REALITY CHECK

Last Friday, during a break in the retreat on Christian Maturity for Catholic University students, I sat and talked with two of the other presenters. We were eating baleadas, a Honduran quick food of wheat tortillas filled with beans, heavy cream, and cheese. Talk soon turned to the prices of food. Eggs used to cost 1.5 lempiras a piece (about 8¢) but now are 2.5 lempiras (about 13¢). Beans, a staple of the Honduran diet, that recently cost 8 lempira a pound (about 45¢), now cost 15 lempira a pound (about 80¢). Fredy, who owns a small business making flour tortillas for baleadas, had to raise the price of a bag of five from 6 to 9 lempiras (from 32¢ to 44¢) because the cost of a 100 pound bag of flour rose from 350 lempiras to 600 lempiras (from about $18 to $32). He lamented, “What is a small business owner to do?”

This past week the local bishop, Monseñor Luis Alfonso Santos, was again in the midst of the conflict over the demand for a new mining law. In Honduras the current law, which was virtually written by the mining companies in 1998, gives them major concessions throughout the country and demands minimal tax payments. Its environmental controls are minimal. Open pit mining using the cyanide leeching method is used in several places in Honduras including one site within the diocese. Parts of the current law were declared unconstitutional by the Honduras Supreme Court.

Last week one deputy of the National Assembly (Honduras' unicameral legislature) called a meeting to discuss a possible new law and invited various interested parties. Monseñor came, together with the people from the Civic Alliance for Democracy. But it seems as if the meeting was packed with pro-mining interests and at least one corrupt lawyer who had written the old mining law, probably with the mining companies' help.

Monseñor came with a 70 page report, which included information on the assets and profits of the mining interests. It seems the mining companies underreported their profits by 16 million dollars. He was interrupted during his talk. Some said he shouldn’t be speaking on this; he’s a bishop. He said that he was a Honduran and there is freedom of speech here. Obviously they didn’t want to hear him and so he left. But he left not before he had revealed the underhanded actions of the mining companies. After he left he went to the diocesan pastoral meeting with the priests and representatives of the parishes who welcomed him warmly, grateful for his witness.

It is great to have such a committed bishop.