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| Sorry that I am so slow in responding. My summer which was supposed to be more relaxed than the school year has turned out to be quite busy. Not all bad busy though, since last weekend I was in Yosemite. Of course, when you go to Yosemite, you have to make the pilgrimage up half dome. There was more traffic congestion on the trail than on the LA freeways.
As you can imagine, I have followed the events in Honduras quite closely. I can’t help it after dedicating three and a half years of my time to that small, poor, and, what many would deem, insignificant country. I will try and explain as simply as possible how I understand the situation through my experiences in Honduras (the “coup” was a long time coming), what different friends of mine are saying, and what I have gathered from the English and Spanish news media. I also want you to know, that these are the facts as I understand them, there may be some discrepancies with what is really going on.
The deposed president, Manuel (Mel) Zelaya, was elected by a narrow margin in the national elections in November 2005. This was 11 months after I had arrived in Honduras. He was of the Liberal Party, which is similar to the U.S.’s Democratic Party. Along with winning the election, Zelaya’s Liberal party won a majority of seats in the Legislature (Honduras has a unicameral legislature). The Liberal Party was ready to move their fairly centrist agenda upon inauguration in January 2006.
A couple things I should note about the Honduran political system. It is a two party system heavily modeled after the U.S. system. The President can only serve a single four year term – s/he cannot be reelected. The Diputados (congressmen/women) also serve four year terms, but can be reelected indefinitely. In the case that the President is forced to leave office, the constitution states that the Congressional leader is first in line for succession. There is a vice-president though he really has no role, and doesn’t take the President’s place upon failure to complete his/her term.
President Zelaya through his autocratic style and cozying up to extreme leftist leaders like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela had lost the support of his own party and much of the populace by halfway through his term. As time went on he made more and more erratic decisions allowing for a very open battle to occur between the Legislature controlled by his own party and run by Roberto Michelletti and Zelaya’s Executive branch. During Zelaya’s reign, violence skyrocketed after having declined for a few years and economically people felt insecure. He continued to get closer to leaders like Hugo Chavez, joining the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA in Spanish) and signing a special contract with Venezuela to provide low grade bunker fuel and gasoline for future payment with food products and other goods.
Such acts in favor of a known antagonist of the U.S. Government worried many Hondurans, knowing how dependent their country is on U.S. trade, aid, and remittances from immigrants abroad (about 15% of Honduras is in the United States). Many bumps in the U.S. –Honduran relationship like increased deportations of Hondurans from the U.S. and a blockade of Honduran melons for supposed salmonella were popularly thought to be acts of punishment by the Bush administration on a Chavez leaning Honduran government. Consequentially, President Zelaya’s approval ratings fell below 30%. At the same time, the opposition started rumors that the President Zelaya was looking to follow in Chavez’s footsteps and attempt to stay in power beyond his constitutional mandate.
A few months back, President Zelaya proposed a “poll” of the populace about possible changes to the constitution to take place in June. The poll was to be a vote with ballot boxes and all, set up throughout the country, with registered voters eligible to participate. One of the questions on the poll was about a president’s ability to seek a second term. But, there is a law in the Honduran constitution stating that a referendum (though it was labeled a poll, the Supreme Court didn’t see it as such) cannot occur within 180 days of an election. So the Supreme Court ruled the poll unconstitutional. President Zelaya was persistent in going through with the poll so he called Venezuela and Chavez had hundreds of thousands of ballots printed up and shipped over to Honduras. This heightened fears of what the “poll” really might be.
Logistically, President Zelaya needed someone to distribute and pickup the ballots on the ground in Honduras. The Military usually does this in Honduras, so President Zelaya requested them to carry out the logistics of this poll. The military leader refused since the Supreme Court had declared the “poll” unconstitutional. President Zelaya fired the Military leader. The Supreme Court reinstated him. The military housed the ballots and boxes in one of their warehouses under lockdown. President Zelaya sent followers to break in and steal the ballots back, which they did. Finally on the morning of the poll, the Legislature and Supreme Court ordered the military to arrest President Zelaya to prevent the poll from occuring. However, instead of just arresting him, they shipped him out of the country to Costa Rica, an unconstitutional act. So now, we have two wrongs committed, the poll and the illegal removal of the president from the country. The leader of Congress, Roberto Micheletti was sworn in as President of Honduras to finish out the final months of President Zelaya’s term. Protesters, supporters of Zelaya, filled the streets. Most of the T.V. coverage was dedicated to a portion of the 30% of the population who supports Zelaya; members of the highly organized teacher’s union and other unions. There were also large protests in support of President Zelaya’s overthrow.
Here are the important points. The democratically-elected President of Honduras was deposed unconstitutionally by a military acting under the orders of a democratically elected Legislature and constitutionally selected Supreme Court. President Zelaya had disobeyed the constitution and committed an illegal break-in of a military compound that started the whole mess. The new president was appointed following the Honduran Constitution’s order of succession. The new president will finish his term in January, replaced by another president determined in an election to be held in late November 2009.
Many Hondurans are confused by the U.S.’s response to the matter. Many felt that their country’s overthrow of a Chavez supporter would earn support from the U.S. Many feel that this “coup” is being confused with the military coups of the 1980s when a military dictator overthrew a democratically elected leader. Many Hondurans view the deposition of President Zelaya as the country upholding its democratic constitution, not tearing it down.
