Republic of Honduras
Libre, Soberana e Independiente.
Honduran Government
• Democratic constitutional republic
• Independent: September 15, 1821
• Constitution 1982, amended 1999
– Executive – President, direct election, single 4 year term
– Legislature – unicameral, 4 year term
– Judiciary – Supreme Court of Justice (appt by Congress 7 year
terms, confirmed by President)
• Political Parties – Conservative, Liberal, National,
Innovation and National Unity, Christian Democratic,
Democratic Unification
• Suffrage – universal and compulsory (18)
• Administrative subdivisions – 18 departments
Source: Perry-Castañeda Library Map collection. Map No. 504929 1983
Source: Perry-Castañeda Library Map collection. Map No. 504929 1983 (95K)
Contemporary Honduras
• Negatively impacted by CACM boom and
economic and political turmoil of 1980s and
1990s.
• Governed by armed forces into the 1980s
• Shares characteristics with El Salvador,
Guatemala and pre-revolutionary Nicaragua
• Difference: non-violent domestic experience;
government policy follows the Costa Rican
pattern – uses government to alleviate impact of
negative economic times and avoids or limits
repression.
Honduras
• Lacks volcanic material – soils negatively
impacted
• 1800s first development of export
economy due to insufficient infrastructure
• Until 1970s – a calm counterpoint to the
region’s violence.
Elites in Honduras
• No fully articulated elite class
– Regionally based – not internationally driven by market interests
– Emergence of coffee in post World War 2 era limits wealth accumulation
• Poor Hondurans
– Commercial banana production introduced by internationals at end of 1800s – and
started in sparsely populated areas displacing few.
– Land has been plentiful and accessible so even displaced persons have had land
– Process of concentrating land ownership does not begin until mid-20th century
(1900s)
• Overall equitable social structures – consequences:
– Military unneeded, remains underdeveloped, weak
– Banana industry contribution to labor is moderated by Honduran government which
has no vested interest (domestic elite ownership) in compressing wages
– Labor – free of repressive actions by government or business becomes highly
organized
– Liberal/conservative political debate begins later in Honduras
• Party development not until liberal party leader Marco Aurelio Soto president
(1876-1883) prior to this non-ideological caudillos governed and changed
power via coup process.
• Aurelio Soto follows the liberal ideological pattern and begins the process of
attracting foreign investors
Modern Honduras
• Mid-20th century on, Honduras begins to look more like
other nations of Central America
– Liberal/National (conservative) conflict intensifies
– Land density/need emerges
– Population growth increases
– Tension between elites/peasants emerges
– Militarization of the political system
• Leadership vacuum (L/C conflict) draws military into government.
• Military behaves more as arbiter between groups than as an agent
of elites
• Armed forces do not prove adept at governance – from either
economic or political perspectives.
• Carter administration pressures General Paz to relinquish power
and he does so in 1980.
• November 1981 – after constituent assembly to re-write constitution
– presidential elections are held.
Roberto Suazo Córdova
• 1981 election wins clear majority – most likely with support of conservative military
voters
– Colonel Gustavo Alvarez Martinez takes command of Armed Forces
– Takes office, promptly pressured by Reagan administration to assist U.S. against
Sandinistas
• Contra War support:
– U.S. trains Salvadoran troops in Honduran territory
– Contra army stationed in Honduras
– U.S. military assistance program expands the size of the Honduran military
• Consequences of Contra War support:
– Situation causes Alvarez’s power to overshadow/intimidate civilian president
– 1984 number of Contra forces in Honduras rivals the size of the Honduran
military.
– Disrupts public order along the Nicaraguan border
– Emergence of death squads – numbers of political disappearances, murders
increase
– Leftist guerrilla groups emerge (up until this point an anomaly in Honduran
politics)
– Relations with Nicaragua deteriorate badly
Slow development, sustained growth
• Debt and Aid
Debt: $3.41 billion (31 December 2007 est.)
Aid Given: N/A
Aid Received: $680.8 million (2005)
• Labour Force
Number in labour force: 2.78 million (2007 est.)
Sectors: agriculture: 34% industry: 23% services: 43% (2003 est.)
Unemployment: 27.8% (2007 est.)
• GDP Facts and Figures
Currency: lempira (HNL)
GDP: $30.65 billion (2007 est.)
GDP Per Capita: $4,100 (2007 est.)
GDP Real Growth: 6.3% (2007 est.)
GDP Composition: agriculture: 13.4% industry: 28.1% services: 58.6% (2007 est.)
Production Growth Rate: 4.4% (2007 est.)
• Industries, Land Use and Resource Consumption
Industries: sugar, coffee, textiles, clothing, wood products
Land use: arable land: 9.53% permanent crops: 3.21% other: 87.26% (2005)
Exports: coffee, shrimp, bananas, gold, palm oil, fruit, lobster, lumber
Electricity Consumption: 4.036 billion kWh (2005)
Natural Gas Consumption: 0 cu m (2005 est.)
Oil Consumption: 43,000 bbl/day (2005 est.)
http://www.intute.ac.uk/sciences/worldguide/html/907_economic.html
Contemporary Honduran Politics
• 1990s – Liberal economic reforms – attempt to grow the economy out of
mal-distribution; consolidation; authoritarianism
• 1998 Hurricane Mitch kills 11,000 in the region (5,000 in Honduras)
– Destroys infrastructure, homes, environment
– 4 Billion in economic losses (National debt consumed 46% of GNP)
– Granted relief under Heavily Indebted Poor Countries World Bank Program (900
million)
– Structural adjustment and privatization followed as economy is restructured post
Mitch.
– 1 million Hondurans have emigrated to the U.S. – special dispensation post-M
• Disaster aids the consolidation of civilian rule
– Military incompetent in Mitch response.
– Further undermined as President Flores (01/1998) completes the police reform
– Re-emergence of civil society – investigations of military human rights abuses
– Crime a persistent problem
– Rise in gang violence
– 1998-2002: 1,500 youths murdered (males under age 18) – “social cleansing”
• President Ricardo Maduro Joest (National Party - 2001)
inaugurated in 2002.
– deployed a joint police-military force to the streets to widen
neighborhood patrols in the ongoing fight against the country's
massive crime and gang problem
– Neoliberal economic reforms
– Worked to negotiate and ratify CAFTA
• PresidentJose Manuel "Mel" Zelaya Rosales (Liberal –
2005) – “Citizen power” campaign theme
– less than a 4% margin of victory, the smallest in Honduran
electoral history.
– vowed to increase transparency and combat narcotrafficking,
while maintaining macroeconomic stability.
– The Liberal Party won 62 of the 128 congressional seats, just
short of an absolute majority