Honduras attempts to solve their violent crime problem with private cities

Are private cities the miracle cure for Honduras’ surging violent crime, state violence and institutional disarray?

For many Hondurans, the past few years have been among the worst in memory. In the wake of a June 2009 coup that removed leftist president Manuel Zelaya from office, violent crime has soared and state institutions have fallen into disarray if not outright failure. Five months after the coup, the de facto government held elections which members of the political opposition boycotted and regional heads of state overwhelmingly refused to recognize. Under the resulting government, led by the National Party’s Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo Sosa, lawyers, journalists, human rights defenders, and Zelaya loyalists have routinely been the victims of threats, arrests and assassinations.

The role of the national police in violent, often politically motivated crime became a liability for the Lobo administration, which responded by developing a highly publicized police reform law. The bill appeared on its way to passage until November 2012, when a Supreme Court panel, by a 4 to 1 vote, ruled the law unconstitutional. Shortly after the court’s decision, the congress, in an extraordinary session reminiscent of Zelaya’s ouster years earlier, voted to dismiss the four justices who rejected the cleanup law. The press raised concerns that the move could turn into a full-blown crisis, many commentators focused on the police reform ruling as the conflict’s source; others pointed elsewhere.

A month earlier, the same four justices had ruled unconstitutional a law that would allow the creation of privately run municipalities with their own police, tax structures, and judicial systems, known as Regiones Especiales de Desarollo, or RED. According to Russell Sheptak, a Research Associate at the University of California and co-author of the Honduras Culture and Politics blog, the proximate cause for the justices’ removal was their ruling on the police reform law. “However, the muttering against them began at the top with Lobo Sosa chastising them over the RED ruling,” Sheptak wrote in an email, “and remained in the background of the debate about removing them.”

A protest against Charter cities legislation in Honduras. Reading: Coup d’etat: Economic crisis + model cities. Image credits: Black Fraternal Organisation of Honduras (OFRANEH)

Charter cities in Honduras?

The idea of building private cities is a divisive one. Many of the country’s elite advanced the concept as something new to spur economic growth. The cities would facilitate foreign investment and development, which would reduce the influence of criminal networks. Those opposing the concept, however, variously rejected the proposition as a neoliberal gift to the rich, a continuation of oligarchic rule and a threat to democratic governance. These objections came in the context of economic policies that have exacerbated inequality, poverty and unemployment. According to a recent report by the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, from 2010 to 2011 over 100% of income gains went to the 10% of Hondurans at the top of the income distribution ladder.

In 2009 Paul Romer, an economist then teaching at Stanford University, started presenting his idea to build new cities in poor countries as an innovative economic development strategy. The RED came to prominence in Honduras shortly after Pepe Lobo met with Romer. The new “charter cities,” as the U.S. economist called them, would be overseen by developed countries with a stronger rule of law and would prioritize investments in infrastructure. Each city would resemble a country within a country and would compete for hard-working, law-abiding residents from around the world. The islands of economic development would, in Romer’s vision, pressure governments to clean up their act and, cumulatively, could have a massive global impact.

Honduras’ governing officials enthusiastically embraced the idea and, given the country’s poverty and crime, Romer likely saw it as a natural fit. Yet after Lobo’s emergence through fraudulent elections, with the country’s institutions in shambles and many leading officials suspected of having ties to criminal networks, one could begin to see the plan’s inherent contradiction: How could you build brand new, principled institutions in partnership with a government so plagued by corruption?

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Honduras attempts to solve their violent crime problem with private cities

Can Israel Solve Africa’s Economic Woes?

One of the leading talking points of Israel-bashers these days is the treatment of African economic migrants who have illegally crossed into the Jewish state. Nearly 60,000 of these people who are for the most part from the Sudan or Eritrea and have no ties to the country or claim on its people have made their way to Israel in the last several years. In a nation of only seven million people living in a country the size of New Jersey, that’s the equivalent of about 2.7 million illegal immigrants showing up in the Garden State. As such, a group of this size arriving uninvited present a huge problem for any nation, even one whose entire identity is based on immigration, as is Israel’s.

