And you wonder why...
Trip Start
Mar 28, 2003
1
11
20
Trip End
Jul 23, 2003
Tegucigalpa,
Honduras
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
Something that I am faced with everyday here is murder. One of my daily tasks is to go through the 4 Honduran newspapers and clip political articles. But every single day the front page of the paper is a picture of another murder victim: young, old, female, male. It's sad b/c I find myself becoming more and more desensitized to seeing such images...I say to myself "it's just another day in Honduras."
This is a country struggling to become a "true" democracy after decades of military rule. The only problem is that it is still very much like the Old Wild West here and people operate in vigilante style. Everything from the way people drive to how they earn their living is done in this manner. It's every man for himself and this in turn creates a corrupt society and a democratic government riddled with shady characters. Not to be a pessimist, but I am always asking myself if they will every be able to get it right. Don't get me wrong, I've met plenty of people who DO care and are trying to
change things and make them right. Unfortunately, they are but a minority.
50% of Honduras' 6.5 million people are under the age of 18!! You've got young people fighting for limited resources, who will do anything to get what they need or want. The majority of Honduran gang members learned their stuff on the streets of Los Angeles and have since been deported back to Honduras after any kind of conviction in the States. Here are some staggering statistics on what Honduras has to work with:
*5400-5900 uniformed police of whom 514 are commissioned officers for the country of 6.5 million
*Tegucigalpa had 1100 police for 1 million people and at least 18,000 gang members.
*The second largest city of San Pedro Sula (aprox 800,000) had 900 plus police and 25,000 gang members
*The case closure rate for murder is about 1.5% - Houston is aprox 88% and Fairfax 98% - quite a difference.
*About 37 americans murdered here since 1996 - number 37 was dug up yesterday - about 1-2 cases had someone arrested and 1 conviction
It didn't surprise me one bit when I read the stats on the police force numbers b/c I am always commenting on how you hardly ever see a police truck here. But the murder case closure rate is staggering. It's almost TOO easy to murder someone here b/c you'll never get caught or convicted. We were joking yesterday (not that someone being murdered is a joking matter) b/c there was an American man who was married to a Honduran woman. Well, last week he murdered her here in Honduras (I'll leave out the FULL gruesome details of how he did it). Well, the idiot got caught. The Hondurans were
laughing b/c this is the easiest place to get away with something like that and leave it up to a stupid American to get caught.
The other thing are the people who live on the streets. In San Francisco the homeless people you see are almost always adults. Here, I've only seen young children on the streets. Usually I see kids between the ages of about 8 and 15. They hang out by the mall where Americans tend to be. Their English is limited to "Give me money" and "Give me food, please I am hungry." They are a mixture of truly homeless children who need help, children who are being run by an adult to turn a profit, and children who are drug addicts and choose to live on the streets. You see these kids holding their hands up to their mouths constantly and it's b/c they are addicted to sniffing industrial glue. It's cheaper than designer drugs and highly addictive. I asked my Honduran friend who used to be a cop here, if these kids just don't have parents or what. He said the majority choose to be on the streets where they can be free to sniff their glue. And
unfortunately, this is not a country that makes much of an attempt to help and rehabilitate these kids. These are the ones who usually turn to gangs sooner or later and thus the cycle continues...
In any case, this is only one piece of the puzzle as to the condition that Honduras is in. It has truly opened my eyes to live in a Third World country. I always have been the one to say that US aid and whatnot can help these people...that change is possible. Much like what the US is trying to do with the Middle East roadmap to peace. But I am starting to see more and more that the US is constantly trying to be too much like a big brother and cannot make every country a prosperous and peaceful democracy. But I am
also a humanitarian at heart and want to help where possible--even if it's in vain--at least it's an attempt at trying to make a difference. So while it sometimes seems to me that all of the efforts of these US Diplomats here are wasted...they continue to hold on to the hope that something they do will make any tiny bit of difference. And I think that is commendable.
