Annotations for Countries: Honduras

Two comments in the Latin America press seemed to sum up the general feeling on the continent in the wake of the recent organization of American States meeting in Washington DC. Mexico's President Echeverría, when asked by Rio de Janeiro's Opinião about his opinion of the organization was replied, "The OAS? Does it still exist? It is necessary to reconstruct it on different bases. It is necessary to establish a new regional organization which does not exclude anybody, including Canada and Cuba."

In Lima, a newspaper favoring the government, El Expreso, said that the Latin Americans now need a Declaration of independence equal to the one the North Americans gave to England in 1776, and concluded that the organization of American states will not survive if the United States continues to dominate it.

A more detailed view of the OAS (Organization of American States) meeting was given by the British Weekly, Latin America, which said that the general assembly of the OAS ended its meeting in Washington two weeks ago without voting on the question of Cuba's readmission, or the lifting of diplomatic and economic sanctions against the island. Although there was undoubtedly a majority in favor of ending Cuba's isolation, most delegates withdrew from the brink of an outright confrontation with the US, which continued to object to Havana's military links with Moscow, and maintained that despite certain changes, Cuba was still interfering in other countries' internal affairs. A working group was set up to find a compromised solution with both Chile and Brazil among its members representing the most extreme viewpoints on Cuba.

It was also agreed unanimously to form a commission to study the complete restructuring of the OAS, and there was a unanimous vote for ideological plurality in the hemisphere. A resolution approved by 21 votes to none, with only the United States and Honduras abstaining, called on Washington not to sell its strategic mineral reserves in a way that would harm Latin American economies.

Another resolution approved unanimously, except for the abstention of the US, called on Washington to prevent transnational companies from intervening in other countries internal affairs. This report from the weekly Latin America.

Chile Hoy reports from Uruguay. "Few of the diplomatic appointments of the Nixon administration will be as significant as that of Ernest Siracusa, a veteran ambassador who will be taking over the US Embassy in Montevideo. Siracusa has served in various Latin American countries; Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Argentina, Peru, and Bolivia. In Bolivia, he arrived just as a military coup had opened up possibilities of a nationalistic takeover. In this latter case, he seems to have performed well. Bolivian workers organizations attribute a very influential role to him in the defeat of progressive forces and the setting up of a military dictatorship. It has been suggested that he is linked less to the Department of State than to the CIA." 

Whatever the exact nature of his ties, his next assignment will be Uruguay. Chile Hoy predicts that his mission in Uruguay will be largely to convince certain military leaders that nationalist politics are not appropriate to Uruguay, and encourage the rightist generals that the Brazilian model of military control and close alliance with the United States is desirable. 

Meanwhile, Chile Hoy continues, "In Santiago, a committee formed of certain leftist Uruguayan groups gave a conference last month in which they documented repression in their country. Since 1968, when the constitutional government was transformed into a type of military civilian dictatorship, the Army has had a free hand in dealing with dissenters." 

"The statistics are impressive. In less than a year, the joint armed forces killed 43 men and four women. The form of death was typically sinister. Four died from excessive torture. One was thrown off a four-story roof. There were two suicides of people anticipating more torture, 21 were merely riddled with bullets, and the rest were finished off in various armed confrontations. The estimated number of political prisoners is more than 4,000. In a country of less than 3 million inhabitants, this comes down to one political prisoner per 750 citizens." This report from Chile Hoy, a Santiago weekly. 

Tri-Continental News Service in New York reported this week on the expanding market in human blood, which Tri-Continental calls the ultimate commodity. The shortage of blood plasma in this country has provided some enterprising US businesses with a profitable new commodity and has created a new source of misery for the poorest people in America. Donations of blood in the United States cover only about 60% of the annual need. The deficit, about two and a half million pints, comes from people who sell their blood in order to survive. The going rate in urban slums and poor southern states of the United States is from five to $15 a pint, which the companies then sell to hospitals for up to $35. 

Now, United States companies have found an even cheaper source of this strategic raw material. They have set up blood banks in half a dozen Latin American capitals, where unemployment rates of up to 50% assure a virtually unlimited supply of people willing to open up their veins for these merchants. The plentiful supply of blood has driven the price down, and prices are from $2 to $3 a pint are common. 

The blood exporting countries include Haiti, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Columbia, and Brazil. A recent survey carried out by the Department of Experimental Surgery at the Autonomous University of Mexico estimated that the export of blood from Mexico alone was a $10 million annual business. Latin American blood is sent to West Germany and Israel in addition to the United States. 

