Honduras This Week Online

Steps for Hondurans Voting Abroad

By Stanley Marrder
For the third time, Honduran citizens living abroad will be able to vote at the general elections. Elections will be held on Thanksgiving Day; Sunday, November 29. Unlike local voters who will be able to vote for president, congressional representatives and mayors, voters abroad will be limited to presidential candidates. The only valid document required to vote is the National ID card. Over 11 thousand IDs have been sent to the United States. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) recognized close to 20,000 Hondurans in the national census which will be able to vote from the United States.

Written by Stanley Maarder

News - International

Russell to Reopen Maquila in Choloma, Rehire 1,200 Workers

Russell Athletic will reopen its apparel sewing plant or maquila in the city of Choloma under the name "Jerzees Nuevo Dia". The company has agreed to rehire the 1,200 workers that were laid off when it closed the plant in January. The closure, which followed efforts by the workers to unionize, was met with an extremely energetic nationwide campaign in the United States against Russell orchestrated by an anti-sweatshop coalition called United Students Against Sweatshops. The movement succeeded in lobbying administrations at nearly 100 universities to terminate or suspend licensing agreements with Russell worth more than US$1 million in sales. The agreements allowed Russell to place university logos and other trademarks on T-shirts, sweatshirts, and fleece jackets. In exchange for restoring the licensing deals, Russell will not only reopen the Choloma factory and rehire workers, it has pledged not to oppose unionization of workers at its other seven maquilas in Honduras.

Written by Honduras This Week

News - Business & Economics

Micheletti Will Step Down for a Week

Roberto Micheletti will temporarily step down from his position as interim president of Honduras on Tuesday, November 24. In a speech delivered Thursday evening, Mr. Micheletti announced that he intends to relinquish power five days prior to the November 29 national elections and assume control again on December 2, the day that Honduras' Congress is scheduled to vote on the issue of reinstating Manuel Zelaya as president. Mr. Micheletti's cabinet of ministers will continue to run the government during the week of Mr. Micheletti's absence. Mr. Micheletti said that the move is intended to give Hondurans a respite from the political crisis, in which he and Mr. Zelaya have been the feature attractions, thus allowing citizens to better focus on the elections. An underlying hope is that having Mr. Micheletti be less visible could help allay temptations by some to cause disruptions in the electoral process. An alternative interpretation is that the move may simply be a symbolic gesture designed to make it easier for governments around the world to recognize the results of the elections. The thinking is that some governments might find it more politically palatable to support the elections without having the person who replaced Mr. Zelaya at the helm, at least for a short period of time.

Written by Honduras This Week

Words About Our Editorial Policy...

The idea is to be receptive and respectful of everyone's point of view."

Some concern has been expressed of late about the editorial policy of Honduras This Week Online. Some of this was fueled by our publication of Roberto Quesada's piece, "So Now What, Ambassador Llorens?", which clearly contains an editorial slant in favor of deposed president Manuel Zelaya and against the interim government led by Roberto Micheletti. Mr. Quesada wrote his piece in response to an open invitation from us to be a regular contributor to Honduras This Week Online. That invitation, in turn, was prompted by a Letter to Editor from one of our readers who mentioned that he felt we were being too cynical in our coverage and commentary about the political situation in Honduras. In other words, that we were being overly biased against Mr. Zelaya and his cause.

Written by Honduras This Week

The Healing Stone

After a night of sleeping under the watchful eyes of a million sticky frogs in a cottage at El Jaral, I was glad when morning finally came."

My husband and I buried our son a week after he was born. We returned from his funeral not quite sure what to do next. We laid on our bed staring up at the ceiling fan, contemplating the abyss of maternity leave without a baby. After several days of dealing with well meaning neighbors and the flood of sympathy mail and diaper samples from targeted mass marketers, my husband suggested that maybe we should go to Honduras. For him, Honduras would bring the healing comfort of going home. For me, bereft and numb, it was the equivalent of going to bed and pulling the covers over my head. Perhaps in Honduras I could escape my new reality.

Written by Doña Barbara

Comments (1)

News - Cultural

Reflections on Honduran Politics: Gauging the Will of the People

By Marco Cáceres
On March 23, 2009, President Manuel Zelaya issued Executive Decree No. PCM-05-2009 ordering that a fourth ballot box or cuarta urna be placed at each of the polling stations throughout Honduras during the national elections on November 29. The boxes were to be positioned beside the three ballot boxes designated for casting votes for president, Congressional representatives, and local mayors. The purpose of the fourth ballot box would be to vote on a binding referendum on the question of whether or not to review the current Constitution of Honduras (approved in 1982) and re-write it, supposedly so that it better represented the interests of the majority of the people in Honduras.

