The proximate causes for the recent protests and violence in Honduras relate to the potential impact of policies that would have restructured the Honduran health and education ministries. The May protests resulted in President Juan Orlando Hernández rescinding the decrees and the Congress revoking the law that would have implemented the President’s policies.

There are deeper reasons for the continuing protests linked to popular sentiment with respect to the legitimacy of the 2017 reelection of Juan Orlando Hernandez, and beyond, going back to the 2009 removal of then President Manuel Zelaya. A goodly percentage of Honduran citizens question the legitimacy of the ensuing political process. This might explain why the protests continue despite the fact that the health and education reform law was rescinded.

Another context is the lack of economic opportunity and crushing poverty combined with violent criminal activity that has increased thanks to the presence of gangs and drug traffickers.

For its entire history Honduras has been a poor country whose population has been mostly poor and rural. The historically rural, agrarian economy was supplanted by large scale banana plantations developed by the United Fruit Company, a US based corporation. These agricultural endeavors built railroad infrastructure, created jobs, but, being banana centric, failed to provide Honduras’s overall economy with the capital infusion needed in the early twentieth century to develop a middle class that could spur business creation and increase employment.

There has been little industry, a very few wealthy individuals and almost no middle class. The Army has been the dominant institution and until the 1980s ruled the country for most of its history. The infrastructure of the country for most of its history has been meager although the road network has expanded in recent years. Socio – economic indicators have historically been the lowest in the hemisphere save perhaps for Haiti.

Despite the advent of formal democracy in the 1980s, the Army retained its influence both politically and as the guarantor of public safety and security. The military has always been the best funded public institution in that society, so lacking in basic services.

Funding for the Honduran military increased significantly in the 1980s stemming from US concerns regarding the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the FMLN in El Salvador. The US gave security guarantees coupled with funding and training for the Honduran military and was provided access to Honduras as a military, special operations and intelligence base to undermine the Marxist – Leninists in the neighboring countries who received support from Cuba and the Soviet Union.

US economic aid and that of the IMF and World Bank has increased in recent years.  Progressives would argue that neo-liberal exigencies and austerity measures that come with the indebtedness have only exacerbated social ills, made Honduras less sovereign, more aid dependent and less able to stand up to the US while continuing to lack the resources so desperately needed to actually develop their economy and society. 

Demonstrators voice their opinion that the government’s policy of privatization has markedly driven up the cost of electricity, the cost of transportation, the cost of fuel, all without the privatization resulting in more employment. Many argue that the extensive funding of the military and police needlessly absorbs the limited capital available to Honduras, capital that would be better spent on job creation to solve the poverty that supplies unemployed Hondurans to the drug traffickers, gangs and the ‘migrant caravans’.

The one million odd Hondurans living in the US send remittances that amount to billions of dollars annually, a far greater amount than the IMF and World Bank provide on an annual basis. Protesters argue that the government misuses the funds available for purposes other than job creation while failing to attract significant financial and investment support from other nations, as former President Zelaya attempted to do with Brazil and Venezuela.

Supporters of the government’s policies argue that a socialist approach will not solve Honduras’ problems, as has been demonstrated in Nicaragua and Venezuela. The government, they say, has primary responsibility for providing security, and the security problems caused by drug traffickers and gangs must be resolved before funds can be freed up to support job creation projects.

Tegucigalpa, the capital city of Honduras has been wracked in recent weeks and for much of this year by protests that have seen the both the Army and the Police deployed. Reports indicate that at least two people have died of bullet wounds in the last week in the wake of looting of shops and attacks on government buildings. Protesters blocked certain roads and burned tires.

Protests began in January 2019 against President Juan Orlando Hernández to mark the one year anniversary of his narrow election victory in 2017. The Honduran constitution was changed to allow Mr. Hernández to compete in the 2017 presidential election. The protests since April have been linked to proposals to reform the ministries of education and health services. There is a widespread belief among the popular masses that budget reductions will be enacted as the first step onto a slippery slope that will lead to privatization of healthcare and educational services.

On July 20, 2015 the United States and Cuba restored diplomatic relations which had been severed in 1961.

Sharnoff’s Global Views is an excellent resource for anyone interested in international relations. Founded and managed by Dr Michael Sharnoff, this publication provides unique content on a range of global topics written by people from all over the world. Their website can be found at:      https://www.sharnoffsglobalviews.com/

In Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, on Thursday, February 9th the Azeri President Ilham Aliyev met with the Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha.

The European Finance Ministers have demanded that Greece ratify the austerity package by this Sunday and identify an additional 325 million Euros of spending reductions Wednesday before they will release any bailout funds.

Argentina has complained about the recent deployment of Prince William to the Falkands as well as the British deployment of an advanced destroyer to patrol the waters near the disputed archipelago. The British Foreign Office has released a statement that says that the people of the Falkland Islands are British by choice and that there will be no sovereignty discussions with Argentina unless the residents of the Islands want such talks. The Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has said that she is going to complain to the United Nations about what she termed UK militarization of this conflict.

On February 4 China and Russia vetoed a Security Council resolution on Syria. The resolution was based upon an Arab League peace plan. The Russian Ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, stated that his country wanted an end to the bloodshed but felt that the resolution sent an unbalanced message to Syria and did not call for an end to rebel attacks, nor did it take into account what he termed the association of the rebel groups with extremists. Ambassador Churkin further stated that Russia was committed to a solution to the Syrian crisis but said that peaceful settlement was undermined by the advocacy of regime change by certain influential members of the international community.  All other thirteen members of the Security Council voted in favor of the resolution and strongly condemned its veto.

MIDEASTINSIGHTS ⋅ NOVEMBER 9, 2011 (Originally published in Middle East Insights)

Last month, senior Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath declared that negotiations between the Middle East Quartet (US, UN, EU and Russia) reached a deadlock and he chided special envoy Tony Blair as serving only Israeli interests.  However, Shaath suggested that Palestinians could be encouraged to return to direct talks if Israel imposed a full settlement freeze and agreed that the 1967 boundaries would serve as the basis for negotiations.  In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to a partial settlement freeze to persuade Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiating table, but the gesture was rebuffed since it did not entail a total halt to all construction activity. Read more »

September 22, 2011 | 0856 GMT

By Scott Stewart

Lone wolf. The mere mention of the phrase invokes a sense of fear and dread. It conjures up images of an unknown, malicious plotter working alone and silently to perpetrate an unpredictable, undetectable and unstoppable act of terror. This one phrase combines the persistent fear of terrorism in modern society with the primal fear of the unknown.

The phrase has been used a lot lately. Anyone who has been paying attention to the American press over the past few weeks has been bombarded with a steady stream of statements regarding lone-wolf militants. While many of these statements, such as those from President Barack Obama, Vice President Joseph Biden and Department of Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano, were made in the days leading up to the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, they did not stop when the threats surrounding the anniversary proved to be unfounded and the date passed without incident. Indeed, on Sept. 14, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Matthew Olsen, told CNN that one of the things that concerned him most was “finding that next lone-wolf terrorist before he strikes.” Read more »