Development as Imperialism

Personal Reflexive Statement

During the past decade of researching with indigenous populations in the global south, I have become increasingly aware of a duality of feelings that appears when local communities interact with large investors. On the one side, there is the hope of development—a promise that something better will emerge from disruptive change. Always counterpoised to this are fears of imperialism, marginalization, and domination. These positions often become polarized. It seemed to me that this polarization was a problem. Capital resources brought from outside a community need not always result in imperialism, but they do not necessarily imply social and economic improvements either. Instead of beginning this study with the intent of describing the ways in which foreign investment are imperialistic, I wanted to examine whether or not this investment is being mobilized in a way that will be helpful to the community or, on the other hand, be hurtful to it. I found the latter. What was difficult for me to take about this conclusion was that the main perpetrators of this imperialism were not entirely the usual suspects. Rather, they were Canadians like me. It is difficult for Canadians, I believe to come to terms with the fact that their capitalism can be just as predatory as anybody else’s.

Introduction

The Afro-Indigenous Garifuna people of Trujillo, Honduras, wryly call it la maldición—the curse. Despite the expansive resources of the area and the sheer amount of valuable commodities that have left from its shores, most of the local people remain poor, with little access to sanitation, reliable electricity, literacy, security, or employment. First, the rush was for mahogany, then bananas, gold, and palm oil. From the Spanish colonization of the sixteenth century to the present time, each of these commodities was shipped in astonishing amounts from the area’s beach-lined shores, the proceeds from which filled the pockets of a select few Honduran elites along with the kings and businessmen of far-off lands.

There has been a new valuable resource discovered in Trujillo. It is the cultural expression of the local Afro-Indigenous population combined with the warm crystal-blue waters of the bay, the endless tree-lined beaches, estuaries, and lush mountain slopes. Tourism is arriving in town and along with it comes a new promise—a development that will benefit all. Previous studies of tourism in other parts of the Honduran North coast, however, have found that tourism investment, associated actions of government and United Nations programs have facilitated community division, dislocation, dispossession of land, environmental damage, and the continued marginalization of Garifuna communities, while profits and land titles accumulate in the hands of elite Honduran and international investors (Anderson 2007, 2013; Brondo and Woods 2007; Hale 2011; Kirtsoglou and Theodosspoulos 2004; Mollett 2014). These studies have shown that while Afro-Indigenous culture is used as a marketing tool for tourism promotion, and the dream of a better life from such projects is internalized by many Garifuna, the negative impacts of development have eventually incited a backlash. Furthermore, this backlash has divided Garifuna communities, as some advocate for more community involvement in the development process, while others have rejected these tourist developments altogether—characterizing them as purely imperialistic ventures.

This article adjudicates between these promises of development and the injuries of imperialism in the case of Trujillo. Development is taken here, to be consistent with the claims of investors and the Honduran government, to mean a positive change that adds to the stocks of cultural, social, built, financial, and political capital held within the local community. Imperialism is taken to be a process, motivated by the needs of speculative capital, to extract value from local resources for the benefit of external investors and at the expense of the local population. The finding is clear in this study that recent plans for development, led locally by foreign tourism investors and facilitated by dynamics on national and international levels, do nothing to break from imperialistic tradition and have, in fact, only served to reinforce inequities and poverties that assure the continuation of la maldición.

Development and Imperialism

Until November 15, 2014, tourism was virtually nonexistent in the Trujillo bay. However, massive investments have been made by foreign businesses in expectation of a large tourist influx that began on that date. Trujillo has been prepared to accept the expected 80,000 tourists per year that the cruise ships will bring. The question remains however—in whose interest has it been prepared? In the answer to that question, we will find the distinction between development and imperialism—the two terms that have been used to describe tourism planning in the area. Certain practices, as we will see, can lend themselves well to true community-benefiting human development. Others, however, ensure a relationship that can only be described as imperial. It is not the intent of this article to carelessly attribute the title of imperialism or development to activities of foreigners in a developing country. Such activity may be either imperialistic or progressive depending on the way in which it is carried out. Strict evaluative criteria are developed here to aid in the differentiation of imperialism from development in the case of Trujillo, Honduras.

The Government of Honduras has extensively promoted tourism as a means to development. It remains a central platform of their Honduras is Open for Business investment campaign (Government of Honduras 2014). According to official rhetoric, this government has a particular form of development in mind—one that is inclusive, socially responsible, and environmentally sustainable. All tourism service providers, for example, are required via the Law of National Tourism Decree 193-93 to register with the National Chamber of Tourism of Honduras. The Chamber states explicitly that tourism-based development should generate “better quality of life, the dignity of the person, and the protection of natural resources” (n.p.). Furthermore, the Chamber explains, tourism development should not be pursued in ways that “prevent sustainability and therefore human and economic development of the country,” while noting that “the exploitation of human beings in any form … violates the fundamental aims of tourism” (Càmara Nacional del Turismo Hondureño [CANATURH] 2013:n.p.). Similarly, Article 17 of the national tourism law states that tourism plans should revolve around “the appropriate use of natural and cultural tourism resources, [and] respect for human dignity in the host community” (Congreso Nacional 1993:n.p.).

In these assertions, the government is clear that it does not seek to promote development broadly defined, but rather human development. This, then, is the form of development we will be comparing with imperialism in this article. ¹ The meaning of human development has been claimed by Alkire (2010) to imply the expansion of choices in affected communities as it “empowers people to be responsible and innovative actors” while expanding freedoms to have “secure, safe and meaningful livelihoods; caring and dignified relationships; protection against crime and violence; artistic, cultural and spiritual activities; participation in political and community activities; self-respect; and emotional well-being” (p.29). If tourism development is to be successful in Trujillo, this implies, such freedoms must be expanded for local people in a process that is inclusive, involving the community in the creation and implementation of development plans.