Tri-Continental claims that many of the people who sell their blood are undernourished and anemic, and yet they will come in week after week to make their sale. The companies, which are not licensed or controlled by medical authorities, are not concerned with the loss of iron, which often results in the slow death of the chronic blood donor. 

Tri-Continental suggests that the reason why such practices persist is government corruption. When defense minister Luckner Cambronne was dismissed from his post in Haiti in November 1972, it was learned that he had been a partner in Hemo Caribbean, a US controlled blood company that also has branches in the Dominican Republic. Similar financial connections have been revealed between Carlos Arana Osorio, president of Guatemala, and the Sedesa company, which exports blood from that country, and in the case of the Samosas family's holdings in blood exporting companies in Nicaragua. This report from New York's Tri-Continental News Service.

Excélsior reports that in Honduras 20,000 teachers have added their support to the growing protest against the two-week old Gag Law. This law makes it a crime to distribute news either within or outside the country that is falsely exaggerated or that puts in danger or deteriorates the national economy or public credit. Violators of the law are subject to a prison term of one to three years and a fine of $250 to $1,000. 

The 20,000 members of the Honduran Teaching Association sent a document of support to the threatened reporters represented by the Honduran Press Association. The Press Association has appealed to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. This report is from Excélsior of Mexico City. 

According to Marcha of Montevideo, Uruguay, many Latin American officials are dismayed at the Nixon administration's choices for ambassadors to Mexico and Argentina. Two of the most critical posts in Latin America, both men, Joseph Jova appointed ambassador to Mexico and Robert Hill appointed to Argentina have been criticized for their close connections with the CIA, the Pentagon and the United Fruit Company. 

Hill, a close friend of President Nixon recently chose to resign from his post as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs rather than comply with a Senate order to sell his extensive defense industry stock holdings 

According to Marcha, Hill's political career began in the State Department in 1945 when he was assigned to US Army headquarters in New Delhi, India. His job actually served as a cover for an intelligence assignment for the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor of the CIA. Throughout the rest of his career, he continued to work closely with the US intelligence community, including the CIA. Marcha describes his biography as a satirical left-wing caricature of a Yankee imperialist. A former vice president of WR Grace and a former director of the United Fruit Company, Hill personally helped organize the overthrow of the Nationalist Arbenz's Government, which threatened United Fruit's investments in Guatemala.

As Marcha details, "Ambassador Hill is particularly criticized for his participation in the CIA instigated overthrow of President Arbenz in 1954." The history of that coup centers to a large extent on the United Fruit Company. Arbenz and his predecessor worked hard to change the inequalities in Guatemala's social structure. Free speech and free press were established. Unions were reorganized and legalized. Educational reforms were enacted.

One of the most wide-sweeping and inflammatory changes was the Agrarian Land Reform Program, which struck directly at the interest of the United Fruit Company. The program called for the expropriation and redistribution of uncultivated lands above a basic acreage, while exempting intensively-cultivated lands. Compensation was made in accord with the declared tax value of the land. The appropriated lands were then distributed to propertyless peasants. 

Immediately afterwards, the McCarthyite storm burst over Guatemala. Arbenz was accused of being a communist agent and as such was thought to be a danger to the power of America and the security of the Panama Canal. The plan to overthrow Arbenz was concocted by the CIA. A Guatemalan colonel, Castillo Armas, was found to head up a rebel force in Honduras, in Nicaragua, and was supplied with United States arms. Marcha says that at the time of the coup, Hill was ambassador in Costa Rica and formed a part of the team that coordinated the coup. In 1960, he was rewarded by being elected to the board of directors of United Fruit. 

Hill has long enjoyed close relations with President Nixon, and in 1972 he returned from Madrid, Spain where he was serving as ambassador to work on the campaign for Nixon's reelection. Joseph Jova, the appointee as ambassador to Mexico, also shares with Hill a spurious background. The Mexican paper El Dia accused Jova of deep involvement in a successful 1964 CIA campaign to prevent the election of Salvador Allende as president of Chile. Jova was deputy chief of the United States Embassy in Santiago, Chile at the time. This report on the new United States ambassadors to Mexico and Argentina has been compiled from Marcha of Montevideo Uruguay and Mexico City's Excelsior.

Our feature this week, taken from Excélsior of Mexico City and from a United Nations speech of Mrs. Hortensia Allende deals with international reaction to the policies of the military Junta of Chile. This government headed by General Augusto Pinochet came to power in a coup on September 11th, 1973. At this time, the democratically elected Marxist government of Salvador Allende was overthrown. Governments throughout the world are voicing opposition to the brutal repression, which has taken place in Chile since that time. 