But instead of sympathy or perhaps a helping hand from an international community that surely bears more responsibility for the plight of people from the Horn of Africa than Israel, its struggles to deal with this insoluble problem have become yet another club with which anti-Zionists seek to delegitimize the Jewish state. This is hypocrisy of the first order and the inordinate attention given these Africans by the Western media—such as the article published today by the New York Times—in a world where tens of millions of refugees and economic migrants are to be found, once again illustrates the double standard by which Israel is judged on any conceivable issue.

It is to be conceded that not everyone in Israel has behaved appropriately toward the migrants. Anger, insults, and threats from people in neighborhoods where illegals have concentrated, as well as from a few rabble-rousing politicians, hasn’t helped the country’s reputation. The plight of people stuck in limbo without legal status where they are and nowhere else to go should arouse the sympathy of any decent person. But the notion that it is somehow Israel’s responsibility to cope with the impact of economic distress in the Horn of Africa is not a defensible or reasonable position to take.

Were that many people to show up in virtually any country in the world, especially all the other countries of the Middle East which are ruled by various kinds of tyrants, it doesn’t take much imagination to consider the kind of treatment they would get. But in democratic Israel where Jewish religious values about welcoming the stranger are part of the culture, these African newcomers have been spared the sort of abuse they would have gotten anywhere else in the region. Indeed that, and the fact that Israel has a booming First World economy, is the only reason why so many have tried to sneak into Israel to find work. Were they just a few, they might well have been allowed to stay. But once the number reached the tens of thousands, with many working illegally and with some committing crimes, that wasn’t an option. Since deportation back to their home countries would likely result in dire consequences for the migrants and no one else wants them, Israel is stuck with them until someone can come up with a solution.

For Israel-haters, the scattered sentiments of some Israelis in South Tel Aviv neighborhoods that found themselves hosting thousands of desperate illegals and suffering the normal increase in crime as a result is proof that racism is normative behavior in the state. But anyone who knows anything about Israel’s history knows that this is bunk. Israel absorbed tens of thousands of black Jews from Ethiopia in the last 30 years. Though their absorption has not been seamless or without incident, they are now part of the fabric of the country, serve in the army, and even in the Knesset.

But under what distorted sense of morality is Israel held to be particularly at fault for treating people who cross its borders illegally as having committed a criminal act and therefore subject to detention? Even if you are deeply sympathetic to the migrants, as many Israelis are, is there a sovereign nation in the world that does not feel entitled to control its borders, especially when those frontiers also need to be defended against terrorists and hostile powers? Do those who protest Israel’s treatment of these people, in which many are kept in open detainment centers think that other democracies, such as the United States, would treat such people any better? Under those circumstances how can any reasonable person criticize Prime Minister Netanyahu’s pledge to defend his country’s borders and to enforce its laws.

Many of the migrants claim they are seeking political asylum rather than just jobs, but this is patently untrue of most of them, as their behavior has suggested. If Westerners would like to help them, they are free to welcome them into their own countries. Failing that, Israel deserves either some constructive help, such as an international diplomatic initiative that would force Sudan and Eritrea to guarantee their safety upon their return home, or be allowed to deal with the situation as best they can. Until they do either of those things or come up with a solution that doesn’t involve Israel being forced to accept economic refugees as legal immigrants in a manner that no other nation on the planet would ever consider, Western critics should pipe down.

Commentary Magazine

Can Israel Solve Africa’s Economic Woes?

Study: Dolphins can problem solve like humans

GRASSY KEY, Fla. (AP) — A dog may be man’s best friend, but dolphins can imitate human actions, and even how they solve problems.
Science Headlines

Study: Dolphins can problem solve like humans

Virginia governor resignation would solve problem, create another

Embattled Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has hired a crisis management consultant, hardly a sign of a man about to resign.

• Lieutenant governor says he has reservations about fellow Republican running for governor


• Bill Bolling feels Ken Cuccinelli jumped line to run for state’s top office


• Gov. Bob McDonnell has been embroiled in scandal over gifts to him and his family


• Cuccinelli is backed by the tea party; Bolling had support from establishment

Washington (CNN) — The prospect of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell resigning as he copes with a federal investigation into the nearly $ 150,000 worth of lavish gifts the Republican and his family received from a wealthy executive is unlikely, people close to the governor insist.

