Honduras Wants to Build Its Own Hong Kong

By ⋅ July 31, 2012 ⋅ Post a comment


Honduras has been going through an especially rough patch. A military coup in 2009 ousted its president. Drug violence has helped give Honduras the world’s highest murder rate. On top of that, the country is impoverished. Things are so bad that Honduran officials are considering something drastic. They want to build an experimental city to give the country a fresh start.

Last year, the Honduran Congress passed a constitutional amendment allowing the creation of a semi-autonomous city that would have its own governing rules and a degree of foreign supervision.

The plan was inspired by Paul Romer, a U.S. economist who has been promoting what he calls “charter cities.”
“So I was asked by the President of Honduras who said we need to do this project, this is important. This could be the way forward for our country,” Romer said.

Romer proposes that the new city have a governing charter made up of the best political and economic rules from around the world. Partner nations would provide oversight, guidance and more.

For example, the Honduran judicial system is widely viewed as slow and corrupt. So the island nation of Mauritius has agreed to allow its highly respected Supreme Court to serve as the court of appeals for a Honduran charter city.

Supporters say charter cities could serve as catalysts for reform in the rest of Honduras, similar to the way British-administered Hong Kong provided a blueprint for mainland China’s move to a market economy. Romer says they could also persuade some of the 75,000 Hondurans who immigrate illegally to the U.S. each year to stay home.

“A new city could offer new choices for people,” he said. “There would be the choice of a city they could go to, in Honduras, rather than hundreds of miles away in the north.”

Trujillo, on the Caribbean coast, is one of the oldest towns in Honduras, and there’s not much there. It’s a sparsely populated area of farmers and fishermen. In fact, its backwardness inspired the visiting American writer O. Henry to coin the term “banana republic.” But now, Honduran politicians are considering the area around Trujillo for an ultra-modern charter city.

“We need a system where we can have ships, rail, trucks and planes,” said Dino Rietti, a Honduran architect who is advising the government on the charter city plan. Rietti envisions an international airport and trans-oceanic railroad near Trujillo.

“Is it Utopic? Yes, but also it’s a hope. It’s a new way of thinking,” he said.

A few projects are already going up in anticipation of a charter city. Rietti is managing construction of a combined cruise ship marina and shopping mall in Trujillo.

The marina provides work for hundreds of local residents. Building a whole new city would create many more jobs: Jobs that are badly needed according to Joel Louis, a construction worker at the marina.

“In Trujillo, here in Honduras, a job is very hard to get,” Louis said. “People suffer, suffer a lot for jobs.”

A military helicopter buzzing over Trujillo helps explain why. Government troops are battling drug traffickers and the spike in violence has dragged down the economy. What’s more, the Caribbean coast never fully recovered from Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which wiped out the local banana trade.

William Lorenz, a U.S. developer who moved to Trujillo four years ago, says foreign investors are intrigued by the prospect of a charter city.

“We’ve had Americans come. There are Canadians here who are active. People have been here from Great Britain. We have some interest stirred up in South Korea,” he said.

Money to construct the charter city would come from leasing and selling land to foreign investors. Still, Hondurans are a long way from laying the first brick. The Constitutional amendment allowing for charter cities is being challenged in the Honduran Supreme Court. The country’s former attorney general recently called the plan “21st century colonialism.”

Even supporters, like Rietti, worry about outsized foreign influence and environmental damage.

“You see this beautiful place? You see how beautiful it is? It’s natural. You see children playing. You see people working,” Rietti said.

But given the nation’s downward spiral, Rietti says it may be time for Honduras to try something radically different.

“We are giving to the investors the best that we can,” he said. “Now they have to do the best for the country.”

Discussion

11 comments for “Honduras Wants to Build Its Own Hong Kong”

  • http://hermanojuancito.blogspot.com/ J Donaghy

    This is just another new type of neo-colonialism  which will not really make the changes that Hondurans need for their well-being. Instead, a few foreign investors will probably get rich – and, as usual, the poor will continue to suffer.

    • allanhenderson

      The developers of the REDs will actually bankrupt themselves unless they can entice large numbers of Honduran workers to migrate to their jurisdictions.

  • ldoug

    Trujillo is surounded by clean beaches and forests. What will happen to them? Will nature preserves for the Honduran Emerald hummingbird and other species along the proposed interoceanic transit be protected? It is at the end of a highway that connects Tocoa, Sava’ and La Ceiba. There are ongoing fights over land between campesinos and agribusiness owners. Local leaders have been mudered. Will this fight be mediated. The region was considered to dangerous for Peace Coprs Volunteers to work and live there due to drug smuggling. How will that be changed? And although hurricane Mitch did destroy much there still is banana production in the region. Will local people live in this Charter City or will it only be expats. And how can you do a piece on Trujillo without mentioning the 19th cent.  American William Walker who attempted to bring slavery to the region and is burried in Trujillo? 

    • allanhenderson

      Charter-city developers will be happy to adorn their cities with parks and wildlife sanctuaries, because by doing so they will make their cities more attractive to their customers. They will also, for the same reason, take care to ensure that their cities are orderly and free from violent crime.