Mexico City's Excélsior reports that the Mexican government, for example, has announced that it will withdraw its ambassador from Santiago. The Argentine government is also considerably annoyed with the Junta. After protests at the torture and execution of several Argentine citizens in Chile, there was an awkward border incident when Chilean Air Force planes machine-gunned a Jeep 12 miles inside Argentina. Next, a Chilean refugee was shot dead while in the garden of the Argentine embassy in Santiago; only hours later, the house of the Argentine cultural attache in Santiago was sprayed by gunfire. Nevertheless, the Argentine government continues trade with Chile, including arms, and has afforded some credits to the Junta. 

The Indian ambassador in Chile issued a protest at the treatment of refugees in the Soviet Embassy in Santiago, which is now under Indian protection since the Soviet Union broke off diplomatic relations with the Junta. Cuba has frozen all Chilean credits and stocks in retaliation for the attempt by the Junta to lay its hands upon $10 million deposited in London by the Cuban government for the Popular Unity Government. The Prime minister of Holland, Excélsior reports, made a radio speech severely criticizing the Chilean Junta and praising the Popular Unity Government. He suggested possible forms of aid to the resistance in Chile. Although the People's Republic of China has maintained relations with the Junta, there seems to have been some break in communication. The Chinese ambassador was recalled at the end of October and requests for the acceptance of the new Chilean ambassador to Peking have so far met with no response. Surprisingly, reports Excélsior, there have even been criticisms of the Chilean Junta in Brazil, and these have not been censored in the Brazilian press. 

The event which has drawn the most international attention to Chile recently was a speech made by Mrs. Hortensia Allende, a widow of Dr. Salvador Allende, who spoke before the United Nations Human Rights Commission in late February. It was the first time in the history of the United Nations that a representative of an opposition movement within a member state was permitted to address an official meeting of the UN. United Nations is restricted by law from discussing the internal affairs of its member nations, but the circumstances of the coup and the subsequent actions of the Junta have increasingly isolated it in the world and made the issue of Chile an international one. The following is an excerpt from the translation of the speech delivered at the UN Human Rights Commission. 

"I have not come to this tribunal distinguished delegates as the widow of the murdered President. I come before you as a representative of the International Democratic Federation of Women and above all, as a wife and mother of a destroyed Chilean home as has happened with so many others. I come before you representing hundreds of widows, thousands of orphans of a people robbed of their fundamental rights, of a nation's suffering from a state of war imposed by Pinochet's own troops, obedient servants of fascism that represents violations of each and every right, which according to the Declaration of Human Rights, all people should follow as common standards for their progress and whose compliance this commission is charged with safeguarding."

Mrs. Allende continues to describe how she feels. Each article of the UN Declaration of Human Rights is being violated in her country. According to these postulates universally accepted throughout the civilized world she says, all human beings are born free, equal in dignity and rights. In my country, whose whole tradition was dedicated not only to establishing but practicing these principles, such conditions are no longer being observed. There is discrimination against the rights and dignity of individuals because of their ideology. Liberty does not exist where man is subjected to the dictates of an ignorant armed minority. 

The declaration establishes that every man has the right to life, liberty and security continues, Mrs. Allende. Distinguished delegates, I could spend days addressing you on the subject of how the fascist dictatorship in my country has outdone the worst of Hitler's Nazism. Summary executions, real or staged executions for the purpose of terrifying the victim. Executions of prisoners allegedly attempting to escape, slow death through lack of medical attention. Victims tortured to death are the order of the day under the military Junta. Genocide has been practiced in Chile. The exact figures will not be known until with the restoration of democracy in my country, the murderers are called to account. There will be another Nuremberg for them. According to numerous documented reports, the death toll is between 15 and 80,000. Within this framework, it seems unnecessary to refer to the other two rights enunciated in the Declaration of Human Rights, liberty and security do not exist in Chile. 

Mrs. Allende continues, "I would like to devote a special paragraph to the women of my country, who in different circumstances are today suffering the most humiliating and degrading oppression. Held in jails, concentration camps, or in women's houses of detention are the wives of the government ministers who, besides having their husbands imprisoned on Dawson Island, have had to spend long periods of time under house arrest, are the women members of parliament from the Popular Unity Government who have had to seek asylum and have been denied safe conduct passes. The most humble proletarian woman's husband has been fired from his job or is being persecuted, and she must wage a daily struggle for the survival of her family." 

