So as promised here is the second blog (follow-up to the one called “Sustainable Development”) on the history of foreign influence in Honduras. Some of you may already be familiar with this information while others may not. Either way, it can help us to understand better the situation that Honduras finds itself in today. To write this blog, I referenced several books including: “Inside Honduras: The essential guide to its politics, economy, society and environment” by Kent Norsworthy with Tom Barry (1994), “Honduras and Beyond: A Memory of Inequality” by T.Y. Okosun (2006) and “Don’t Be Afraid, Gringo: A Honduran woman speaks from the heart” translated and edited by Medea Benjamin (1987).
Here is a short account of US foreign policy in Honduras. In 1954, Honduras gave permission for its territory to be used as a training ground for the CIA-supported, rightwing military force that overthrew the reformist government in Guatemala. In that same year, Washington singed a bilateral assistance pact with the Honduran military that assured the close US-Honduran military cooperation of the 1980s. According to Norsworthy, “it was also during the Honduran banana strike of 1954 that US labor representatives associated with the State Department began infiltrating the Honduran labor movement and exerting a conservative, anticommunist influence that has long obstructed the advance of a unified, progressive popular movement in Honduras”.
In the 1980s, Honduras became the center for US policy in the region. Between 1980 and 1990, the number of NGOs operating in Honduras tripled. The majority of these organizations were US private and church organizations. According to Kent Norsworthy, the rapid rise in nongovernmental organizations was due largely because of the country’s strategic role in U.S. foreign policy in the 1980s. (If you are asking yourself, what was the U.S. up to during the 1980s in Central America, I recommend reading “The Death of Ben Linder” by Joan Kruckewitt or “Don’t Be Afraid, Gringo: A Honduran woman speaks from the heart” by Medea Benjamin).
What was this foreign policy? Well, in the 1980s, the Sandinistas were in power in Nicaragua and in El Salvador the growing strength of the National Liberation Front threatened to oust the US-backed Salvadoran government. Honduras quickly became the key for the United State’s geopolitical interests and both countries soon reached an agreement – in exchange for an increase in US military and economic aid, Honduras would join the US in its effort to topple the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. To give you an idea what kind of “effort” this was, the US spent well over a billion dollars in economic and military aid in Honduras between 1979 and 1989. According to Medea Benjamin, the influx of US dollars created a gold-rush atmosphere which aggravated the endemic corruption and infighting within the Honduras military. So while the military chiefs and politicians were getting rich off US aid, the majority of Hondurans were getting poorer. Although democratic elections were held in 1981 (from pressure by the US), the military maintained a firm grip on reins of power and rather than reducing the power of the military, allowed them to act with greater impunity because they were now covered by the facade of a civilian government. Payment on foreign aid debt gradually began to take up more and more of the government budget (read “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” by John Perkins (2004) to learn about how the US has, for over half a century (and still today??), loaned out money to countries in need with the goal of pushing them into a hole of debt so deep that they are forever indebted to the US, thereby making them “pay” their debt other ways, namely in whatever happens to be of US interest at the time). So anyways, in order to pay back their debt, Honduras reduced it’s already inadequate health budget from $130 million to $97 million between 1986 and 87. Unemployment shot up to 41 percent and there was an alarming rise in human rights abuses. Despite a five-fold increase in US economic assistance between 1981 and 1990, per capita income for the population actually declined. Kent Norsworthy sums up the effects of foreign policy in Honduras nicely:
“Democracy, development, and stability have been the oft-repeated US goals in Honduras. But after more than a decade of aid and intervention, these goals still seem distant. In fact, rather than moving Honduras forward, US policies and programs in Honduras appear to have sown the seeds of economic and political instability. This failure can be attributed in part to the contradictory and misdirected character of US economic and military assistance. But it also has to do with the fact that from the beginning Washington’s interest in Honduras has been mainly a product of US foreign-polity concerns in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala.”
While I am a little afraid to ask it, Honduras’ history does beget the question: Am I as a United States Peace Corps volunteer here in Honduras today to help fix years of misguided and misdirected aid that has resulted in a Honduras worse off today than before US influence?
Comments, criticisms, other sides to the story and perspectives are welcome!
PS: Please remember that what we post on our blog does not represent the opinions of any other organization or people, just us!
Inside of old house on Rene´s property built sometime in the late 1800s by a Spanish family. House was inhabited during coffee season to wash, dry, and roast beans. Still in decent condition.
