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US Policy on Honduras: View of a Diplomat

Editor's Note: The following piece was originally published as a Letter to the Editor in yesterday's edition of The New York Times. It was written in response to an Op-Ed article written by Dana Frank titled "In Honduras, A Mess Made in the US".

By Jorge Hernández Alcerro
Ms. Frank’s insinuations about the Honduran government’s illegitimacy are offensive to the 56.6 percent of Hondurans who voted for President Porfirio Lobo in the last election. More than 4,600 international and domestic observers closely supervised the electoral process. The other four Honduran political parties recognized President Lobo’s election, have been integrated into the sitting national reconciliation and unity government, and are represented in Congress. Ms. Frank’s article points to the effects and not the underlying causes of violence in Honduras. It confuses common and organized criminality with human rights offenses. Honduras is a victim of what Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton described as America’s “insatiable demand for illegal drugs.” Without it, murder rates would drop dramatically.

US Studying Return of Peace Corps to Honduras

Honduras Weekly
United States Ambassador to Honduras Lisa Kubiske yesterday said that the US State Department is undertaking a technical analysis of the security situation in Honduras to determine the feasibility of returning Peace Corps personnel to the country. Prompted by the shooting of Peace Corp worker Lauren Robert, 27, who was wounded in the leg during an attempted robbery on a bus in San Pedro Sula on December 3, 2011, the State Department decided less than three weeks later to pull all 158 Peace Corps volunteers from Honduras. Although the incident was a random crime (two other passengers were wounded along with Ms. Robert), the State Department took the precautionary move to suspend operations in order to study the conditions on the ground and re-evaluate the operating structure and safety guidelines for volunteers.

US-Honduran Air Forces Will Conduct Joint Training

When a crisis or contingency operation occurs in the future, we will be more prepared to respond together. For example, if a natural disaster occurs, our two air forces will already have an understanding of one another's strengths and capabilities as well as a deep camaraderie based on our respect for each other.

By Lesley Waters
United States and Honduran airmen participated in a January 25 ceremony kicking off the start of a mission designed to enhance military-to-military relations between the two nations. The US Airmen, representing 15 Air Force specialties, will work side-by-side with Honduran Air Force members in developing the seven core competencies of air base defense, air traffic control, aircraft maintenance, aircrew survival, communications, generator maintenance and safety. Approximately 20 members of the 571st Mobility Support Advisory Squadron, from Travis Air Force Base, California, and two members of the Inter-American Air Forces Academy, from Lackland AFB, Texas, arrived in Honduras on January 23 as part of month-long mission to build partner capacity. The mission is designed to promote regional stability by fostering key relationships and enhancing partner nation capabilities.

Neida Sandoval Named Ambassador to SOS Children’s Villages in Honduras

Hispanically Speaking News
After leaving her job as newscaster on Univision television’s “Despierta America” (Wake Up America) morning show, Neida Sandoval has invested her time in campaigns to help needy children. The journalist will be named this week as ambassador of SOS Children’s Villages International in her native Honduras, where she will travel to unveil the work of the organization that helps orphan children and those whose parents cannot support them. “It’s always best to start at home, because my country has many needs. For me, children are precious jewels we have to care for with a lot of love so that the vicious circle of abandonment, domestic violence and the lack of family values begins to break down and the country’s younger generation can start to thrive,” Sandoval said in a telephone interview with Efe.

Neida Sandoval Named Ambassador to SOS Children’s Villages in Honduras

Plans to Regulate Press in Honduras Worry IAPA

Inter American Press Association
The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) on Thursday voiced concern and surprise at an announcement by President Porfirio Lobo of Honduras that he plans to send to Congress a bill to regulate the practice of journalism and news media. Lobo made the announcement on Wednesday night during his speech opening the Congress’s third legislative session, but he gave no details of the bill’s content. After praising the role of the news media in exposing wrongdoing committed in his government Lobo justified the need to regulate the media so they would not be “at the service of special interests,” explaining that journalism is “a true vocation.” Gustavo Mohme, chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, expressed surprise at Lobo’s announcement and said, “It is important that Honduras maintains its respect for freedom of the press and for the work of journalists as democratic values.”

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Weighing the Risks and Rewards of Helping Honduras

The gang members helped build the house. We get to know these kids as people. A lot of them are very sweet kids who have just had a very tough life.

By Joan Chrissos
Virtually the entire American Airlines flight going to San Pedro Sula in Honduras was clad in color-coordinated t-shirts, each representing a group doing good in the Central American country. Medical missionaries from South Carolina. College students from the Northeast. Church groups of kids, parents and pastors from across the country, including ours from St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Coral Gables. In the six summers I’ve traveled with my family to San Pedro Sula to volunteer at Nuestras Pequeñas Rosas (Our Little Roses), a home and school for abused, orphaned and abandoned Honduran girls, there has never been an empty seat on the planes. A handful of the passengers are Hondurans, the rest are Americans who are building homes and schools, running clinics, distributing food and bonding with the Honduran people.

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HSBC Bank Will Sell Operations in Honduras

Stock Market Wire
HSBC Bank (Panama) -- an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of HSBC Holdings, Inc. -- has entered into an agreement to sell the whole of its banking operations in Costa Rica, El Salvador and Honduras to Banco Davivienda, a Colombian-listed banking group. The transaction is subject to regulatory and other approvals and is expected to complete in the fourth quarter of 2012. HSBC said the sale represented further progress in its execution of the strategy set out in May. HSBC Latin America CEO-designate Antonio Losada said: "We are pleased to have reached this agreement. The transaction demonstrates our commitment to driving growth and improving returns in Latin America by divesting of businesses that do not meet our investment criteria. I would like to thank the management teams and employees for their dedication and wish them every success for the future." (1/24/12)

Radiation from Giant Solar Flare Hits Earth

Editor's Note: Tracking solar flare activity is particularly interesting this year, and notably in Honduras, with the impending end of the 5,125-year cycle known as the Maya "Long Count" calendar on December 21, 2012, and all the speculation surrounding its significance.

Honduras Weekly
The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, this weekend detected the biggest storm to erupt on the Sun since March 2005. The activity was observed by NASA's orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). The radiation effects of the giant solar flare, which occurred at 11 pm Eastern Standard Time (EST) on Sunday, hit the Earth within an hour of the eruption and are expected to continue through tomorrow. The radiation, which has the potential to disrupt satellite communications and GPS (Global Positioning System) signals at high altitudes, travels from the Sun -- in the form of protons -- at a speed of 93 million miles per hour. It is followed by the ejection of solar plasma at a speed of 1-2 million miles per hour. The plasma can cause outages in the electrical grid, as occurred across most of Quebec, Canada, in 1989 following a severe geomagnetic storm.

US Names Marllory Chacón as Drug Kingpin in Central America

Honduras Weekly
The United States Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) yesterday identified Guatemalan Marllory Dadiana Chacón Rossell, 39, as the head of a crime syndicate operating in Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama and responsible for supplying cocaine to Mexican drug cartels. According to OFAC director, Adam J. Szubin, "Marllory Chacón's drug trafficking activities and her ties to the Mexican drug cartels make her a critical figure in the narcotics trade." The OFAC named seven other individuals involved in the drug trafficking ring -- masking as a private lottery known as the "Bingoton Millionario" -- with Mrs. Chacón, including her husband, Jorge Andrés Fernández Carbajal. Mr. Fernández, who is from Honduras, has been charged with providing logistical support for his wife's operation.