The History of Honduras, with a particular focus on tourism.
Created by wgirard on Jun 23, 2008
Last updated: 03/11/10 at 06:01 PM
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Honduras, a former U.S. ally in Central America now run by a leftist government, told a U.S. envoy not to present his credentials as ambassador Friday in a diplomatic snub in support of Bolivia.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/09/honduras_in_diplomatic_snub_to.php
Tegucigalpa, Aug 3 (Prensa Latina) Honduras' Council of Ministers favors President Manuel Zelaya' choice to join the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, says La Prensa daily.
Zelaya called ALBA, an initiative of Cuba and Venezuela to counter the US-led Free Trade Area for the Americas to impose its hegemony, a means to meet domestic historic problems.
At a cabinet meeting, the ministers agreed to cut from August 4 super gas gallon by $0.012 cents, diesel ($0.04) and wheat flour ($0.07).
Industry and Trade Minister Fredy Cerrato announced for September further flour discounts.
http://www.plenglish.com/Article.asp?ID={97EFEAD5-F583-4D2E-B269-6B5B776BC75C}&language=EN
Honduras: The Central America You Know – The Country You’ll Love
Honduran President Manuel Zelaya announced on Sunday that Honduras will join the Venezuela-led Petrocaribe initiative on Monday.
http://www.topix.net/world/central-america/2008/02/honduras-joins-venezuela-led-energy-security-alliance
The European Union (EU) plans to provide Honduras with 314 million U.S. dollars under its 2007-2013 aid program, visiting European commissioner for foreign affairs Benita Ferrero-Waldner said Wednesday, according to news reports from Tegucigalpa.
Ferrero-Waldner told reporters that with these figures, Honduras would be second in the list of beneficiaries of development aid from the European Commission in Latin America and foremost in Central America.
She said the money will be used for the fight against poverty, reforestation projects and efforts to enhance public safety.
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/6276754.html
The Inter-American Development Bank announced it would forgive $4.4 billion in debt owed by five of the poorest countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The bank excused the foreign debts of Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti and Guyana in an announcement ahead of its annual meeting.
In Honduras Manuel Zelaya was inaugurated as the new president. He promised to fight corruption and help criminal and gang members become useful citizens.
The Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) failed to start due to legal and regulatory reforms. Juan Carlos Paiz of the Guatemalan Union of Nontraditional Products blamed the US in large part for the delay, saying Washington was requiring too much of its poorer partners. The 6 participating nations included, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua,
US officials and 5 Central American countries (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua) signed a free trade pact (CAFTA), to be later approved by Congress. The Dominican Republic would be included later.
Honduras passed an anti-gang law. Gang leaders faced 9-12 years in prison.
The development objective of the Regional Development in the Copan Valley Project is to achieve sustainable tourism development based on the cultural and natural patrimony of the Copan Valley and the surrounding areas which will, as a result, create investment opportunities for the private sector, foster employment, and reduce poverty in one of the poorest regions of Honduras. To increase economic growth, the Government is pursuing a robust tourism development strategy that capitalizes on its many exceptional natural and cultural resources. In 2002, tourism grew by 20 percent with more than 800,000 visitors. The Government seeks to increase this number to one million visitors by 2005 and be a regional leader in tourism by 2021. Project components are: 1) integrated development of archeological parks and sites, will create and Archeological Tourism Circuit by financing tourism infrastructure and training in participatory management; 2) income generation opportunities, will implement a program of formation for populations in the project areas, particularly the very poor; and 3) institutional development, will design and implement institutional strengthening and communications, and enhancements to the Project Coordination Unit (PCU) and monitoring and evaluation.
The Sustainable Coastal Tourism Project will enable the development, and management of tourism along the North Coast mainland, and the offshore Bay Islands of Honduras, through a participatory process, by strengthening local, and municipal capacity to manage, and benefit from coastal tourism. The components will: 1) formulate, and promote a participatory approach to policy dialogue, with public, and private stakeholders at the national, regional, and local levels, through workshops to formulate strategic tourism in the area, develop community participation, and institutional arrangements. A major land titling diagnostic on indigenous communities of the North Coast, should recommend actions to formalize recognition of indigenous land rights, as well as satisfactory conflict resolution. Technical assistance will be provided to promote, and implement policy reforms, legal and regulatory frameworks, and, improve institutional arrangements. This includes tourism audits, legal, and technical aspects related to titling of communal land, as well as campaigns focused on HIV/AIDS prevention, and control; 2) develop the capacity of coastal municipalities, which includes the private sector, and community based organizations, through skills training in environmental management, tourism management, and entrepreneurship. In addition, a cultural tourism site will be restored at the historic center of Trujillo; 3) design, and deliver micro, and small business enterprise training to stimulate productive capacity, and create business opportunities, i.e., handicrafts, tour operations, and adventures travel, and, 4) support project management, financial management, procurement, and reporting systems.
http://web.worldbank.org/external/projects/main?pagePK=64312881&piPK=64302848&theSitePK=40941&Projectid=P057859
Honduran legislature voted to end 41 years of military autonomy and to put the military under civilian control.