Yet the topic remains a tantalizing conversation piece around Richmond these days, mainly because it would be an act without modern precedent.

While Virginia has had its fair share of tumultuous politics over the years, not since Reconstruction has the commonwealth been forced to grapple with a question of succession. No Virginia governor has resigned, or been impeached, in the last century.

Virginia governor scandal: ‘That’s not the guy we know’

But there’s another reason some Virginia political watchers are buzzing about the hypothetical: McDonnell’s resignation, however unlikely, would elevate his lieutenant governor, Republican Bill Bolling, to the state’s highest office.

And Bolling has made it abundantly clear he has little tolerance for the Republican running to succeed McDonnell — Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.

“I have serious reservations about his ability to effectively and responsibly govern our state,” Bolling said of Cuccinelli in a recent interview with CNN.

Candidates say McDonnell should consider resigning

McDonnell: GOP soul-searching ‘healthy’

McDonnell: GOP ‘has work to do’

New strategy for the GOP

Here’s the backstory: Bolling has served as lieutenant governor since 2006, and had long eyed this election year as his moment to make the leap to governor. Bolling had McDonnell’s endorsement, and campaign backing from other establishment leaders and members of Virginia’s influential business community.

Then Cuccinelli stepped in.

The ambitious Fairfax native, an uncompromising social conservative and tea party darling, also had designs on the governorship — and he had no time for the succession plan orchestrated by Bolling, McDonnell and other GOP leaders. So last year, Cuccinelli’s allies in the Republican Party re-wired the GOP’s nominating process so that the 2013 gubernatorial nominee would be selected by convention instead of a primary.

Since conventions tend to attract only a small slice of the electorate — the most committed and vocal conservatives who revel in spending their spring weekends at political conventions — that left Bolling, who views the tea party movement with a mixture of scorn and exotic bewilderment, with little option but to drop out of the race.

McDonnell’s poll numbers fall as scandal unfolds

An exasperated Bolling left the race, and Cuccinelli easily captured the GOP gubernatorial nomination in May with the support of roughly 8,000 delegates who showed up at the Richmond Coliseum to support him (and two other conservatives, attorney general candidate Mark Obenshain and a bombastic pastor named E.W. Jackson, the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor).

Clearly incensed at Cuccinelli for dashing his gubernatorial hopes, Bolling soon embarked on a media tour lamenting the rightward drift of the Republican Party. He used his remaining campaign funds to launch an initiative called “The Virginia Mainstream Project” to recruit pragmatic Republican candidates and advance “responsible conservative policy solutions.”

Bolling’s message was clear: hard-liners like Cuccinelli are eating away at the Republican Party from the inside, and hindering legislative compromise in Richmond.

Cuccinelli’s allies think Bolling is a sore loser, bordering on irrelevance.

Bolling, freed from the pressures of campaign politics for the first time in nearly two decades, says he’s just speaking his mind.

McDonnell points to ‘irresponsible’ rumors

“Frankly, I don’t care what they think of me,” Bolling said last month over lunch at a Greek restaurant in the Richmond suburbs, several weeks before The Washington Post revealed some of the more explosive details of the unfolding McDonnell controversy.

Picking at a salad, the lieutenant governor characterized himself as a conservative, explaining that his first taste of politics came as a teenager in the coalfields of West Virginia, when he toiled on the 1972 re-election campaign of Gov. Arch Moore, a Republican in what was then a heavily Democratic state.

“The definition of what a conservative is has changed so much that now all of a sudden I look like a moderate,” he said. “The truth is that Bill Bolling is a conservative guy, always has been, always will be. But I am not an anti-government guy. I believe there is a role for government to play.”

The conversation pivoted to Bolling’s central criticism of Cuccinelli — that he is an ideologue uninterested in the sort of compromises needed to govern.

“This is not just the most conservative ticket, but it is the most ideologically driven ticket that we have seen in the history of our state,” Bolling said of the Cuccinelli-Jackson-Obenshain tea party troika.