Although there is debate on whether tourism can be beneficial at all to local communities, given the volume of local resources it tends to usurp, a wide array of evidence has suggested that local control and involvement is crucial to positive outcomes in terms of human development in tourism (Bunten 2010; Buultjens et al. 2010; Colton 2005; Colton and Whitney-Squire 2010; Coria and Calucura 2012; d’Hauteserre 2010; Notzke 2004; Ruiz-Ballesteros and Hernandez-Ramirez 2010). Perhaps the most thorough of such studies has been a tourism-specific metastudy by Bennett et al. (2012), who list a set of community capitals; endowments of which must be promoted to achieve human development. The first of these is cultural capital, which includes practices, traditions, resources, learning and maintenance pertaining to indigenous, cultural practices, and their recognition. Second, financial capital includes both community and individual economic resources. Third, physical and built capital includes buildings and infrastructure. Fourth, natural capital refers to natural resource stock and environmental protection. Fifth, social capital includes relationships of trust and reciprocity, collective norms, as well as networks and partnerships. Sixth, political capital involves formal institutions, governance processes, political support, policies, and legislation. And finally, human capital includes individual attributes, ability and health, knowledge and awareness, skills, and education. As we will see, not only has development planning in the Trujillo bay failed to bolster these essential capitals in the local community, but it has worked to undermine them.

In juxtaposition to these discourses of human development, another word has been present in descriptions of tourism in Trujillo—imperialism. The staunchest opponent of tourism development in the area has been OFRANEH—the Fraternal Organization of Black Hondurans. This organization has accused the government and international investors of substantial colonial style injustices, especially against indigenous Afro-Indigenous Garifuna people who inhabit the Trujillo area and are protected by International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 169 on the Rights of Indigenous and Tribal peoples (OFRANEH 2013). Unlike the localized political assertions of OFRANEH, academic discussions of imperialism are often highly theoretical treatments of a historical process that is presumed to occur primarily at national and transnational levels (Callinicos 2009; Fine 2006; Harvey 2007; Panitch and Gindin 2012; Robinson 2007). Alternatively, the focus is on a decentered imperial power which articulates institutions and subjectivities in accordance with its pervasive discursive logic (Hardt and Negri 2000). Finally, national-level descriptive studies are often empirically rich, but refrain from any formal definition of imperialism or delineation of its processes (Gordon 2010; Shipley 2013). ²

The characterization that will be used here for evaluative purposes is a synthesis of the main theoretical understandings on the topic of current imperialism with the discourse emanating from OFRANEH. This depiction is not meant to be a seamless suturing of such ideas that resolve every debate within that field, but an approximation of general understandings that leave the unresolved details to the side. Core elements to which all of the above authors and activists generally agree have been parsed from their writings. Resulting from this, imperialism in the early twenty-first century will be defined as a process that exhibits the following characteristics:

It is a practice in which the economically powerful assert their dominance through control of political institutions, economies, and resources in the interest of capital accumulation through the dispossession of local populations.

These concepts of imperialism and development will be used to frame the empirical data in this article. These data have been collected as the result of a three-year study which has included fieldwork in Honduras. The goal of the empirical study below is to illuminate the processes of imperialism as they operate on multiple and intersecting microimperial, mesoimperial, and macroimperial scales—representing the local, national, and international context. The multiscale nature of the study necessitates a multifaceted methodology. Local scale analysis is largely ethnographic in nature. Over 40 interviews were conducted with community leaders, local and foreign business people, police, judges, local historians, journalists, government officials, artisans, fishermen, and other residents. In addition to this, three community focus groups on tourism were documented. Finally, personal correspondences with local business leaders and investigators were drawn on, and initial results from a three-year survey-based study have been utilized. ³

This local study is embedded in a national and international dynamics. Elaborating the macro/meso scale required a shift in methodology toward historical analysis that utilized nongovernmental organization publications, news stories, official government documents, published statistics, documents from international agencies, and past academic studies. The analysis to be presented with these multiscale data not only provides an assessment of development planning in Trujillo but allows the theoretical exploration of the distinction between imperialism and development—providing a model that may be used to evaluate development planning in other locales.

The National and International Scale

Honduras is one of the most impoverished countries in Latin America. Over 60 percent of the population lives in poverty, while 36 percent live under extreme poverty conditions—these figures are worse for those living in rural areas (International Fund for Agriculture Development [IFAD] 2013). As a report by Johnston and Lefebre (2013) has shown, economic and social indicators have become worse in the last few years, since president Manuel Zelaya was deposed by military coup in 2009. Poverty and extreme poverty rates, which had diminished by 7.7 percent and 20.9 percent, respectively, in the four years preceding the coup, have seen a reversal since—increasing by 13.2 percent and 26.3 percent, respectively. The number of people unemployed has increased from 6.8 percent in 2008 to 14.2 percent in 2012. About 43.6 percent of those in the labor force are being paid less than the minimum wage, as opposed to 28.8 percent before the coup. Thirty percent of the population is underemployed and the country now has the most unequal distribution of income in Latin America. Social spending, including health and education, had increased under Zelaya, but decreased drastically since 2009. Economic growth has also slowed by over 2 percent in that period.

