It's hard getting crime to fight crime

I am told that the new Honduran president (Juan Orlando Hernández) is good with photo-ops and kissing babies and has even gone so far as to actually throw money at crowds but when it comes to cleaning up corruption and working towards social justice he is either on a leash or part of the problem.  

THe day I flew in there had been 8 people mowed down in a hail of bullets within miles from the airport I landed at.  I asked the cab driver how to avoid being killed and he put it plainly, "give the gangs what they want and do not negotiate."  

I think my cab driver was a good guy however I am told that many of the cab drivers in Tegucigalpa run errands for the gangs.  Usually the cabs get to a point where they know too much and they magically disappear.  

The man telling me much of this is a minister, lets call him Jose.  Jose does a lot of mission work and when he takes groups to work in the gang controlled barrios (synonymous with ghetto) he has to make two phone calls.  One is to a gang member to let them know he is coming to do some work and the other is to the police to let them know he is going to do some mission work and to not show up.  If the police show up during his visit to the barrio then his trust with the gang member is broken and he may well disappear just like the cab driver.

I asked Jose why he gets away with it.  If the cab driver disappears after he knows too much why doesn't Jose disappear if he knows enough to call an actual gang member before he shows up in his territory.  Jose has been ministering for decades and the reason he knows many of the gang members is because they attended his church when they were children.  

"They keep sure that you are in line, every Sunday as I preach I look out and I see a gang member.  They want to check up on you and make sure you are the real thing and not talking to loudly about the gangs.  I know a preacher in San Pedro that was killed for this very thing,"  Jose said.  

If someone wants to get out of the gang to join the church the gang respects that.  They want to make sure that you are not leaving there gang to join up with the enemy gang.  So the gangs check up and make sure the preachers are legit.  

"We have a shack shop outside of the church that sells chips and candy.  They began selling liquor and people were getting drunk outside of the church and causing trouble.  I asked the shop owner, 'Why do you do this?  You know it is illegal to sell liquor within a certain radius of the church'"

The shop man challenged Jose to denounce him.  "If you do not like what I do then go ahead and denounce me,"

This situation is another way in which society breaks down under gangs.  The gangs collect a "war tax" from business owners.  "They ask for it, you pay it and you do not negotiate," as my cab driver put it.  Additionally, they look out for the businesses they collect the war tax from.  if a business is paying the gang and someone gives them trouble they can complain and make that person disappear.  

In this way, gangs are essentially mercenary police forces.  This may be how every primitive army or police force began in its early baby stages.  

So if Jose denounces this liquor vendor outside his church and the vendor is paying his war taxes then poor Jose is in deep shit.  It's also a gamble because Jose doesn't really know if this vendor is paying his war taxes.  He might just be bluffing.  

These rules apply to businesses and within schools.  A thirteen-year-old kid could rule the entire classroom if he has the right connections.  I have been told of executions during class as well.  You really have to consider the ramifications of failing someone for algebra.  

http://cogwm.org/church-of-god-pastor-murdered-in-honduras/

https://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/2011/02-February/33499/

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2014/08/10/8-die-in-shootout-in-honduras/

Bananas and Coffee

Today the headline was that 9 were gunned down and killed in San Pedro Sulla. They were shot at the morgue waiting to retrieve the body of a family member that had just been murdered in La Ceiba.  Another headline reads that 5 children the US has deported back have already been murdered by gangs.  I am not entirely sure how many we have deported back to put that number into perspective, but I believe the deportations from the recent flood of child immigrants began in mid July.  Over the past 10 months Border Patrol have apprehended 63,000 unaccompanied migrants below the age of 17 at the border. 

There are arguments being made that the migrants leaving Honduras are not truly leaving to escape violence but to find a better life with better pay.  Hondurans must have become calloused to the violence a long time ago.  The reasons why are probably grey.  Some are escaping violence, some are trying to get to their families who left them behind to send money from the U.S. and some are trying to get a decent paying job.


The violence has been escalating and the poverty has remained for quite some time.  Most people in Honduras live on roughly $1.25 a day. Hondurans working in the U.S. send more than US$2 billion each year to their families in Honduras; these remittances account for 28.2% of Honduras's GDP (2007 information [4]).  I have also read that 40 percent of residents are under the age of 15, although I haven't verified that from a reputable source I will concede that it is close to true.

 I think this article below sums up the recent history -
I also found this old United Fruit Company logo.

