strategy that is based on violence and territorial acquisition. Too, it is a fluid epidemic that filters through much of Latin America. This corridor is a gateway for illegal migration, drugs and other contraband, with financing efforts and other brazen sources of revenue that include kidnapping and extortion, cargo threat, human trafficking for a myriad of reasons, robbery, and related violent acts against local societies and governments.

The Myth of Economic Growth

Economic growth is not necessarily synonymous with national development. If economic growth only succeeds in adding to severe income inequality, which Honduras has in spades, then there is no development... and the country is all the worse for it.

By Marco Cáceres
Back in the 1960s, the World Bank sought to encourage economic growth and development in Honduras by expanding beef exports. This was seen as a good strategy for creating badly needed foreign capital for investment in the country. There was a growing demand for cheap beef around the world, as fast food restaurants like McDonald's continued to spread throughout the United States and Canada, and began establishing franchises in Asia, Europe, and Latin America in the early-1970s. The World Bank provided low-interest loans to Honduran cattle ranchers, who used the money to enlarge and fatten their herds. One of the ways the ranchers did this was to obtain more pasture land for grazing. In numerous cases, the land was simply taken from small farmers engaged in subsistence agriculture.

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Drug Trafficking Ties a Factor in Zelaya Overthrow

While it is true that the number of narcoavionetas flying into Honduras nearly doubled during the year after the coup, the numbers had already begun to climb significantly in 2006 -- the first year of the Zelaya administration. By the 2008 (Zelaya's third year), the number of these planes had doubled.

Honduras Weekly
The idea that the huge growth in illegal drug trafficking in Honduras -- and the associated increase in drug-related homicides and violence -- is a recent phenomenon, largely attributed to the overthrow of President Manuel Zelaya in mid-2009 and the instability that it created, is a convenient one that may serve a very narrow political agenda. But it stretches the truth to the point inaccuracy if you look at the available data for the number of Venezuelan aircraft (the so-called narcoavionetas) landing on remote airstrips in Honduras with shipments of cocaine. According to an annual report published by the Honduran Public Ministry, 55 kilograms of cocaine from these small Cessna-type planes was seized in 2005; 2,714 kgs in 2006; 1,704 kgs in 2007; 6,764 kgs in 2008; and 49,000 kg in 2009. No more than a handful of these planes were indentified in 2005. The numbers grew to between 5-10 in each of the following two years.

No Harm in a Little Idol Worship

The important thing about the statue is not whether it has magical powers, but rather that it is adored and held in high esteem by hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of Hondurans. It represents one of the few things in Honduras today that can help bring people together and get them to put aside their differences, even if it's just temporary.

By Marco Cáceres
The story goes that a Honduran peasant laborer named Alejandro Colíndres and eight-year old Lorenzo Martínez found a little wooden statue of the Virgin Mary while they were walking home to the village Suyapa one Saturday in 1747. The two were returning from clearing some corn fields on Piligüin mountain near Tegucigalpa. On the way, they stopped to sleep along the path for the night. While he was sleeping, Mr. Colindres was awakened by a jabbing pain in his side. Without looking, he took what he thought was a stick and threw it as far as he could. As he laid down, he felt the the object beneath him again. So once again... he tossed it. He laid down again. Yet again he felt something poking him. This time, he simply placed it next to him. When Mr. Colindres awoke in the morning, he discovered that the piece of wood was actually the 2.6-inch statue of the Virgin. The man took the statue home, and his family kept it on an altar in their house for the next 20 years.

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Spike in Homicides Began on Mel's Watch

Had Mr. Zelaya been a better president and had there never been a coup, the entry of the Mexican cartels into Honduras and their destructive impact may have been slowed and minimized, but that's about it.

By Marco Cáceres
There is a tendency to blame the spike in crime and violence in Honduras during the past two years on illegal drug trafficking and the growing presence of Mexican drug cartels in Honduras. There is another tendency to attribute this spike to the overthrow of President Manuel Zelaya in the summer of 2009 and the subsequent instability, abuses by security forces, and distractions it led to in Honduras. There is yet another tendency to link the spike to the extreme weakness and corruption of the Zelaya administration and its cozy relationship with Hugo Chávez's Venezuela -- the take-off point for most of the drug-laden aircraft that land in Honduras. There is a high degree of truth behind all three of these tendencies. They are all key factors to the growth in crime and violence in the country. The difference is that the first tendency -- the entry of the Mexican cartels -- would probably have occurred even if Mr. Zelaya had been a strong and good leader without any ties to Mr. Chávez, and even if he had not been ousted.

Political and Criminal Violence in Honduras

Violence in Honduras is complicated and there are key aspects related to weak state institutions, impunity and longstanding social divides that aren't directly caused by the current epidemic of organized crime.

By James Bosworth
Last week I criticized [Elizabeth Dickinson's recent drug war article in the Washington Monthly] on violence in Mexico and Central America for placing it in the framework of the "war on drugs" while ignoring the many other aspects of organized crime that occur in the region. In a similar critique about media coverage of violence in Honduras, [Honduras Culture and Politics] takes it one step further: Impunity; the availability of guns; targeting of certain groups for political and structural reasons; and the ineffectuality and corruption of the police, who no one expects to actually investigate crimes professionally: all these factors should be the start of press coverage of crime in Honduras, not the end.

Pepe's Not Superman

Mr. Lobo clearly campaigned on the promise of national reconciliation, which made sense in light of how fractionalized Honduras had become following Mr. Zelaya's ousting and all the animosity Hondurans felt toward each other. Trying to unite Honduras and get people to at least start talking to each other so as to minimize the possibility of insurrection has been no small challenge...

By Marco Cáceres
One of the main criticisms of President Porfirio Lobo is that he has done too little too late to combat crime, violence, and narcotrafficking in Honduras. President Lobo is also being widely attacked for not acting quicker and more forcefully in dealing with corruption within the National Police and its ties to organized crime syndicates and foreign drug cartels. It seems that Pepe can do no right by anyone, and by many estimates his presidency may go down as a failure. This may not be fair, given he inherited an angry and unstable nation that had experienced the overthrow of an inept and divisive president just six months prior, had been condemned and ostracized by the international community, and was peeking at the early signs of a popular revolt. But ultimately Mr. Lobo is responsible for the job he took on and the current state of the country, regardless of whether or not he created the mess -- much in the same way it is for Barack Obama in the United States.

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A Perspective on Crime in La Ceiba

It is common to hear shots at night in La Ceiba. This is most often guards shooting into the air as a warning. Yes, people are killed here daily -- most because they are into "bad stuff". Gang members and drug trafickers have short lives.

By David Ashby
We have five programs helping more than 200 children and teens in the La Ceiba area of Honduras. Except for our orphanage, these youths live with their caretakers, who may be parents, single moms, grandmas, aunts, etc. Some live in high risk areas. We also have local board members, a contractor, teachers, housemothers, maintenance men, volunteers, and work teams. Our nurse lives here, as does one of our volunteers. We help 18 teens in various high schools in the city and in the mountains. Those in the mountains ride bikes to the city to buy supplies and visit the orphanage. We take many children and teens, especially from the orphanage, on outings to the beach and various rivers, to Trujillo, to concerts and movies, and to visit family members in the countryside.