Written by Marco Cáceres

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US State Department's Kelly Sees Enthusiasm for Honduran Elections

Fresh from a new round of visits with interim president Roberto Micheletti and deposed president Manuel Zelaya, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Craig A. Kelly, today reiterated that the US government will support the upcoming national elections in Honduras. Mr. Kelly stated, "No one has the right to take away from the people of Honduras the right to vote and elect their own leaders." During a press conference in Tegucigalpa, Kelly added, "[The right to vote] is an important element of democracy, and I have noted the enthusiasm that exists in the country as it heads toward the elections of November 29."

Written by Honduras This Week

Comments (1)

The Magical Texture of Thin Places

By Marco Cáceres
One of my favorite places to be in the entire world is the town of Copán Ruinas, tucked away in the lush northwestern mountains of Honduras. The first time I ever visited was in March 2003. I took a Hedman Alas bus from Tegucigalpa one morning and arrived in Copán Ruinas a little after noon. As I walked down the cobblestone street toward the central plaza, it struck me that I was wandering into an area that would change my life in ways I still do not completely comprehend. It's a feeling similar to one I had when I accidentally came across an Italian cultural center in Washington, DC called Casa Italiana in the late-1980s. That chance encounter with Casa Italiana eventually led me to learn Italian, establish relationships with my family in Italy (Umbria and Molise), make four trips to Italy, and ultimately propose to my wife in the city of Verona.

Written by Marco Cáceres

News - Cultural

Movie 2012 Fuels Interest in Maya

The release of Sony Pictures' movie "2012" last week is fueling new interest in the Maya civilization, which could spell good news for Honduras, particularly the town of Copán Ruinas. The end-of-the-world epic, directed by Roland Emmerich and starring John Cusack and Amanda Peet, is based on Maya prophecy about what some interpret as a prediction about the end of the world on December 21,2012. Over the weekend, the movie topped the charts, posting sales of $65 million in the US and Canada, and $225 million globally. With its Maya ruins, Copán is one the country's biggest tourism draws. The ruins represent an archaeological and cultural treasure that attracts visitors from all over the world. Due to the international financial crisis and, more recently, the political crisis in Honduras since the ousting of Manuel Zelaya as president, tourism in Copán has dropped by more than 50 percent. Some estimates have pegged the downturn as severe as 80 percent.

Written by Honduras This Week

News - Cultural

Congress Will Vote December 2 on Zelaya R...

The president of Honduras' Congress, José Alfredo Saavedra, said in an interview with HRN radio on Tuesday that the legislative body will deliberate and vote December 2 on the matter of reinstating Manuel Zelaya to the presidency [of Honduras]. The vote would comply with terms of the Tegucigalpa-José Accord signed on October 30 by representatives of interim president Roberto Micheletti and Mr. Zelaya. Provision No. 5 of the agreement calls on Congress to have the final say on whether or not Mr. Zelaya should be returned to power. It does not specify a date by which the decision should be made.

Written by Honduras This Week

Talk About Interesting...

By Don Pearly
If you are not checking the Honduras This Week website daily, you might be missing some of the action. As of late there seem to be new and interesting articles about the ongoing political situation. Well written and super informative. I read them all the time. However, there might be a need for some lighter information, so let’s look at All About Roatan for a moment.

Written by Don Pearly

So Now What, Ambassador Llorens?

Children are the world's most important resource and the best hope for the future."
-John F. Kennedy

By Roberto Quesada
Unfortunately, the military coup in Honduras and the United States’ announcement to recognize the elections, without reversing the military coup is another coup to all of Latin America and undoubtedly a regression in relations. The other day, while waiting at a traffic light, I told another driver who was wearing a hat with the image of Obama, “Obama has let us down in my country Honduras, they are about to recognize some elections under a state of terror”. The traffic light changed and each of us accelerated and quickly lost sight of each other.

Written by Roberto Quesada

Comments (6)

Mel's Letter to Obama

By Marco Cáceres
When you write a letter to someone, the assumption is that you intend for that person to read your letter. If Manuel Zelaya is expecting President Obama to read his recent rambling, grammatically-imperfect, five-page letter written in Spanish, I'm afraid he is in for a disappointment. The letter, dated November 14, is filled with flowery-worded, poorly-constructed sentences that force you to re-read them several times in order to get the point or even understand the basic meaning behind the thoughts. In several paragraphs, Mr. Zelaya displays a powerful disdain for the use of periods, causing the reader to quickly get lost in a maze of commas. On display also is an annoying affection for the use of bolding and underlining to stress that which he considers vital... almost as if Mr. Zelaya is aware that he is lulling you to sleep with his excessive recounting of historical events and wishes to snap you out of your dazed state.

Written by Marco Cáceres

Comments (3)