"Mitch caused such massive and widespread damage that Honduran President Carlos Roberto Flores claimed it destroyed fifty years of progress in the country. An estimated 70–80% of the transportation infrastructure of the entire country was wiped out, including nearly all bridges and secondary roads; the damage was so great that existing maps were rendered obsolete"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Mitch
An accord was signed to protect the 620-mile Caribbean coral reef system by Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras.
In Honduras Candido Amador, a Chorti tribal leader, was shot to death near the ruins of Copan after a meeting with local landowners. He had demanded that the government turn over 35,000 acres of land that was promised to the indigenous peoples in an agreement with the Spanish colonial government in the 18th century. Another leader, Ovidio Perez, was gunned down less than a month later.
(Glob. 2) In 1995 Honduras received $67 per citizen in development assistance.
Members of the Mundo Maya are rhetorically committed to facilitating regional travel, improving tourism infrastructure, and conserving the major archaeological and ecological resources in the effort to generate greater economic development for individual states. A key moment in building this multinational, private/public sector coalition came in 1993, with the signing of “the Declaration of Copán,” with which five Central American presidents committed their countries to participatory development, ecological conservation, and cultural resource management (Fash and Fash 1997; Honduran Ministry of Tourism, personal communication 1998). The signing took place in the Great Plaza of the Copán Park, a symbolically appropriate setting for this gathering of heads of state and the final stop on their tour of major Maya sites in the member countries.
The Honduran government was forced to revoke a 40-year forest concession it had granted to a Chicago-based paper company, Stone Container, after thousands of Hondurans marched in protest.
(TC, 129) March 1990 Callejas launches paquetazo—economic reform package—set of neoliberal policies.
"Copán was declared a National monument by means of Presidential Accord No.185, June 24, 1982; text of the accord was published in La Gaceta, November 26, 1982." Lena Mortensen's Dissertation
"The success of PAC I led to a second phase, this time with financing from the World Bank. PAC II, directed by William Sanders of Penn State University, officially ran from 1980- 1985, but offshoots of this project, including the Copán Mosaics Project and the Rural Sites Project, lasted well into the 1990's." --Lena Mortensen's Dissertation. "At its peak in the early1980's, the PAC II project directly employed 110 residents of Copán to assist with survey, excavation, analysis, restoration and administration. Nearly all of these individuals had previous experience in archaeological work, gained in the two projects immediately preceding PAC II and in some cases dating back to the Carnegie project of the 1930's and 40's, prompting PAC II project director William Sanders to characterize Copán as having a “professional of excavators.”--Lena Mortensen's Dissertation
"The highest international honor for locations of antiquity in the present day is to be designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Judged against other “works of man or the combined works of nature and of man, and areas including archaeological sites which are of outstanding universal value from the historical, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological points of view,” Copán was selected under criterion four of the World Heritage Convention. This criterion qualifies “an outstanding example of a type of building or architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history” for inclusion on the list.54 The World Heritage status brings with it international recognition of importance, which translates into elevated publicity and increased funding possibilities. Copán received this honor in 1980, the only site in Honduras to be named among the World’s most notable cultural places. " --From Lena Mortenssn's Dissertation
(TC, 122) Btw. 1980-1990 the number of NGOS in Honduras triples. (125) Huge amount of this aid totally bypasses the state. (Global. 32) 1987: 125 NGOs; 1996: 280 NGOs.
In Honduras death squads reportedly killed 184 people over the decade. During the 1980s the US provided training and support for Battalion 316, a Honduran military unit, which had a history of kidnapping, murder and torture of suspected leftists subversives. Washington gave Honduras $1.4 billion in aid. By 2000 charges were put forth against 29 soldiers and officers, 8 of whom fled justice.
"The highest international honor for locations of antiquity in the present day is to be designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Judged against other “works of man or the combined works of nature and of man, and areas including archaeological sites which are of outstanding universal value from the historical, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological points of view,” Copán was selected under criterion four of the World Heritage Convention. This criterion qualifies “an outstanding example of a type of building or architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history” for inclusion on the list.54 The World Heritage status brings with it international recognition of importance, which translates into elevated publicity and increased funding possibilities. Copán received this honor in 1980, the only site in Honduras to be named among the World’s most notable cultural places." --Lena Mortensen's Dissertation
PAC I, directed by French archaeologist, Claude Baudez, ran from 1977-9. Overall the program made significant infrastructure improvements to facilitate tourism and further archaeological research, including paving a long-awaited road between Copán Ruinas and La Entrada, and establishing the Center for Regional Archaeological Investigations (CRIA)—a laboratory, conservation, and storage facility that included a research library— directly across from the archaeological park.
Mass toma of land in 10 departments on 19 May 1975 (557). Passage of Decree 107, but not actually many gains in the face of a resurgent right (560).