The country is also notable for the extreme levels of violence and insecurity. Honduras is now the most violent country in the world that is not a war zone. According to World Health Organization’s criteria, a murder rate higher than 10 per 100,000 of population is an epidemic. Honduras averages 77.5—that is nearly twice that of the Central American rate and nearly 20 times the global average (United Nations Development Program [UNDP] 2010). Sexual abuse has been reported to have increased dramatically since the 2009 coup as have political assassinations and media repression (Flores and Urbina 2012; Human Rights Watch 2010)

Corruption is also a large problem in the country. According to Transparency International (2013), most Hondurans consider their government to be highly corrupt. The country is also one of the worst in the world when regarding the abuse of public power for private gain. Transparency of government finances is characterized with the lowest distinction of “scant or none” and the country rates extremely low on “Press Freedom” and “Voice and Accountability” measures.

Related to corruption and violence has been the problem of political instability. Despite its formally democratic electoral system, politics has for a long time been clientalist and dominated by a national elite comprised largely of 10 “oligarch” families and foreign business interests (Frank 2011; Stone 1992). As a result, the electorate generally has little confidence in electoral processes, politicians, and political institutions. For those who self-identify as being on the right of the political spectrum, the perception that democracy is ineffectual and consequent support of dictatorship in public opinion has increased (Pérez and René 2011). Counterpoised to this has been an active and progressive civil society, which has grown constantly since it had been extinguished nearly completely during the de facto American occupation of the 1980s and become particularly strong more recently (Mendoza 2012).

This civil society, Shipley (2013) has argued, was strong enough that by 2008 it was able to greatly influence national policy decisions. This was most evident in the sudden step to the left of the then president Manuel Zelaya who initiated a number of pro-poor policies. These included the raising of the minimum wage by 60 percent, the introduction of free school enrollment, the inclusion of Honduras in the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), land redistribution, provision of housing for the poor, the extension of credit to poor farmers, and distribution of four million energy saving light bulbs to help diminish high energy bills among to poorest (Gordon 2010; Shipley 2013; The Economist 2008a, 2008b). Steps were also taken to curtail the dominance of foreign governments and business interests. The U.S. air base at Soto Cano was to be turned into a civilian airport (Kozloff 2009), mining concessions were canceled to companies that had not implemented acceptable environmental impact assessments, and a moratorium was imposed on all new mining concessions (Moore 2012).

This last point was a threat to Canadian interests in particular. After the devastation of hurricane Mitch in 1998, the Canadian government had provided $100 million in reconstruction assistance. This was attached, however, to the insistence that 40 Canadian companies be granted access to Honduran mining concessions (Moore 2012). In concert with the United States, Canada formed the National Association for Metal Mining of Honduras (ANAMINH), through which a new national mining law was written—which grants mining companies lifelong concessions, tax breaks, limited environmental regulation, and 99 percent of proceeds from mining operations (Cuffe 2005; Holly 2009).

Zelaya’s attempts at reform were to be short-lived. The final straw for the established Honduran right-wing economic and political oligarchy was his attempt, supported by civil society, to institute a plebiscite on constitutional change. On June 28, 2009, Zelaya was ousted by military coup. Roberto Micheletti, the right-wing President of the National Congress who enjoyed the support of the Honduran business class was appointed interim president. Zelaya was not allowed to run in the following national election which was held on November 29, 2009, and the majority of left-wing politicians boycotted the process as a result. Profirio Lobo of the right-wing National Party—the man that Zelaya had beaten in the previous election—won the election and was inaugurated as President of Honduras on January 27, 2010.

The coup was actively supported by the ANAMINH. Also, interestingly, a large-scale letter-writing campaign was initiated by Honduras’ burgeoning tourism industry—including the country’s largest tourism investor, Randy Jorgensen of Canada (who locals call the “Porn King” due to the dubious source of his wealth). In this campaign, letters were directed to the government of the United States and Canada asking them to support the coup in the interest of the tourism industry (Shipley 2013).

International reaction to the coup was one of almost complete condemnation. The European Union (EU) immediately condemned the coup, as did the Organization of American States (OAS). The response of the United States was somewhat mixed. The removal of Zelaya was condemned, but the Obama administration refused to refer to the action as a coup. To do the latter would have triggered a mandatory cessation of all U.S. aid to the country including military aid which was heavily tied to the ongoing war on drugs in the region.

Through the support of Honduran military forces, it should be noted, the United States (perhaps unwittingly) supports the Honduran oligarch families which use these forces to expropriate land occupied by subsistence farmers in the Trujillo area—particularly in the lower Aguan valley. Expropriations and related acts of repression have intensified dramatically since 2009, and according to the human rights groups and a World Bank internal audit they have been perpetuated by one of the most powerful men in Honduras, Miguel Facussé (Amnesty International 2010; Compliance Advisor Ombudsman [CAO] 2013), who according to a U.S. Embassy communication released via Wikileaks was a known organizer and supporter of the coup (Llorens 2009). According to a study by Canadian organization Rights Action, at least 100 campasinos have been assassinated since 2008 as Facussé has sought to expropriate ever more land from poor farmers. Much of this repression is carried out by the Honduran military or paramilitaries using the equipment that has been donated by the United States in support of the war on drugs, although there is evidence that Facussé himself imports cocaine from Colombia (Bird 2012). Furthermore, the World Bank—controlled as it is by the United States and other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries—has directly financed Facussé in his expansion and expropriation policy with the aim of increasing palm oil production to supply world markets with ethanol, infuse the world food system with cheap ingredients, and to increase tree cover to act as a carbon sink (CAO 2013). Such military and financial support certainly bolstered the power of Facussé, enhancing his ability to contribute to the successful execution of the coup and repression of civil society thereafter.