This is from the Associated Press -     In the late 19th century, U.S. companies like United Fruit and Standard Fruit owned vast tracts of land and relied on the Honduran military to quell labor rebellions. The elites then formed the country's two major political parties in support of the fruit companies, cementing ties between Honduras' business and political interests, said Marvin Barahona, a historian at a Jesuit think tank in the capital.
With wealth concentrated in the hands of a few families, Honduras remained poor. Decades later, as U.S. aid poured into government coffers, many citizens complained that their country had been converted into Washington's client state, a base for the U.S. military and U.S.-backed Contras fighting the Sandinistas in neighboring Nicaragua.
But the status quo was fine with the oligarchy. Zelaya, a rich landowner from Olancho state, was one of them when he was elected president in 2006. When he began to move away from Washington towards Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez, however, his opponents feared a populist threat. His proposal for a referrendum on changing the constitution was the last straw. He was booted out by leaders of his own party, backed by the army.
The U.S. suspended aid as a sanction for the coup, and in the ensuing political chaos, drug traffickers saw an opening.

To that I would add the effect of Hurricane Mitch in 1998 which left nearly 11,000 dead and 2.7 million homeless and the terrain of Honduras being so mountainous and hard to tame. 

While thinking of possible ways to fix the situation I am reminded of a conversation I had between a Nicaraguan named Ana and an Arizonian named John.  John was talking about how he refused to shop at a particular grocery store because they treated their workers badly.  It led to a conversation about Maquiladoras and sweatshops.  John had made a general rule not to shop at sweatshops and Ana was upset because the sweatshops were a great help to Nicaraguas economy.  The basic take away was that it is wrong that sweatshops exploit labor so cheaply and treat their workers badly, but when sweatshops are the only thing available it is an ideal choice between work and going hungry.
  
Sending aid to the government seems to be a waste as they are so corrupt.  I think perhaps the best thing for Americans to do is to not buy cocaine and to buy as much Honduran coffee and bananas as they can.  As the economy gets better it must be left to the Hondurans to fight for justice within their government and to strengthen their labor unions. 

Or you can pick a non-profit and hope they know what they are doing.  Here is a one that I have worked with -  http://www.educate2envision.org/

Dollars vs Lempiras

I had a terrible interview with a recent deportee today.  I asked him for an interview and he obliged so I met him at the banana stand and set everything up.  Setting up two cameras and two mics in a small village at the local banana stand is a big deal.  Everyone is watching in curiosity and both the interviewer and interviewee get kind of nervous.  

This guy answered everything with one word, it was horrible.  But then his brother came up.  

His brother has crossed into the U.S. 13 times.  The rule is the more you are busted for trying to illegally enter the worse the sentence.  Last time he crossed he spent 3 years in prison for it.  

Three years in prison with a lot of hardened criminals is a big deal and a harsh sentence for anyone who is trying to migrate for better work.  He was put on a sort of "probation".  Basically after his release the government told him that if he gets busted within the next three years trying to cross he gets 6 years in prison.  

The man was sharp, bilingual with slicked back hair.  I could tell he used to have a tattoo on his neck that had been removed and I spent a good bit of time trying to decipher what the tattoo used to be.  I also noticed he had had his throat slit at some point.  

I have picked up a production assistant to aid in the interviews.  Her name is Mina and she is about 12 years old.  She is helping to transcribe as well.  She has insisted in working for free but I have insisted otherwise as she has no idea what a pain in the ass transcribing can be.  

Minimum wage in Honduras is roughly 20 lempiras.  20 lempiras = $1.00

I always argue that money is relative so for the sake of my own logic lets point out some basic costs.

1 bannana = 1 lempira = $0.05

1 avacodo = 5 lempiras = $0.50

36 eggs = 40 lempiras = $2.00

I gallon of Gasoline = $4.50

1 year of College (including books and utilities) = roughly 15000 lempiras = $750

So my relativity of money theory doesn't really hold up when it comes to gasoline.  Hell it doesn't really hold up well when it comes to anything except bananas and college.  I am only calloused by how much an education costs in the US so this cost makes sense to me. 

I don't think I could get away with paying anyone 20 bananas an hour in the states.  

The Overthrow of Zelaya

A quick refresher on the coup that took place a few years back:  Basically through order of the Supreme court the Honduran military took president Zelaya out of office and sent him into exile dumping him off in Costa Rica.  

Zelaya was bringing in socialistic ideas into Honduras and he was defiant about it.  He was very popular with the poor people which is a huge chunk of Honduras.  He raised the minimum wage by 60% and he pissed off alot of big money.  His major flaw was that he was stupid and didn't know how to pace himself.  That and he might have been a corrupt coke-head.

