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10 Facts about Corruption in Honduras

10 Facts about Corruption in Honduras
Honduras, officially known as The Republic of Honduras, is a small country in Central America bordering the Caribbean Sea. The Latin American country has had a rocky political climate since the 1980s and is full of corruption across all levels of government. Here are 10 facts about corruption in Honduras that everyone should know.

10 Facts About Corruption in Honduras

  1. Many Hondurans are fleeing to the United States. At least 350,000 Hondurans have attempted to migrate to the U.S. in the last 10 years to escape the danger, but Honduras has among the highest denial rates for asylum seekers to the United States. The U.S. denies approximately 78 percent of Hondurans legally seeking refuge.
  2. Political corruption is an important factor. Political corruption plays a part in why many Hondurans live in fear or decide to flee the country. Many experts say that political corruption is a big factor as to why there are so many Hondurans fleeing to the U.S. The country has a history of police brutality and one of the highest murder rates in the world.
  3. Politicians are funneling money from nonprofits to fund their campaigns. Univision reported that at least 53 nonprofits are missing funds that politicians are allegedly using to fund political campaigns or buy important votes. The nonprofits raised more than $70 million since 2009 and at least 176 politicians are part of this scandal. This includes President Juan Orlando Hernández who is the President of Honduras.
  4. The presidential election in 2017 caused protests. The Honduras presidential election of 2017 became the cause of protests across the country. When Honduras elected President Juan Orlando Hernández for his second term, many believed the results were fraudulent. Some protests were peaceful, but others took to blockading roads and burning tires. Honduras’ security forces used tear gas and live ammunition against the protesters. This results in the deaths of at least 30 people.
  5. Honduras has the most unequal distribution of wealth in Latin America. Some consider Honduras to be the sixth most unequal country in the world, due in part to policies such as a tax reform that the country implemented in 2013 that seemed to target the poor. Around 64.5 percent of Hondurans live in poverty and 42.6 percent live in extreme poverty. In 2014, the richest 20 percent of those living in Honduras had an 8 percent increase in their wealth, while the poorest 20 percent saw their wealth decrease 7.4 percent.
  6. The public health budget in Honduras suffers as a result of corruption. Studies show that in recent years, 49 percent of the public health budget mysteriously redirected to other unknown causes. The 2018 health budget underspent by the equivalent of about $33 million while hospitals remain in dire need of the funding.
  7. Historically, Honduras has severely misused aid from the United States. The intention of U.S. foreign aid to Honduras was to help President Juan Orlando Hernández in his war on drugs in the region but instead, he used it to fund security and police forces. According to human rights organizations, these security forces in Honduras have been associated with serious human rights violations in the past years.
  8. The U.S. cut funding to Honduras in 2019. In 2018, a slew of immigrants from Central America came together in a caravan of an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 people headed for the United States. As a result of the region’s failure to stop the caravan, the U.S. dramatically cut funding to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. The U.S. cut over $500 million in aid.
  9. An organization called the Organization of American States (OAS) fights to diminish corruption in the Honduran government. The goal of the Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras is to support Hondurans in fighting against corruption among those in power. Since April 19, 2016, this group has supported investigations into those accused of corruption. In addition, it worked to restore justice by recovering goods or profits unethically gained and give a voice back to the citizens of Honduras.
  10. The mission within the OAS has made impressive strides toward ending corruption in Honduras. Within six months of the creation of the Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH), it proposed a law called the Law on Clean Politics. The law specified that political leaders be responsible for their finances and that citizens participating in drug trafficking not contribute to political campaigns. This law passed in late 2016.

These 10 facts about corruption in Honduras are evidence that the political climate in the region is rough. However, the security forces loyal to the President of Honduras weakened because the United States cut the funding. Additionally, groups like MACCIH are still working hard to combat corruption and impunity among the Honduran government. Protests continue despite the threat of violence. Also, Honduran activists continue to make their voices heard with the help of the Organization of American States.

– Amanda Gibson
Photo: Wikimedia

Deforestation Linked to Drug Smuggling?

deforestation_central_america
According to a report by the journal Science, drug smuggling is linked to a rising rate of deforestation in Central America.

To ease the process of illegal drug transportation in Honduras and Guatemala, landing strips are built in remote forests. As a result, the report argues that there is a correlation between the recent increase in drug activity and the deforestation rate in these locations.

“In Honduras, the level of large-scale deforestation per year more than quadrupled between 2007 and 2011, at the same time as cocaine movements in the country also showed a significant rise,” states the BBC while covering the report published in Science.

In many cases the governments of Guatemala and Honduras have less control over the forests and people of the countries than drug dealers. Now that Honduras has the highest homicide rate in the world, people within the indigenous communities are too intimidated to report any activity involving drugs.

The researchers assert that declaring a “war on drugs” causes traffickers to expand their activities into rural areas, which ultimately harms indigenous communities and ecologically important forests.

“Once you start fighting them, you scatter them into more remote locales and greater areas become impacted, more people get involved and you raise their profits as they put a risk premium on their products,” said Dr. Kendra Mcsweeney, the lead author of the study.

As strange as it may sound, building illegal landing strips for drug-transporting planes in remote areas is actually a common practice. According to an InSight Crime article, the Mexican Secretariat of National Defense revealed, “92 landing strips had been decommissioned during the first six months of Enrique Pena Nieto’s presidency.”

Unlike Honduras and Guatemala, the Mexican government is more successful in shutting down illegal landing strips. However, the demand of drugs from the United States is too strong for the drug cartels to discontinue their operations. It was not long until the cartels began coming up with new ways to transport their product into the U.S.

“Planes have been modified to be able to take off on very short runways, or land on rocky terrain. Meanwhile, ultralight aircraft, which are hard to detect and can use runways less than 100 feet long, are now being increasing used for very short flights across the U.S.-Mexico border,” the article states.

Deforestation is a problem not only for Guatemala and Honduras, but also for the rest of the world because it contributes to global climate change.

– Juan Campos

Sources: BBC, InSight Crime
Photo: UWW