American reaction to the coup was complex. On July 8, 2009, the United States suspended $16.5 million in military aid in protest of Zelaya’s removal. Then on July 28, the U.S. visas of four Honduran government officials were revoked and on September 3, the United States suspended all nonhumanitarian aid to the country—$30 million worth (O’Neill McClesky 2011). U.S. reaction was divided along part lines however. Against Senator John Kerry’s attempts to block the trip, a delegation of Republicans led by Senator DeMint traveled to Tegucigalpa to meet with Micheletti’s government while denouncing Zelaya as a “Chavez-style dictator” in defending his removal (Thompson 2009). The Obama administration called for the reinstatement of Zelaya and to allow him to run in elections. Under pressure from Senator DeMint, the Obama administration agreed to recognize the winner of the upcoming November 29th elections whether Zelaya had been allowed to run or not. The U.S. administration immediately recognized the new government as legitimate. Craig Kelly of the U.S. State Department declared that “The Honduran people have spoken very clearly, they have elected Lobo as their president that’s clear” (Gordon and Webber 2010). Zelaya himself charged that the United States was “whitewashing” with its refusal to refer to his removal as a coup and was playing into the hands of business interests in pledging to accept the results of the upcoming election. Despite its brief cessation in 2009, U.S. funding for the Honduran military and police actually escalated over the following four years. This has included an additional $45 million for military construction—including expansion of the jointly operated Soto Cano Air Force Base, and the opening of three more bases. In June 2011, an additional $40 million in police and military funding was added. All of this was justified officially as part of the war on drug trafficking—a problem that has, indeed, worsened since the coup (Frank 2011).

In the end, the United States accepted the legitimacy of the election of Profirio Lobo and not only continued but escalated military aid to the country. Canada, although urged otherwise by a strong consortium of Canadian and Honduran civil society groups, recognized the elections as well (Meyer-Cook 2009). Every Latin American country with the exception of French Guiana rejected the elections as fraudulent and illegitimate (O’Neill McClesky 2011). Uncertainty continued into the 2013 elections as well. In these elections, Honduras’ progressive civil society groups coalesced around a new party—Libertad y Refundación party or Liberty and Refoundation (LIBRE)—and the candidacy of Xiomara Castro—the wife of Manuel Zelaya. It was pronounced a victory for Juan Orlando Hernández of the right-wing National Party. Observers from the EU and OAS declared the elections fair and transparent with some reservations, however, large groups of international observers decried the elections as fraudulent—as did Xiomara Castro and most of Honduran civil society. Most of the latter cited inconsistent vote counts as well as the fact that at least 18 LIBRE party candidates were murdered in the six months leading up to the election in their condemnations of the process (Edmonds 2013).

If U.S. policy regarding Honduras since the coup has been inconsistent, Canada’s has been one of relatively clear support for the coup and postcoup governments. It has been noted by international human rights groups that hundreds of people had been killed by state security forces in the two years following the coup, the country displayed the highest assassination rate of journalists in the region, and at least 34 opposition party members had been disappeared or killed (Amnesty International 2010; Human Rights Watch 2010). The Canadian government ignored these charges completely, refused to exclude Honduras from its Military Training Assistance Program, refused to levy any sanctions while trying to persuade the OAS to do the same, and was the only major international donor to fail to cut aid to Honduras in the wake of the coup. Although he admitted that the 2009 elections were not monitored by international organizations (Kent 2009), Peter Kent, Canada’s Minister of State of Foreign Affairs for the Americas, lauded the Honduran people for engaging in “relatively peaceful and orderly” elections, run “freely and fairly, with a strong turnout, and with no major violence” (DFAIT 2009)—calling Lobo’s regime a “unity government” (DFAIT 2010). Moreover, Kent blamed Zelaya for being “reckless” and provoking the coup (Kent 2009), and Canada attempted to persuade the OAS to readmit Honduras immediately following the 2009 election (Gordon and Webber 2014).

Far from joining most other countries of the hemisphere in condemning the coup and refusing to recognize the Lobo government, the Canadian government actively increased its dealings with the new regime. In October 2010, Canada and Honduras began negotiations on a bilateral free-trade agreement. To this end, Canadian and Honduran officials met three times for bilateral meetings: in Ottawa from December 6 to 9, 2010; in Tegucigalpa from February 14 to 18, 2011; and once again in Ottawa from July 18 to 25, 2011. On August 12, 2011, Prime Minister Harper announced the conclusion of negotiations (Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development [DFATD] 2013) and the free-trade agreement became law in Canada and Honduras on October 1, 2014 (DFATD 2014). Civil society groups fear the leverage this agreement grants to Canadian companies as they “will be able to resort to costly international arbitration and sue the Government of Honduras if it makes any decisions that they do not like” (Mining Watch 2014:n.p.). Furthermore, after vocal opposition to the mining policies of the Zelaya government, Canadian government representatives immediately engaged with the postcoup government in the proposal of a new mining law that would promote foreign-controlled extractive development, unhindered by environmental regulations or the need for community consent. This mining law was passed and ratified on January 23, 2013. It essentially reversed the mining controls initiated by the Zelaya government.