"The Declaration of Human Rights states that slavery is prohibited, as are cruel punishment and degrading treatment. Is there any worse slavery than that which forces man to be alienated from his thoughts? Today in Chile, we suffer that form of slavery imposed by ignorant and sectarian individuals who, when they could not conquer the spiritual strength of their victims, did not hesitate to cruelly and ferociously violate those rights."

Mrs. Allende continues, "The declaration assures for all mankind equal treatment before the law and respect for the privacy of their home. Without competent orders or formal accusation, many Chileans have been and are being dragged to military prisons, their homes broken into to be submitted to trials whose procedures appear in no law, not even in the military code. Countless Chileans, after five months of illegal procedures, remain in jail or in concentration camps without benefit of trial. The concept of equal protection before the law does not exist in Chile. The jurisdiction of the court is not determined by the law these days but according to the whim of the witch hunters. I wish to stress that if the 200 Dawson Island prisoners are kept there during the Antarctic winter, we will find no more than corpses come spring as the climatic conditions are intolerable to human life and four of the prisoners are already in the military hospital in Santiago." 

Mrs. Allende said, "The Junta has also violated the international law of asylum, turning the embassies into virtual prisons for all those to whom the Junta denies a safe conduct pass for having had some length with the Popular Unity Government. They have not respected diplomatic immunity, even daring to shoot those who have sought refuge in various embassies. Concrete cases involve the embassies of Cuba, Argentina, Honduras, and Sweden. Mail and telephone calls are monitored. Members of families are held as hostages. Moreover, the military Junta has taken official possession of all the goods of the parties of the Popular Unity Coalition, as well as the property of its leaders." 

Mrs. Allende continues, reminding the delegates, "the Declaration of Human Rights establishes that all those accused of having committed a crime should be considered innocent until proven otherwise before a court. The murder of folk artist Victor Jara, the murders of various political and trade union leaders and thousands of others, the imprisonment of innumerable citizens arrested without charges, the ferocious persecution of members of the left, many of them having disappeared or executed, show that my country is not governed by law, but on the contrary, by the hollow will of sectors at the service of imperialism." 

The declaration assures to all, freedom of thought, conscience, expression, religion and association. In Chile, the political parties of the left have been declared illegal. This even includes the moderate and right-wing parties, which are in recess and under control to such extent that the leaders of the Christian Democratic Party have expressed their total inconformity with the policies of the Junta. Freedom of the press has also been eliminated. The media opposed to the Junta has been closed, and only the right wing is permitted to operate, but not without censorship. Honest men who serve the press are in concentration camps or have disappeared under the barrages of the execution squads. 

Books have been burned publicly recalling the days of the Inquisition and Nazi fascism. These incidents have been reported by the world press. The comical errors of those who have read only the titles have resulted in ignorant generals reducing scientific books to ashes. Many ministers sympathetic to the sufferings of their people have been accused of being Marxist in spite of their orthodox militancy following Jesus' example. Masons and layman alike have been tortured simply for their beliefs. It is prohibited to think, free expression is forbidden. 

Mrs. Allende said the right to free education has also been wiped away. Thousands of students have been expelled for simply having belonged to a leftist party. Young people just a few months away from obtaining their degrees have been deprived of five or more years of higher education. University rectors have been replaced by generals, non-graduates themselves. Deans of faculties respond to orders of ballistics experts. These are not gratuitous accusations, but are all of them based on ethics issued by the military Junta itself. 

"In conclusion", says Mrs. Allende, "the Declaration of Human Rights recognizes the right of all men to free choice of employment, favorable working conditions, fair pay and job security. Workers must be permitted to organize freely in trade unions. Moreover, the Declaration of Human Rights states that people have the right to expect an adequate standard of living, health and wellbeing for themselves and their families. In Chile, the Central Workers Trade Union confederation, the CUT with 2,400,000 members, which on February 12th, 1974 marked 21 years of existence, has been outlawed. Trade unions have been dissolved except for the company unions. Unemployment, which under the Popular Unity Administration had shrunk to its lowest level, 3.2% is now more than 13%. In my country, the rights of the workers respected in the Declaration of Human Rights have ceased to exist." These excerpts were taken from the United Nations speech of Hortensia Allende, widow of Dr. Salvador Allende, leader of the former Popular Unity Government of Chile. 