In January of 1975 the “Primera Reunion de Arqueologos Centroamericanos,” organized by the BCIE in Tegucigalpa, brought economists and financiers together with archaeologists to discuss an archaeological component of a newRegional Plan for Tourism (Baudez 1983:15-16; IHAH 2002). This meeting established an important dialogue between these two groups that helped launch the multidimensional archaeological development project, “Proyecto Arqueológico Copán: Primera Fase” or PAC I, funded by the BCIE. That same year Cueva invited well-known archaeologist Gordon R. Willey from Harvard to draw up a long term plan of research and restoration for Copán. This plan, published in the inaugural issue of the new IHAH journal, Yaxkín, became the foundation for the subsequent 25 years of research in the Copán valley (Willey et al.1976; see also Fash 1996:16, 2001:57; Fash and Agurcia F. 2004:10)." From Lena Mortensen's Dissertation
The "Football" War (La guerra del fútbol, in Spanish), also known as the 100-hours War, was a five-day war fought by El Salvador and Honduras in 1969.
The tensions between the two nations were reflected by rioting at a football match between them; the war was not caused by a football game, as has been popularly reported internationally. Contrary to popular opinion, the war was caused by political conflicts between Hondurans and Salvadorans,namely issues concerning immigration from El Salvador to Honduras. Most believe the name is derived from the rioting at the football match immediately preceding the war, others that it refers to the sensationalist way in which international journalists overlapped war reporting with rioting from a series of football matches.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_War
(C&S 125) Honduran Church hierarchy in 1966 decided to Establish “Celebrants of the Word”—Mass administered by laity. Well in advance on Nicaragua.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_base_communities
(C&S 129) USAID became active in the Honduran countryside in the mid to late 1960s (1966 is an approximation)—Many of their activities “skirted the government bur” and were channeled through groups either directly or indirectly related to progressive religious groups. USAID was officially prevented from doing this, but saw these groups as the most effective. In the 1970s these relationships with USAID break, but other private groups from around the world fill the space. Much of their power come from these relationships with other groups.
"In 1961, Honduras only received approximately 52,000 foreign visitors, many of whom came for business purposes rather than for leisure (Ritchie et al. 302)." --Lena Mortensen's Dissertation
(C&S 124) Honduran Church begins ambitious “Radio Schools” in 1961—by the mid 1960s focus more on cocientizacion than education. This is before Medellian.
Villeda Morales administration (1957-63) often likened to original Liberal reform governments because of its ambitious legislative agenda and attachment to modernity, but actually didn’t go much further than the Nationalist and military predecessors, although with a much more open (536). (C&S, 123) Warming of Church/State relations under Morales, but no where near as close as in Nic. (RBR) Coup of 1956 first modern military intervention into gov. 1957 constitution gave a great deal of power to military.
"From approximately 1952–1995 the Cop ́an Valley in western Honduras was the site of intensive production of flue-cured tobacco." -- William Loker
"Tobacco cultivation in the Cop ́an Valley took a dramatic turn in the second half of the twentieth century. In the mid-1950s, British American Tobacco Company (BAT) became active in the Cop ́an Valley, introducing flue-cured tobacco in order to supply leaf for the manufacture of cigarettes in its Honduran factory, Tabacalera Hondure ̃na SA, formed in 1928 when BAT purchased two existing, rival cigarette manufacturers, Tabacalera La Bohemia SA and Fabrica de Cigarillos La Competidor (Cox, 2000, p. 258). " --William Loker
1950: Pop. 1.4 Million, 10% lived in communities of 10,000 or more. Teguz (72,400) SPS (21,200)
"Almost without exception the accounts of 19th century explorers who visited noted that Copán was “isolated” or difficult to get to. Until an airfield was built in 1935, Copán was connected to neighboring towns by only “a series of rough mule-tracks, in some places almost impassable during the wet season” (Maudslay 1889-1902:11). Relative to other ruins in Guatemala and the Yucatán known at the time, Copán was, and still is, somewhat less accessible to tourists and other kinds of travelers." -- Lena Mortensen's Dissertation
"In 1934 Sylvanus Morley was able to make use of his political connections, his local relationships, and his prominent position in Maya studies to facilitate an agreement between the Government of Honduras (GOH) and the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW), committing them both to multi-year and multi-faceted projects centered on the ruins of Copán. The ultimate goal was to transform the ruins into a major tourist attraction, a showcase for the ancient Maya not unlike the spectacle Morley had recently engineered at Chichén Itzá in the Yucatán. The “Carnegie era” at Copán (Fash 2001), during which a number of famous Mayanist scholars established themselves,80 is in many ways a direct precursor to the modern archaeological industry at this same site." --Quoted from Lena Mortensen's Dissertation.
1933— 1948 Tiburcio Carias Andino — Nationalist President and virtual dictator — ruled Honduras. [Honduras:MBR, 73]
The youngest child of Dutch immigrants, Ridderhof was one of the first three graduates of Columbia International University in 1923. In 1930, she traveled to Honduras, establishing her ministry in Marcala and neighboring villages. Forced to return to the United States to recover from malaria, she began Gospel Recordings in 1939 to remain in touch with her followers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_Ridderhof
*Coffee production doubles between 1915 and 1929 (59).
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