The ouster of Manuel Zelaya and support of the postcoup regime played well into Canada’s national interest. There is no evidence that the Canadian government actively took part in the coup, but Canadian business did have much to gain from the occurrence. From the period of 2006 to 2011, Canada was the largest foreign investor in the country. Much of this was in mining, but the largest employer in the country—Gilden Activewear—is also a Canadian company and there are large Canadian business interests that are heavily involved in the burgeoning tourism sector, especially along the picturesque Northern, Caribbean coast. To incentivize the completion of the new mining law, Canadian mining companies promised to invest $1 billion upon its completion. The Canadian DFATD continued with its program of tying mining concessions granted to Canadian companies to official development assistance funds. Canadian businesses found the military government’s policies so inviting that their investments in Honduras grew dramatically under the military regime, from $105 million in 2007 to $750 million in 2011 (Gordon and Webber 2014). North-coast tourism development was amplified, especially in the Trujillo bay region, in the climate created by the pro-business Lobo regime, despite a drop in the actual tourist numbers (due to the coup and American financial crisis). Gilden Activewear increased its investments by $100 million. Virtually, all mining in the country is now Canadian-owned—included in this are the more than 300 concessions that had been subject to Zaleya’s moratorium and were since released for exploitation by the 2013 mining law (Russell 2012).

A more perplexing Honduran initiative that includes Canadian involvement is known as the Charter City project. This project was initially the brainchild of New York University economics professor and Nobel Laureate Paul Romer. The idea involves the judicial separation of a large, relatively uninhabited, tract of land in a poorer country. This new administrative area will be divested of all adherences to national laws and subject to the oversight of an external judicial and legal system. The area would be characterized by strong private property laws and very low rates of taxation. It will also be governed by the benevolent dictatorship of a team of respected international (but mostly American) intellectuals. This so-called transparency committee is to govern until the time that the area is “ready” for democracy. Romer has suggested that Honduras should be the first country in which such an initiative is attempted and that the Canadian judicial system could oversee it (Brandon and Romer 2012). He has presented this case directly to Canadian parliament and the postcoup Honduran regime.

Critics of the project have characterized it as a form of hypercolonialism or intensified free-trade zone (Bhatt 2012; Bird 2012), but both governments have embraced the idea enthusiastically. The Honduran government has changed the national constitution two times to accommodate the project. When the Supreme Court found the Charter City laws to be unconstitutional, the postcoup government fired four of the judges in what was later called a “technical coup” in order to get its constitutional amendments passed (Lyderson 2013). The result has been the legal designation of Zones of Employment and Economic Development (ZEDEs) with the passing of an organic law on September 6, 2013. This law allows land to be expropriated at a government-determined price via a proclamation of eminent domain for the construction of the zone. It also allows for any already urbanized municipality adjacent to a ZEDE to hold a referendum vote on inclusion into the zone.

Canadian government and business have promoted the Charter Cities project vigorously in Honduras. In June 2011, Canadian Senator Gerry St. Germain attended a special meeting of the Honduran Congress which was designed to legalize the creation of Charter Cities. St. Germain proclaimed it to be a “historic moment” for the country (OFRANEH 2013). He was accompanied by a consortium of large Canadian investors who promised $2 billion in initial investment dollars under a newly created corporate entity called Canadian Shield Asset Management— about which no public information exists. In the same month, the investors of Canadian Shield Asset Management, President Lobo, and the Canadian businessman Randy Jorgensen met in Trujillo to announce that the investment funds and the designation of the land immediately adjacent to Trujillo as the future site of the first Charter City. Later, another corporate entity was created under the name MKG Group. This is a group of libertarian businessmen that are largely American. According to their website, they share the vision that free markets, limited government, and capitalism will solve issues of poverty in the world. The group has pledged $15 million to begin construction of the Charter City (Bhatt 2012).

Macroimperialism

When we investigate the evidence at the national and international levels, it is clear that what has occurred in Honduras since 2008 cannot be characterized as a move toward human development by any stretch of discourse. Since the coup, economic growth has faltered, poverty rates have climbed, average wages have declined, and unemployment has increased dramatically. Violence, crime, sexual assault, and human rights abuses have reached epidemic levels and much of this has been systematically imposed by the state for the benefit of international—especially Canadian—capital and Honduran business elites (Gordon 2010). Government transparency and accountability have also declined. Freedom of the press and the vitality of civil society have been severely curtailed through outright assassination and repression. Regulations on mining that had been meant to protect the environment and national interests under the Zelaya government have been dismantled. Large amounts of land belonging too poor Honduran farmers have been illegally expropriated and placed in the hands of ruling national economic oligarchs or foreigners. Farmers and community groups that have opposed such measures have been assassinated systematically. Resulting from the “technical coup,” the ZEDE law has made it legal for the Honduran government to arbitrarily expropriate land in designated areas and impose tax-free, democracy-free, environmental, and labor regulation-free zones that are to be governed by foreign business elites who will enact their own laws and even currencies.

While the national- and international-level evidence does not support the thesis of human development, it can be characterized as imperialism. This imperialism was motived by the interests of Canadian and American speculative capital and was actively promoted by the Canadian and American governments. The resulting decline of labor rights, wages, and environmental protections has increased the probability of profit for capital investments of a transnational economic elite. ANAMINH—controlled largely by Canadian and American business interests—actively supported the coup, while the American government remained complacent and the Canadian government was strongly supportive. The Canadian government was lobbied by the Honduran–Canadian tourism sector to support the postcoup regime. American military aid and World Bank development funds have financed military repression, the assassination of poor farmers, and indirectly, political assassinations as well. U.S. military presence has expanded, and Canadian mining companies now control nearly all of the precious metals reserves in the country. Canadian manufactures such a Gilden Activewear have taken advantage of the repression of wages to expand their operations in Honduras substantially. The Canadian government used the promise of development funds to achieve concessions in the mining sector and immediately negotiated a free-trade deal with the postcoup regime despite international condemnation of government-incited human rights abuses and rejection of the validity of the Honduran government. The Canadian minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade actively defended the coup and promoted the Canadian business interest in negotiations with the postcoup Honduran government, while a Canadian senator was sent to actively lobby for the creation of the ZEDEs, accompanied by a mysterious corporate entity that acted as an umbrella for multiple Canadian corporate interests.