In a recent article entitled "Central America: Made Martyr by The Big Fruit Company", La Opinión, an Argentine newspaper reports on the US-based Standard Fruit Company. Standard Fruit unilaterally suspended its import of bananas from Honduras in reprisal for an agreement Honduras made establishing an export tax on bananas of $1 per case. According to Standard Fruit, the agreement will bring Honduras unemployment and cause a drop in wages, as well as affect banana production in all of Latin America's other banana-producing nations. The decision, reports La Opinión, was made public by Standard Fruit following an interview which several of the corporation's highest officials had with Honduran President López Arellano. 

Officials spokesmen have stated that Honduras remained firm in defense of its recent agreements, reached collectively with Panama, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Colombia. Standard Fruit alleged in a press statement that the rise in the export price of bananas will diminish North American banana consumption, thus making it necessary to adjust the supply in order to compensate for the new situation.

Standard Fruit announced its intention to take such action at a recent meeting of Latin American banana producers held in Honduras. During the meeting, a Standard Fruit official warned all of the various representatives that it would suspend all banana shipments out of Honduras if the $1 tax was agreed upon. The threat, which would hurt, especially Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras, was ignored by all of the representatives present. 

Following the meeting, a Costa Rican newspaper, Latin, reported on the reaction to Standard Fruits actions by Costa Rican President José Figueres. Figueres labeled Standard Fruit's operations colonialist. The Costa Rican President also said that Standard Fruit was the only foreign fruit company which had refused to pay the $1 export charge. Addressing his country in a national television broadcast, Figueres stated, "It is a typically colonialist attitude and has caused us great difficulty. However, we will not alter our approach and we'll do what must be done." 

Standard Fruit's hardline policy, reports La Opinión, is due to two chief factors. Standard Fruit fears that competitors will move in and capture its market when its prices rise. The company also fears that the banana producers, if not dealt with firmly, will pursue with greater interest their recent tendency towards trade with Socialist nations. 

This report on the banana trade in Central America was taken from the Argentine daily, La Opinión, and the Costa Rican paper, Latin. 

In Colombia, there will be few excuses for Alfonso López Michelsen if he fails to make a success of the administration he will form when he assumes office in August. Having won comfortably over half the votes in the recent elections, and with a Liberal majority in Congress, he has fully achieved the mandate he sought from the country. The only fly in the ointment was that although this was the first meaningful contest between Colombia's two traditional parties, the Liberals and Conservatives, since their National Front agreement was established 16 years ago, nearly half the electorate failed to vote. 

The fact is, however, that the electors were offered a significant choice between the reformism of López Michelsen, diluted or not, and the development a la Brazil of his Conservative rival Alvaro Gómez Hurtado. In an astute speech when his victory was announced, López Michelsen promised that despite his total victory, he would honor the agreement to share government posts between Liberals and Conservatives. But he strongly implied that he would be calling only on the moderate wing of the Conservative party, and in fact, the Liberals are jubilant that the reactionary Gómez Hurtado wing looks as if it may be finished forever. 

What does seem clear is that López Michelsen succeeded in hitting exactly the right note in the current state of Latin American politics. It is evidently of some importance that another constitutional regime after Venezuela should have strengthened its position at a time when others further south are either looking shaky or have been violently overthrown.

But perhaps more important is the opening that López Michelsen has created at a time when similar political openings have emerged in such diverse countries as Mexico, Honduras, Brazil, and Argentina. Even if they're largely rhetoric in a number of cases, they are not without significance domestically. Clearly the talk of agrarian reform, a better distribution of wealth, a break between state and church, new divorce proposals and so on from López Michelsen has helped to create a new situation in Colombia, whether it is all carried through effectively or not. 

Equally important is the impact on the country's position abroad. The nationalism, which characterizes, say, the Acción Democrática government in neighboring Venezuela is likely to be closely reflected in Bogotá. Indeed, López Michelsen has referred to his friend, Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, and the two country's policies are likely to be closely connected during the next four or five years. This must mean more power to the Andean group and rather stricter though perhaps more secure conditions for foreign companies operating in Colombia. Among other things, it may mean a review of such deals as the projects to develop the country's coal, gas, and oil reserves in conjunction with the United States and Brazil. 

For Peru in particular, the Colombian election result must be wholly satisfying. Support from another Andean country will be very welcome at a time when external threats seem manifold. Panama and Venezuela, too, will be pleased. Prospects now look better than ever before for a settlement of the longstanding dispute between Colombia and Venezuela over territorial waters. 

One possible solution suggested by López Michelsen was the joint development by the two countries of the natural resources, mainly oil, under the seabed. If they work closely together, Colombia and Venezuela will clearly be an important political force in the Southern Caribbean, more so at a time when the major power in the area, the United States, is suffering from an almost daily decline of government. This, from the British news weekly, Latin America.