Adrienne, in an effort to create a connection between the US defense industry and the US embassy in Tegucigalpa in pursuit of a not so veiled attempt to create some sort of conspiracy (where there exists none), your friend takes a simple announcement on the projecthonduras.com Twitter page and turns it into something spooky... << Jennifer Brown of Consular Section of the US Embassy in Honduras will present at the Conference on Honduras in Copan Oct 14-16. >.

Jennifer will be a guest speaker at projecthonduras.com's 11th annual Conference on Honduras in Copan Ruinas. The following is the full description of her presentation: “Town Hall with the US Consulate”.. Briefiing about the full range off routine and emergency services provided by the embassy to individuals and organizations from the US, with an emphasis on information about safety and security."

The full draft program, which is still under development, can be viewed by anyone at http://www.projecthonduras.com/conference/program-conference2010.pdf

The 3 pillars of the Conference on Honduras are always education, healthcare and community building. The special theme, though, of this year's conference is "Responding to Domestic Abuse in Honduras". The NGO known as CAMO (http://www.camo.org), based in Santa Rosa de Copan, is putting together the segment on domestic abuse. The idea is to come up with good models for helping resolve some of Honduras' major social problems. CAMO is a model organization in many different areas, including healthcare.

Another great model is the Micah Project (http://www.micahcentral.org) in Tegucigalpa. This organization was started by Michael Miller and it has established wonderful models for dealing with street kids in Honduras, particularly "Resistoleros" and even some gang members. Micah helped found a great project to help the people who live and work at the trash dump just outside of Teguciglapa. They and other organizations, working together, have built a school nearby to teach and feed the children form the dump. I'm hoping Michael and some of the kids will speak at our conference, so others can emulate their experience.

The stories go on and on.

I'm not sure why anyone would see a conference of mostly NGOs involved in humanitarian and development work in Honduras as threatening or suspicious. Same goes for a briefing by the US Deputy Consul in Tegucigalpa of the consular services available to US citizens working in Honduras. This borders on the silly.

Many of the groups within the projecthonduras.com network have been donating their time and other resources to helping empower the people of Honduras for more than 20 years. These are groups from universities, civic clubs (Rotary), churches (of all denominations), companies, medical brigades, high schools, hospitals, clinics, etc. The Conference on Honduras has been around for a long time. It is well known in Honduras, and particularly in Copan Ruinas. It involves many Hondurans, as well as North Americans and Europeans. Information about this event is published consistently online throughout the year, every year... and I'm always available by e-mail or by phone. There are no horrible secrets here, I assure you.

Marco

I guess it's inevitable that one's personal life get dragged into things. That's fine, though. Look, I have nothing to hide. I've been an aerospace/defense market analyst for the Teal Group for the past 20 years. I write write about satellites, launch vehicles, and spaceports. My job is to read all I can about these kind of programs and then sit down at my computer and write reports, analyzing their history and forecasting their future. We have hundreds of companies and agencies in the US and around the world that subscribe to our open source information. Occasionally, I'll do a market study for a company such as Lockheed Martin or Boeing, or an agency such as NASA. Most of my what I write about tends to be commercial, but there's some defense stuff as well. It's a job... that's all, and it has absolutely nothing to do with my volunteer work through projecthonduras.com or my writing through Honduras Weekly.

For the record, there are many wonderful people who happen to work in the defense and aerospace industry. We are not all hawks or spies involved in conspiracies. I think it's overly simplistic and incredibly unfair to make these kind of stereotypes... just like it is for conservatives to stereotype liberals and leftists as evil communists or socialists, or un-American. By the way, I'm about as liberal a person as you might find anywhere. The fact that I strongly oppose individuals like Mr. Zelaya and Mr. Chavez does not conflict with my liberal values. Note also that this opposition does not translate into opposition to the Resistance in Honduras... although sometimes my observations about the Resistance's tactics and strategies my be interpreted as such. You cannot imagine how often readers of Honduras Weekly express their annoyance with my refusal to criticize the Resistance more.

My Honduras work is all done out of a passion that I have for my native country. I was born in Tegucigalpa. I spent a good deal of my youth in La Ceiba. And now I return twice a year to Copan Ruinas, where I have many friends. Most of my family lives in Honduras, primarily in Tegus and Ceiba. While I think like a North America, I "feel" Honduran... and so I feel a need to stay involved in trying to provide whatever support I can to the people of Honduras.

Twelve years ago, a friend of mine and I established projecthonduras.com, which is simply a network of individuals and groups involved in humanitarian and development efforts to help empower the people of Honduras in the areas of education, healthcare, community building, etc. As part of this work, I organize an annual 3-day conference called the Conference on Honduras (http://www.projecthonduras.com/conference) to bring people together to network and compare notes about the work that everyone is doing. The goal here is simply to coordinate efforts so that we're all not just working in isolation.

I'm afraid your friend mischaracterized the term "human capital". When I use it, I am not referring to people as "human capital". I'm referred to those things that people have to contribute, apart from their "financial capital". By human capital, I simply mean things such as talent, experience, expertise, energy, time, contacts, etc. My view is that traditional foreign aid doesn't work so well in countries like Honduras that have broke institutions. The money is either stolen, mismanaged, or simply disappears. It seldom reaches the people that it is meant to help. It almost always is taken advantaged of by the "elite" which Mr. Zelaya often refers to. For the record, I believe that most of what Mr. Zelaya says about the status quo in Honduras is on target. If you'll read my dozens of editorials that have to do with Mr. Zelaya, my critiques are usually less about what he points out, and much more about his methods for trying to change that status quo.

Marco

Adrienne... I stand by my editorial piece (that's all it is), Radically Rethinking Education in Honduras. Nowhere do I advocate privatizing education in Honduras. The point of the editorial is to advocate for reforming the education system in Honduras so that it actually works. As you may know, Honduras has one of the worst education systems in the Western Hemisphere. This cannot continue if Honduras ever hopes to develop as a nation and stop being in a position of having to beg for financial aid. Nowhere do I say that the teachers do not or should not have the right to strike (... I did not "order" them to stop -- your friend is reading what she wants into my writing). They do. That is their democratic right. But this happens almost every year (several times, some years), and it seldom does anyone any longterm good.

For the record, I believe the government is as much or more to blame for the strikes as are the teachers. I understand that the government often does not negotiate in good faith, and often does not follow through with its promises. I understand that the teachers often have no choice but to strike for the wages they were promised, but never fully received. The point of my article is simply to suggest that we need to find a way out of the horrible situation Honduras is in with regard to the education of its children.

If you read my article closely, you'll see that I believe that teachers in Honduras (and around the world) should be treated with the utmost respect. I wish societies looked at teaching as they do so many other professions that are infinitely less important -- especially entertainment and sports related professions.

I strongly believe that Honduras will never develop anywhere close to its full potential unless we find a different approach toward educating Honduran children. Again, this has absolutely nothing to do with privatizing education. When three-quarters of Honduras' people are living on $3 dollars or less a day, there is no way these families could ever hope to afford a private school education. That's plainly obvious.

Marco

"...that peaceful and and civil protest and disobedience is violating the right of the rest to peace."

Don't make me laugh!

Even your beloved Channel 36 was showing pictures of the hooligans (sorry - teachers) brandishing wooden clubs, throwing stones, burning tires and vandalising public and private property.

And injuring police officers, although Channel 36 seemed to ignore that - conveniently!

Marco Cáceres has got it right.