I personally understand why the U.S. Government can’t support the “coup”; it was performed unconstitutionally. However, I feel the U.S. Gov is making a mistake to punish the country by taking away its Aid. The U.S. Gov needs to understand that though unconstitutional acts were committed this “coup” was not a direct usurpation of democracy like the military coups of old. Such strong-arm tactics also are viewed by the recipient as bully tactics that force the U.S.’s will upon them. We are not going to win much goodwill in Honduras with this tactic. Yet, we still need to oppose the actions that the Honduran Government took as there were unconstitutionalities in the process. I feel the U.S. Gov should push for the re-admittance of President Zelaya to Honduras upon the condition that he undergo an impeachment trial (what should have happened in the first place). In this way, President Zelaya can or cannot be removed from office in a way that is acceptable to much of the rest of the world.
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| I just felt my first earthquake. It was small, but big enough to shake my bed some.
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| Happy Holidays, a little late!
It is that time of year again; where we all recite the joys and discouragements of our last year to everyone we have known for more than a year. To spare you another such letter, I will just give you the quick six month update. I will try not to bore you with the details.
I arrived back in the US in early August after spending three and a half years in Honduras. I traveled up to the US through Mexico following a path taken by millions of hopeful immigrants on their way north from Central America. It was a fitting finish to my time in Central America, considering immigration's significance in Honduras and to a lesser extent in the United States. I spent a month getting to taste (literally) Mexico before walking across the border into the US at Tijuana.
My reverse culture shock hasn't been too bad and didn't really set in until October. I guess that October was the point where I went from being a conversation starter to a stopper. I guess you can only say "in Honduras …….." for so long before it gets old. ;) Then, when the conversation switches to the latest pop culture, I don't have a clue. What is "House," please? Who are the Jonas brothers? Is being scandalous Amy Winehouse's day job or only her night job (what does she do)? I have figured most of these out by now, but I still have many more to work out. It will take me a little longer to get back into synchronization with American culture. In the meantime, I have a lot of great stories involving hitch hiking in the back of pick-up trucks, eating tortillas and beans, and marching through the jungle with machete wielding locals.
My reestablishment into American culture has taken place in America's biggest exporter of culture, Los Angeles. Why L.A.? I am currently studying at UCLA for a Master's in Urban Planning. For better or worse, there are few places as suited for studying urban planning as Los Angeles. The social, transportation, economic, globalization, and urban structure issues all come to a head in LA. Some say that L.A. is the epitome of bad planning; others argue it is the crystal ball for the future of American Cities; either way, it is at the nexus of many important planning issues. And the university isn't too shabby either.
In mid-December I finished my first quarter at UCLA (for many of you, it would be a trimester system, there is a fall, winter, and spring quarter; summer quarter is the same as summer break.). It had its ups and downs. I wasn't as motivated at every turn as I had hoped and it was difficult to keep myself focused on all the reading, but I feel ready and excited for my next quarter's classes.
One reason for the difficulty in focusing on my classes is all that Los Angeles has to offer. LA is full of neighborhoods to explore, food to try, museums to see, and events to attend. My favorite is the incredible diversity of food. Proof of the incredible array of food diversity was brought out pointedly when my cousin's family, the Kazamakis, was in LA. We had just spent the day at Universal Studios and were admiring the night views from the impressive Griffith Observatory when we, all famished, decided that we needed a place to eat. Quinn wanted chicken and as I was running through my catalog of LA chicken places, Emma's little voice said behind me, "But, I want waffles." Is it impossible to find a restaurant that serves both chicken and waffles? Not in LA, Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles was just the place for us. Sure the combination may sound slightly abnormal, but it is absolutely delicious; I don't know what they put in the waffles, but I am craving another.
My Christmas break has allowed me to get back in touch with the Midwest and winter. I always forget how nice downtown Chicago is. I also couldn't believe that right on the bank of the Chicago River, the US's second tallest skyscraper, the new Trump Tower, sprung up without me knowing about it. Minneapolis/St. Paul are still wonderful places and very cold, it was still eleven below zero when I left them at 9:00 in the morning a couple weeks ago. The snow still falls deep in my parents' backyard, allowing for lots of great sledding and snowmen building. My 13 year old twin sisters embarrassed my dad and me (both graduates of engineering programs) with their snowman. Tessa and Elise had constructed a nice snowman several weeks ago. I decided that it needed companions. My dad and I with the assistance of my younger siblings built two enormous snowmen, one standing seven feet tall and another standing six and a half feet tall. The next day it warmed up to 45 F and rained. My dad and my snowmen have been reduced to nothing while my sister's snowman still stands proudly, with what I think is a small smirk, in the backyard. To assuage my ego, I am blaming the failure on poor snowman-constructing material.
I am sure that many of you have many eventful and interesting tales from the past year. I would love to hear them, if you could so take the time.
As always, I have pictures posted online at http://picasaweb.google.com/jveverka81 and a blog, which I haven't written in much lately at www.xanga.com/jveverka81 .
Take care and be optimistic, a new, unblemished year lies ahead of us! Jacob | | |
| I got out and voted. The process was very orderly, but there were long lines. I waited for a little more than an hour and forty-five minutes. My ballot had twenty-five different races, propositions, and measures to vote on. Do Legistatures' do anything anymore?
All of you who can vote, get out and do it! Show the world that we really do care what happens in our country. The worse we can be is apathetic fools.
Jacob | | |
| It rained last night. That is the first time it has in the two months I have been in LA. | | |
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