Bolling says he has “tried to be measured” in his public comments about Cuccinelli. But that’s not really true.

“The difference between us is the kinds of issues we focus on, the leadership style and demeanor that we demonstrate,” Bolling said. “Our willingness to compromise, to get things done. Mr. Cuccinelli will have to run his campaign, and to win this election, he is going to have to convince people that he has the ability to govern Virginia in a mainstream way. Whether he can do that or not remains to be seen.”

All of this, mind you, is coming from the man who would become chief executive if McDonnell were to leave office prematurely.

New allegations against McDonnell emerge

To the delight of Democrats, it’s conceivable that the governor’s mansion could be occupied by a Republican who happens to be openly contemptuous of the Republican running to succeed him.

Democrats might enjoy that scenario almost as much as the one they have now, with Cuccinelli having to answer questions about his own ties to Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams, the embattled executive who provided McDonnell and his family with undisclosed gifts like a Rolex watch, a $ 15,000 Bergdorf Goodman shopping spree and pricey catering for the wedding of the governor’s daughter.

Cuccinelli also accepted gifts from Williams and owned stock in his company, though an investigation last week found he did not violate the state’s conflict of interest laws.

“This is a no-win situation for Cuccinelli,” said Democratic strategist Mo Elleithee, a veteran of Virginia campaigns. “If Bob McDonnell somehow is able to remain in office, he’ll be a daily reminder of Cuccinelli’s own ethical challenges with Star Scientific. If Bolling assumes the governorship, not only will Cuccinelli still be under an ethical cloud, but the new governor will be a daily reminder of how even mainstream Republicans view him as too extreme.”

Bolling’s comments over the last few months to a spate of news organizations seem tailor-made for negative television ads and mail pieces: “Don’t believe us? Here’s what Virginia’s own Republican governor had to say about Ken Cuccinelli …”

Bolling has even left the door open to voting for Cuccinelli’s Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, who, he kindly pointed out, “takes a more pragmatic approach to politics and to governing.”

At the moment, it doesn’t seem the Bolling-as-governor scenario will come to pass.

Bolling is close with McDonnell and certainly isn’t angling for the job. Though he’s had designs on the governorship for years, taking over for McDonnell in the wake of scandal, with regular legislative business wrapped for the year, isn’t much of a prize. Nor could Bolling suddenly decide to run for a full term — the filing deadline to run in November passed in June.

Barring another devastating disclosure about the investigation, the only real pressure point for McDonnell as he braces for a tough final six months in office would be a chorus of resignation calls from legislators in his own party. But so far, not a single prominent Republican has called for McDonnell to leave office.

Meanwhile, McDonnell has hired a Washington-based crisis communications consultant and former U.S. attorney to fight back against federal investigators, and some of his supporters launched a legal defense fund last week.

Those aren’t the actions of a man preparing to step aside.

But if he does, Cuccinelli and Virginia Republicans might only be trading in one headache for another.

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Virginia governor resignation would solve problem, create another

Sunday shows solve Syria and government surveillance!

Today on the Sunday Shows: War in Syria. The U.S. arming “the rebels.” The Surveillance State. A world of terror, danger, chaos and impending doom. And so ABC’s “This Week,” NBC’s “Meet the Press” and CBS’ “Face the Nation” will seek to answer the metaquestion: Are you proud of us, Daddy?

First, and solely because it starts a half-hour earlier than the other shows, we’ll check out “This Week,” where Jonathan Karl is substituting for George Stephanopoulos. “Is the U.S. going to get involved in another war in the Middle East?” Always, Jonathan Karl, always. Let’s see what Marco Rubio has to say.

Rubio, a war-friendly Republican, says that President Obama blew it by waiting so long to get involved in Syria. (Assuming this really is the broad change in strategy it’s been billed as.) Now who are we giving arms to? Al-Qaida “elements.” What would President Rubio have done? Karl asks. Well, Rubio never would have allowed it to get to this point, of course. If Rubio were president, Syria would be a sunny democratic Utopia already, because he would have managed it so perfectly, you just have no idea how perfectly President Rubio would have done things.

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Salon.com

Sunday shows solve Syria and government surveillance!