"Ghost in the Machine: The Poverty of Honduras that No One Created"

- continued

(Not) The Cure to Poverty
The program is called "Vaso de Leche" -- A Cup of Milk --, and it has the support of the Mayor of Tegucigalpa, the Association of Diplomatic Wives, embassies from around the world, the business community of Honduras, etc. Many attend the inauguration of this years' program. In Tegucigalpa, close to 20,000 primary school students, in the poorest 19 barrios, will receive ["until funds run out"] a cup of milk and a nutritious cookie. The program will also offer a "de-parasiting" service in the schools, for the children who live in conditions that breed parasites and malnutrition.

The Vaso de Leche program was initiated because children come to school hungry, and faint or falling asleep in class, before going home hungry. Now, they will still go home hungry, but perhaps they won't have fainted in class.

Total cost, 1.5 Lempira (10 cents)\ day \ per student, and each cup of milk and each cookie are needed by the students. And this project will do absolutely nothing to change the reasons why these children are poor, why they will grow up to be poor adults underpaid for working too hard, to then have their own children, in conditions of poverty.

Ghost in the Machine
The Worldwatch Institute reports that 1.2 billions human beings are chronically underfed and malnourished. Hunger, disease and death mark their days. Many of these folks live in places like Honduras. Just as many people, Worldwatch says, are chronically undernourished, not for poverty but for eating crappy food, low on vitamins and nutrients. Every year, close to 20,000,000 people die of malnutrition and starvation and over 1.2 billion more survive underfed and malnourished. Meanwhile close to 500,000 US citizens spend $10 billion on liposuction procedures. So it goes.

Eighty percent of all malnourished and starving children live in countries that produce food surpluses - i.e., Honduras whose best lands are owned by the oligarchy and mostly US-based companies. They pay workers 2 bucks a day, or so, to export foods to rich countries. Perhaps 70% of all children born in Honduras would immediately be put in intensive care, had they been born in the US or Canada. [Honduras This Week, 00-03-04, p13]

5% full
Eighteen years after he committed the crime, ex-coronel Manuel de Jesus Trejo Rosa is finally in jail [a comfortable military cell, at that] for the disappearance, torture and murder of Nelson Mackay in April 1982. The remains of Nelson were exhumed in 1994 by a forensic anthropology team, initiating the legal process. This is one of the first cases whereby a ranking "intellectual author" of the US-backed repression of the 1980s has gone to jail. Normally the cup of justice is 95% empty; today it is 5% full. [elHeraldo, 00-04-04, p3]

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Conclusion
Using the present model of economic development to address poverty is like throwing gas on an unwanted fire. It's not working. We in the "developed" nations, and our multitude of "development" institutions, cannot be said to be really seeking the ghost in the machine, the source of this fire burning up lives, this poverty increasing. Though we lament the poverty, and hear the sadness of the suffering, we are yet to admit that conditions of poverty are not "God-given."

A positive conclusion to this litany about poverty and "development" will only come when the global north and the rulers of southern nations take a clear and honest look at the origins of poverty, at how our institutions (the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, private banks and companies, our governments, etc.) often serve to create and keep in place the very political, economic and legal structures that create and maintain poverty.

There is no lack of literature about these issues. There is no lack of experts who can map out different and more just models of economic development. Across the planet, non-government and community-based organizations are intelligently and diligently [often at great personal risk] working to address the ravages of poverty and transform the underlying causes. While these courageous people need changes in many of their countries, they also need serious changes at the international level. What is still lacking is the political will, at the highest and most powerful levels of the world order.

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Grahame Russell, a Canadian human rights lawyer and development activist, is director of Rights Action, an NGO with offices in the US, Canada and Guatemala. Rights Action supports community human rights and development work in southern Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.

1830 Connecticut Ave NW
Washington DC 20009, USA.
T: 202-783-1123.
E: info@rightsaction.org.