The Local Scale

Trujillo is the name given to both a town of 8,541 people and a municipality of approximately 30,000, both of which sit within the department of Colon, with a total population of 299,000 (Instituto National de Estadistica [INE] 2013). The town, situated on the Northern Caribbean coast, briefly became the first colonial capital of Honduras in 1524 and was the first point upon which Christopher Columbus set foot on the American mainland in 1502. The town itself is populated largely by ladino Hondurans (a mix of Spanish and Indigenous descent) and a few foreigners. It is immediately adjacent to the Garifuna villages of Rio Negro, Crystales, and San Martin which are home to about 1,000 families. The Garifuna are people of African mixed with indigenous descent and enjoy official indigenous status in the country. About one mile to the East of this more urban conglomeration is the small village of Jerico—formerly Garifuna but now populated almost exclusively of Ladinos.

Five miles to the North and East, along the peninsular road that nearly encircles the Trujillo bay, is the port of Castilla, where the major American Banana companies export their produce. Five miles to the West over a road that was only recently constructed are the larger, yet more isolated, Garifuna towns of Santa Fe and then Guadalupe. To the immediate South, the white-sand Caribbean beaches give way to lush mountains and the Capiro Calentura National Park. Fifteen miles to the South, but accessible only via the twisting road that exits Trujillo to the East and then loops Southwest, is the city of Tocoa—an urban area that has nearly doubled in size, to a population of approximately 50,000, within the last ten years (INE 2013). Just to the East of all of this is the estuary of the Aguan river which includes the Garifuna village of Santa Rosa and vast expanses of African palm plantations owned by Miguel Facussé. Further to the East and inaccessible by automobile lays La Mosquitia—a huge expanse of sparsely populated rainforest that borders Nicaragua.

Much of the politics of the area is focused around access to land. Garifuna communities were traditionally involved in small-scale hunting, farming, and fishing for survival and populated the remote areas of the North coast more extensively than did other Hondurans. In an effort to solidify Honduran claim to these lands, the Garifuna were given title in 1902 to 5,000 hectares in the municipality by President Manuel Bonilla. The Organización de Desarrollo Étnico Comunitario (ODECO)—a Garifuna community organization—has estimated that this land grant would engulf all of the area along the coast from Santa Rosa to the East, to Guadalupe, and South nearly to Tocoa, including the Capiro Calentura national park and excluding only the small center of the town of Trujillo. Official title was never delineated and registered with the National Agrarian Institute (INA) as required however, and this is the root of much of the difficulties surrounding land tenure in the region. Ambiguity of title is not uncommon in the country. According to U.S. Aid (2014), approximately 80 percent of the land in Honduras is improperly titled or completely untitled and only 14 percent of land in the country is occupied legally. Furthermore, it is extremely common for land to be legally titled to two or three owners due to fraud or clerical error. These dynamics are ever present in the Trujillio area and have played largely in the interest of foreign investors and local elites.

By the 1990s, it was clear that the natural beauty of the Trujillo area constituted a valuable resource that could bring foreign capital via land sale and tourism. Attempts were undertaken at that time to “rationalize” Garifuna land title. Beginning in 1993, the UNDP spearheaded an effort under the title Rescate Cultural (Cultural Recovery) to grant official title through the INA of Garifuna land. By 2005, the INA was planning to title only 990 hectares of land in the name of the Garifuna. Following tradition, this land could be used by individuals indefinitely, but sale was forbidden unless the Garifuna community was consulted and agreed to the sale of a parcel. In such cases, all funds would accrue to the community itself and not to any individual.

Because of its potential for tourism and perhaps facilitated by the “rationalization” of Garifuna land tenure that in-effect reduced their communal holdings by 80 percent, the last decade has seen an intensifying land rush in the Trujillo area. This has been accompanied by numerous titling issues. At the center of such issues is the Canadian investor Randy Jorgensen. He has been accused of fraud and there is a warrant out for his arrest in Honduras (which has still never been acted upon). The story of his acquisition of 62 hectares of land for his Campa Vista project serves as a pertinent example of the vagaries and corruption of land titling in the area. According to the Honduran indigenous rights law and ILO Convention 169, to which Honduras is a signatory, indigenous communities such as the Garifuna must be consulted upon any sale of their land. In 2007, Garifuna land between San Martin and Santa Fe was sold by Omar Laredo, president of the Garifuna community, to a local businessman. There was a community consultation in which it was agreed that about 20 hectares would be sold. The businessman paid $5000 to the president of the Garifuna community and then immediately sold the land for US$20,000 to Randy Jorgensen. Without community consultation, however, the amount of land sold had increased to 53 hectares. According to INA surveys done later, Jorgensen then actually fenced-in 62 hectares. Furthermore, according to Garifuna organizations such as OFRANEH, the president of the Garifuna community kept all the proceeds for personal use. The local community received nothing from the sale.

