Friday, February 12, 2010

President Lobo has to draw the line now

We are at a new governance crossroad (or at a junctural point in fancy terms). We faced a similar one when Honduras was on its knees due to hurricane Mitch. At that point, and as we face now, we had the opportunity to make our country as it should be, not continue business as usual. President Lobo must not miss this opportunity, as the one we missed after hurricane Mitch, to end the cronyism, corruption, mismanagement, nepotism, and improvisation that characterized Mr. Zelaya's administration and to different degrees other administration before him.

President Lobo MUST  thus draw the line now, and make it his policy that no corruption will be tolerated from anyone, including those of its own party, the interim government and previous administrations. No  "sacred cows" will be tolerated here. Things have to change fast, otherwise we risk losing our country to chaos and anarchy. Voices are starting to claim for justice for all and for corruption prosecution such as this article In Hondudiario -click here, especially in light of the developing stories on the irregular (read corrupt) concession of the Nacaome dam  in La Prensa -click here and the apparent white collar vandalism that cleaned the "Culture Ministry" denounced by the New Culture Minister Bernard Martinez (Former presidential candidate from PINU) in el Heraldo -click here. Here I am afraid these two examples are just the tip of the iceberg.


Here it will be worthwhile understanding that any reconciliation government has to be built on the foundation of law, order, governance and complete disclosure of what happened that lead to the events of June 28 and after. These building blocks must include all actors and full public disclosure in front of the Truth Commission. I quite agree with an article on this matter written by Mr. Gaspar Vallecillo in el Heraldo - click here

If we want to see some example of how a Reconciliation and Truth Commissions may work (and its limitations) we can examine the examples of South Africa and Rwanda.