      The Honduran REDs will be open to all Hondurans, as well as to any other persons whom the administrators of a RED may choose to invite. The majority of jobs in any RED will, however, be reserved by law for Honduran nationals.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=595261362 Mark Douglas Fittz

    This is crazy and for a poor country, very difficult to achieve since poverty is a mentality, and when the money flows, I am afraid the mentalities that have been there for so long won’t change…

    • allanhenderson

      When a low-skilled Honduran migrates to the United States, she instantly becomes an order of magnitude more productive, and she receives a commensurate wage. The most industrious and future-oriented person in the world will toil in penury unless she has access to the vertiginous armamentarium of capital goods that make possible modern industrial civilization.

  • allanhenderson

    Most of the land that lies southeast of Trujillo appears to be authentically uninhabited, although there is some sparse settlement along the coast. The developers of the REDs will obviously have to compensate these few people for the value of their land; those of them who are more adventurous will, one imagines, then choose to remain in the RED and taste the fruits of prosperity, while those who are more conservative will choose to resettle in a nearby community.

  • http://twitter.com/GregorioZeca Gregory McCain
  • http://twitter.com/GregorioZeca Gregory McCain

    The “Model Cities” is a Libertarian project to bring a neocolonial model of corporate control to Honduras, displacing the people who inhabit the areas proposed, and having “government” coming from foreign entities thus further breaching democracy.
    Please sign this petition:http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/defend-the-sovereignty-of-honduras-and-the-culture-and.html!!Urgent Action!! 

    Defend the Sovereignty of Honduras and the Culture and Territory of the Garifuna People.

    The Garifuna People have lived in Honduras for 215 years, after being expelled from the island of San Vicente, where our culture’s ethnogenesis took place in the mid-17th century.

    The loss of our communities’ traditional territory has been an ongoing process for over a hundred years. The Honduran State handed over huge tracts of land to banana companies in exchange for laying down railway infrastructure. Military officials, politicians and businesspeople joined forces to seize beachfront lands, with the pretext of “tourism development.” Our territories are being converted into protected areas, without any consultation with affected communities.

    But it was the coup in 2009 that marked the beginning of a definitive offensive by the State. The appropriation of the Bay of Trujillo by Canadian citizen Randy Jorgenson – known in his country as the Porn King – for the creation of a tourist emporium led to the destruction of the Garifuna community of Rio Negro.

    In 2010, the government that emerged out of the June 2009 coup began to promote concessions of national territory for the creation of a quasi-independent state, with its own judicial, administrative and security systems. US economist Paul Romer promoted the concept of Charter Cities (“Ciudades modelos” in Spanish), intervening in the National Congress for the quick approval of a Special Development Regions (RED) law. 

    Demonstrating the interest of Canadian investors in taking over the Caribbean coast of Honduras, Canadian Senator Gerry St. Germain participated in a special congressional session on RED regulations. In 2011, without debate, the congress legislated regulations for the charter cities.

    Government authorities have indicated that the first RED will be located between the Bay of Trujillo and the Sico river – an area with 24 Garifuna communities that are considered to be a cultural sanctuary. This same corridor is becoming an area controlled by people associated with organized crime, engaging in the illegal purchase of lands with the collusion of government institutions.

    On October 18, 2011, a group of lawyers filed a motion of unconstitutionality regarding the REDs to the Supreme Court of Justice. This past February 25, the Attorney General’s Office (Ministerio Público) declared that there were grounds for the motion to proceed. Immediately, the National Congress began a campaign to pressure and influence the court, including a threat to make cuts to its budget.

    The independence of the judiciary – an element without which democracy itself is in question – is at stake in Honduras.Petition:Oscar Fernando ChinchillaPresident of the Constitutional Chamber Supreme Court of Justice Dear Judge Chinchilla:In view of the pending ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice on the appeal on the grounds of unconstitutionality filed in response to legislative decree No. 283-2010 and the reforms to the Constitution of the Republic to create the Special Development Regions (RED), we wish to express our profound concern about the potential imminent consequences that will erode of the jurisdictional power of the State and territorial sovereignty.According to public notices, the RED is to be established on the northern coast, the ancestral territories of the Garifuna and Miskito Peoples, violating their human, cultural, social and economic rights. International law and the legal framework on the territorial rights of indigenous peoples – including a number of instruments signed by the Government of Honduras – enshrine these rights. According to the hierarchy of norms, their application must be preferential and is mandatory.Internationally, there is awareness that the Public Prosecutor warns of the unconstitutionality of the decree on RED, and that the Legislature is bringing pressure to bear on the Supreme Court of Justice. This pressure calls into question the independence of the judiciary, and in turn constitutes a grave offense to the governmental institutions of the county.We hope that the Supreme Court of Justice of Honduras values the importance of its independence, defends its sovereignty and declares Decree No. 283-2010 unconstitutional. Sincerely,

    • allanhenderson

      The statement that you quote in your post was written by OFRANEH, a nationalistic political organization that is apparently opposed to any and all sales of land by ethnic Garifuna to non-Garifuna buyers.

  • http://twitter.com/leopardjr Leopardjr

    I support the 21st century colonialism, I am getting a Marketing College Degree this year, I am native from Trujillo, people like me, are the ones whom we’re going to start the chance, but then people realize how much potential poor countries like Honduras have and the attempt to take advantage of it, we’re natives are being caged, taken our land away, for a few hundred dollars.

    This “Idea” of charter cities is a mock,