Mess in Honduras has U.S. fingerprints

[Judi Lynn]

Mess in Honduras has U.S. fingerprints
Published : 2013-06-30 20:19
Updated : 2013-06-30 20:19

The State Department issued a new travel advisory last week for a neighbor state, Honduras, warning potential American visitors that they risk being kidnapped or killed. What’s more, it said, if they face a problem, the police may not even show up.

If you do go, the advisory added, lock your car doors so robbers or kidnappers can’t burst in at traffic lights. Eighteen Americans have been killed there in the last two years. Police have arrested no one for any of those crimes.

By now, many people know Honduras is a violent and desperately poor Central American state ― the murder capital of the world. An average of 20 people are killed there every day, more per capita than anyplace else on the planet. But many people may not realize that the United States virtually created Honduras and plays an important role in maintaining the failed state that the country is today.

Honduras is the original banana republic. Beginning in the late 19th century, two American companies, United Fruit and Standard Fruit (now Dole) owned huge banana plantations and virtually ruled the nation. That continued for more than 50 years.

In 1980, the nation held its first popular elections, but then the U.S. drew Honduras into the contra war in neighboring Nicaragua. Central Intelligence Agency operatives stationed there backed a Honduran death-squad campaign of extrajudicial killings of supposed Marxist-Leninist militia members allied with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

More:
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20130630000266

[SharonAnn]

1. Such a tragedy! I lived and worked there for a year in 1981. The country had

great promise, except for all the U.S. military there, the huge secret airbase(s), the still very real control of the Honduran military, etc.

We've used them, abused them, and caused most of the problems there. It's sickening.

[Warpy]

2. Reaganism in practice!

That administration wrote much of the constitution that is keeping that country in right wing shackles. A lot of the wealthy executive class has retired there on Roatan Island on their ill gotten gains to take advantage of a fascist country with cheap servants.

That wretched excuse for a "democratic" constitution will eventually push that country into another revolution.