According to his official brochures, Jorgensen sells a half acre lot (usually to Canadians or Americans as retirement homes) for about US$55,000. The total revenue after the Campa Vista properties were sold was US$8.5 million. Again, the community received no money. Three official summons were issued to Jorgensen by the Fiscal’s office in Tegucigalpa requiring Jorgensen to appear and explain the extra nine hectares taken. When he neglected to appear, a warrant was issued for his arrest. Though Jorgensen spends most of his time at his home in Trujillo, the warrant has never been exercised by Honduran police. OFRAHEH, in conjunction with the local Garifuna community, is taking separate legal action against Jorgensen as well regarding this and other land deals. Similar community claims of fraudulent transactions have manifested around the acquisition of property for Jorgensen’s Alta Vista properties near Guadalupe.

We can see in this example, the ambiguity of land tenure in the area. The land of Campa Vista was initially titled to the Garifuna in 1902 with a stipulation that it was collectively owned and that community consultation was required to justify any sale. It remained as such after a “rationalization” of land tenure in 2005. In this case, however, the land was sold unilaterally by the president of the local Garifuna communities without appropriate consultation—and it was allegedly the president himself who kept all proceeds personally. Additionally, Article 7 of the Honduran Constitution stipulates that foreigners may not own more than three hectares of land within 40 kilometers of the coastline. However, Decree 90/90, passed in 1992, designated much of the area along the coast as “urban” specifically to create an exception for the purpose of attracting tourism investment. Garifuna organizations furthermore claim the land upon which Campa Vista and a further housing project of Jorgenon’s sits had been designated a “buffer zone” for the Capiro Calentura National Park, upon which development was to be severely restricted. Jorgensen denies this and given the ambiguities of land designation, measurement, and tenure in the area, both the Garifuna organizations and Jorgensen may be correct. Through all of this however, Jorgensen accessed titles to 53 hectares of land, actually took 62, and sold all of this to foreign consumers wishing to purchase beach and retirement homes. Despite such ambiguity, this land—traditionally Garifuna hunting and farming territory—sits physically in the hands of Jorgensen and the foreign owners. Although the vast majority of the lots remain undeveloped, the land is surrounded by fence and extensive security paid for by Jorgensen and is inaccessible to the local community. “This is our community land, we used it responsibly for our sustenance” explained one Garifuna community leader in interview, “it was illegally obtained …it is our right to have it returned, to be able to use it as is our tradition.”

A slightly different scenario unfolded regarding the land acquired by Jorgensen’s company in Rio Negro. In this case, Jorgensen coveted the land in order to build the country’s first-ever mainland cruise ship port and he would do so in partnership with Barrick Gold, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, and Canadian Shield Asset Management. The land in Rio Negro near the ocean was the site of a substantial Garifuna community however. In this case, title was not communal but private. The project was designated to be of “public interest” by the Zelaya government and Jorgensen was granted a writ of eminent domain from the postcoup government which allowed him to purchase by force any land he desired at a price that he had predetermined. Residents were presented with the option to sell and vacate or to have their land taken without compensation. The price was based on a presumed market value that was established by Jorgensen by looking at properties elsewhere in the country. Jorgensen created the Association of Rio Negro Property Owners (ARNPO) to which he gifted a 10 percent stake in the cruise ship port. Residents were given the option of taking a smaller amount for their property and buying in to the ARNPO or selling for a slightly larger amount without taking a stake in the port. The idea of the ARNPO was, in Jorgensen’s words, “to offset the loss of possible property appreciation if Trujillo became a popular destination.” Membership in the association was “restricted to Honduran Nationals currently residing in Honduras” and “corporations, foreigners, and Hondurans living abroad were excluded from membership” [(Randy Jorgensen, personal communication, January 3, 2014).

None of the former residents of Rio Negro interviewed for this research felt that they had been offered a fair price and all considered that their living conditions had deteriorated after the sale. They also considered the move to be an unjust forced eviction. “I had running water in my old house,” explained a former resident, “and it was on the beach.” And another explained, “we were forced to move. We had only one day to leave and had to take the price that was offered to us or lose our property for nothing.” The legality of the move is in question since eminent domain is only to be evoked in the case of public works projects in Honduras and this is a purely private endeavor. OFRANEH, considers the acquisition a “fraud carried out against the inhabitants of Rio Negro,” arguing that “the majority of these transactions were carried out under pressure, offering derisible sums of money to victims in exchange for their homes.” In conjunction with the Garifuna community, OFRANEH is undertaking legal action “to render null and void various fraudulent contracts for sales of community lands held by Canadian Randy Roy Jorgensen” (OFRANEH 2011).

Jorgensen is the biggest investor in the region, but he is not the only one. His holdings, through his companies Life vision and Banana Coast amount to 1,500 acres of which 500 and 1/3 acre lots have been sold. The cruise ship port was completed on April 2014 and the first large cruise ships arrived on November 2014. President Lobo himself attended the completion celebration of the port. The area is gated from the local community and heavily guarded.

Jorgensen’s activities have created somewhat of a land rush in the area. There are now as many as five other foreign companies acquiring land to invest in tourist communities in Trujillo. Their websites display artist renditions of beautiful beachfront communities and claim Trujillo to be a safe, clean, mecca of fun in-the-sun, food, and even shopping. This is far from an accurate depiction of reality. In truth, there is no functioning sewage system and there are water shortages, persistent electrical outages, a lack of garbage collection, and a severe lack of security. No more than eight homes have been built in any of the advertised tourist enclaves to date. Most of the land that has been sold has been purchased as a speculative investment by foreigners. The land sits fallow aside from the security fences that surround it, and much has been put up for resale by disillusioned purchasers. Fallow as it may currently be, these tracts of land are kept off limits to locals. Fences keep the Garifuna from what once was their traditional land, but so does the speculation that has led property values to inflate far beyond a level that would allow locals to purchase it—an empty half-hectare plot now selling for over 30 times the annual salary of the average Honduran worker.

