The avalanche of private contracts became part of a “kleptocratic” regime, according to a 2017 report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Almost all ISDS claims arise from contracts, laws or other agreements entered into during this period.
For farmers and villagers who were expelled from their land or their water resources privatized, the race for development converged with a spiral of violence.
“Nowhere are you more likely to be killed for standing up to companies that grab land and destroy the environment,” the international watchdog group said. Global Witness wrote in 2017“than in Honduras.”
An opponent of a project that was the subject of two ISDS claims was murdered the following year.
At the center of these new laws and contracts was Juan Orlando Hernández, who was president of congress when the ZEDE law was passed and was later elected president of Honduras in 2013. Hernández would serve two terms as president, a step prohibited by the Constitution. . The U.S. Department of Justice would later accuse Hernández of using millions of dollars in payments from drug cartels to help buy off local officials and ensure his electoral victories.
Eventually, Hernández, his brother, and his national police chief would be extradited to the United States and convicted of drug and weapons trafficking. Hernandez, Attorney General of the United States Merrick B. Garland saidHe took advantage of his time in power to direct “one of the largest and most violent drug trafficking conspiracies in the world.”
Hernández was found guilty in March of this year and sentenced to 45 years in prison, while the former head of the national police was sentenced to 19 years. his brother is serving life sentence. Hernández did not respond to a request for an interview from prison.
Brimen, executive director of Honduras Próspera, who immigrated to the United States from Venezuela, has said his goal is to provide a model that fosters prosperity, helping to alleviate poverty by streamlining unnecessary bureaucracies that hinder governments, especially in parts of the Americas. Latina.
Honduras Próspera said it “has no connection with any corruption in Honduras.” The company has not been publicly accused of being involved in corruption or the passage of the ZEDE law. But some neighbors, activists and members of the current government criticize the company for taking advantage of the law, given the way it was passed, and for working with the Hernández administration.
“They came and did business with the darker side of our country,” said Rosa Danelia Hendrix, speaking in Spanish. Hendrix serves as president of the federation of trustees of Roatán and the other Bay Islands, and helped lead the fight against the ZEDE.
Facing an economic superpower
The Castro government’s fight against the ZEDE is waged from the Government Civic Center of Tegucigalpa, a set of shiny buildings built by the Hernández government. The tidy, modern plaza sits next to the presidential palace and houses many government offices, but its pedestrian entrance opens onto a busy street with no detour, resulting in a chaotic scene of double-parked taxis and honking horns, as if its architects would have failed. imagine that citizens would visit us.
There, Fernando García and a team of half a dozen young employees compile documents and write fervent posts on social networks denouncing the ZEDE; In addition to Próspera there are two others, focused on agricultural exports and mixed-use development, neither of which have submitted applications. an ISDS claim.