The government of Honduras, which justified the
illegal coup that brought it to power in 2009 on the grounds that it was necessary to protect the constitution, recently
amended the constitution to give itself the power to create ‘special development regions’ with their own (yet to be determined) laws. The hope is to build a brand new ‘charter city’ with up to 10 million inhabitants (in a country with a current population of only seven million).
...
In Honduras, the charter city would be given a similar degree of autonomy, and citizens would give up their notional democratic rights to be part of the economic powerhouse, and subject to its laws.
The appeal of Honduras to the architects of a charter city is obvious. Its government is regarded by the State Department as democratic but its interest in democracy is purely token. It has plenty of emigrants who might be persuaded to stay if something better were on offer. Large corporations have little difficulty in obtaining large areas of land. It’s only just over 1000 miles from Tegucigalpa to Houston. The president, ‘Pepe’ Lobo, is desperate to erase the memory of the coup, and is now busy looking for the international investment that he believes will make the charter city a reality.
...
In the real Honduras, meanwhile, the repression continues. I’ve just received an email announcing the death of the 11th journalist since the dubious election that gave Lobo the presidency. The number of politically active people who have died or disappeared since the coup is now more than 300. Forty campesinos have died in the Aguan valley, where Miguel Facussé, one of Honduras’s most powerful businessmen, has been turning their land into African palm plantations to serve the growing US biofuel market.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2011/05/18/john-perry/honduras-open-for-business/
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