Zelaya is accused of stealing roughly $2 million before the coup.  This is not the only accusation of corruption toward Zelaya and I do not doubt that some of the allegations are true.

Still, he raised the minimum wage by 60% that means a lot anywhere but in a place like Honduras where houses are made of plywood with tin roofs and dirt floors that is a game changer.

Following the coup there was a surge in drug planes coming into Honduras.  

  

Afterwards under the presidency of Pepe Lobo there has been a massive increase in murders of disagreeable journalists.  Because of this murder there is increasing self censorship from the media.  Lobo left office in January 2014.  

For anyone wanting more info on Zelaya here is a fantastic argument between two very well sourced people that is both entertaining and informative. - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4866416

and this goes over the smear campaign the new government gave Zelaya - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/world/americas/25honduras.html?_r=0

Here is an interesting link about the murder of Honduran Journalists - http://latindispatch.com/2011/05/09/whos-killing-the-journalists-of-honduras/

Back in Honduras

For years I have been wanting to return to the story on migration and when the news of all the child immigrants flooding the border hit me I knew that the time was right to jump back on the saddle.
 For some time I considered heading to Texas but I realized that with my credentials I would be filming across the street from a detention center and interviewing a bunch of Texans.  Then I considered returning to Nogales Mexico but it occurred to me that it would only be a regurgitation of my first film on the desert crossers.


Of all the child migrants coming over the Texan border a high percentage of them are Honduran, particularly from San Pedro Sulla and Tegucigalpa.  So after much internal debate and before losing my nerve I decided to buy a ticket and see whats kicking in Honduras.

So here I am, and here I will be for the next 5 weeks.  I will be reporting from this blog as much as possible so stay tuned and there should be some deportee interviews on the way.

Crossing Nogales

This was the first documentary I ever made.  It also represents about 6 months of my life back in 2008.  I had no idea how much this work would change my life when I was making it.  The productions standards are terrible and the font I chose was absolutely tasteless.  This documentary has been ripped apart by many other professional documentarians including myself at this point.  I was running on dreams and train smoke with a cheap Canon Xti and plenty of time. I couldnt have done this work with nicer equipment, I would have been too afraid of being robbed.  Despite this being terrible production standards, the story is stronger then anything else I have worked on.

Tales from Agua Prieta

I filmed Agua Prieta for over a month back in 2010.  I had it in my mind that I would go back and make a much bigger project of it all but in the meantime alot of life came my way and the footage just sat around getting old.

It occurred to me that these stories are time sensitive and need to be released to do any good in the universe.  So I swallowed my aesthetic pride and put together what I could to bring you these stories.  

The first story contains one of my most favorite humans in it, Hermana Engracias.  She is the Catholic nun toward the end.  Her and I used to laugh at bad jokes and shoot tequila before heading out to serve migrants frijoles in the border town of Nogales, Mexico.  I was worried when I first went out to work for her, after spending a month with wild hippies on a commune in the Ozarks of Missouri I thought it would be boring to work with Catholic nuns.  Lord, was I wrong.  Never judge a book by its cover and never judge Catholics by the pope.  

This last story is from a migrant whose identity will be limited to his mouth.  This story is more popular then the Migrant tales story because everybody wants to hear about the horrible Zetas.  Thats youtube for you.  I tried to put his story into the whole schibang but I didn't want to edit him as his story holds strength in entirety.  

The Sanctuary Movement

The title Iran/Contra scandal is confusing I think.  If it were named "We gave a shit ton of money to death squads in the 80's and we kinda knew they were assholes" nobody would ever be confused about what the Iran Contra scandal was about.

As part of a bigger story on migration issues I went to Tucson Arizona to interview the founder of No Mas Muertes aka No More Deaths aka people who leave water in the desert of Pima county so that migrants don't die.

Before interviewing him I did some research and discovered that he had been in the game for quite some time, all the way back to the 80s.  I had never really looked into the death squads of Central America to deeply.  Basically what started as a small interview became something I obsessesed over for about about a month.  It was a dark period indeed.  I decided to leave out the major vulgarity of some of the footage I put together for this film to make something more palatable for people who just want to understand what sort of happened.  

The great photographer Adam Kufeld was kind enough to allow me to use his photography from El Salvador during this period.  I cant imagine what it would be like to photograph some of the horror he must have witnessed.