Honduran law allows squatters to obtain title to otherwise unused land once it has been occupied for 10 years however. As a result, all speculative land acquisitions by foreigners are necessarily accompanied by investments in security guards or in special cases, squatters are kept off of the land with Honduran military assistance. Investors such as Jorgensen bemoan such squatter’s rights provisions because they increase the cost of investment land acquisition—first because it obfuscates title and second because land purchased solely for investment purposes may be subject to invasion if Garifuna community members consider it to be unused. As he put it recently,

This has been exploited by invaders and extortionists to the point where any legitimate rights of title are lost in the melee. As long as the law exists that allows squatter’s rights based on a subjective assessment of what qualifies as unproductive land, it will encourage conflicts, making security affordability and physical possession the confidence issue for land ownership. (Randy Jorgensen, personal communication, January 3, 2014)

The discussion of land tenure necessarily merges into the issue of corruption. In a traditionally clientalist state where a small elite wield enormous political and economic power and property law is ambiguous, privileged access to those in power can be used to secure an individual’s or companies interests. In the period immediately following the coup, Jorgensen’s projects in Trujillo enjoyed expedited environmental assessments and he was even given power of eminent domain which in his own assessment is “[not] common, nor is it widely used, but it is an extreme option reserved by government to deal with extreme difficulties in public interest projects” (Randy Jorgensen, personal communication, January 3, 2014). A warrant has been issued for his arrest related to illegal land acquisition, but this has never been exercised. Law suits against him plod along in an overburdened judicial system, while his requests for legitimization of land titles and impact assessments move quickly in the postcoup political climate. The change in power at the top, it seems, has worked well for Jorgensen.

Although Jorgensen denies that he has exorbitant political influence, he certainly does have uncommon access to those in power. He was present for some of negotiations on the Charter Cities project. He personally met with President Lobo at least three times. The last time involved an announcement by Lobo to build a road through Garifuna land, at public expense, to connect Jorgensen’s further-afield developments with the cruise ship port in Trujillo. The president attended the completion party of the cruise ship port. Jorgensen is a business partner in this port with Barrick—the most powerful gold mining company operating in the country, which itself exerts a documented influence on national politics. He is a business associate of Ramon Sosa Lobo, the president’s brother, who has opened Trujillo’s newest club near the cruise ship dock in order to benefit from the projected tourist influx and who, Jorgensen, admits, “has certainly supported the project” (Randy Jorgensen, personal communication, January 3, 2014). Jorgensen also employs the nephew of Pepe Lobo as one of his very few long-term employees.

Apparent corruption is not limited to Jorgensen and his business exploits. The Garifuna community was sold out by its own president in the land acquisition deal for Jorgensen’s Campa Vista project for example. In fact, in interviewing members of the community regarding organizational capacity, it was impossible to locate an individual or institution that was trusted locally. Community project after community project has failed due to those in charge taking advantage of their position for personal gain. As one Garifuna interviewee said, “when a member of this community gets ahead, they will not help anybody but themselves.” Lack of trust was cited multiple times as a severe issue in the community.

Much of the lack of trust ineffective social organization and general corruption in the Trujillo area is related to crime. As was already noted, the entire country suffers from extremely high crime rates, poverty rates, unemployment, and generalized inequality. These figures have worsened in the years since the coup. The same is the case in Trujillo. A recent article was published by Trujillo resident, journalist and academic, in Honduras Weekly, which outlines the extremity of violence in the area. Although the severity of the security issue is denied by Jorgensen, the interviews of locals undertaken in this study overwhelmingly support Griffith’s position that what the locals simply call la inseguridad (the insecurity) is a prevalent and increasing problem in the area.

The main causes of la inseguridad according to local accounts are economic destitution, unemployment, underfunded police, a growing crack cocaine problem, especially in Cristales and San Martin, and the recent growth of drug cartel activity in the area. All of these, it is claimed by local people including police and judges interviewed, have worsened substantially since the coup. Griffith uses local testimony to argue that Garifuna themselves are afraid to walk down the beaches because of “drug addicts and thieves that hang out in the trees” and that the danger to any potential tourist is even greater. This is substantiated by my fieldwork. Just in the month of July 2014 (when fieldwork was being conducted in Cristales and San Martin), at least three people were murdered for small amounts of money and I myself was assaulted by Machete. All of the American and Canadian residents of Trujillo that were interviewed had suffered multiple assaults and home invasions.

Other than some subsistence fishing, hunting, and farming, there is virtually no legal employment for the Garifuna in the area. Even these traditional income and food sources are being squeezed out. Fishing has been severely impacted by the devastation to local stocks by the fleet of factory trawlers that are permanently stationed just over the horizon from Trujillo bay. Farming is made more difficult by encroachment on traditional lands by tourism investors and palm oil plantations. Due to the unrelenting poverty in the area and an inability to enforce conservation law, most game is diminished to extremely low levels as desperate Garifuna and Ladino individuals have hunted extensively in the local area—including in the national parks. Many survive from remittances from relatives living in the United States, through prostitution, or through drug trafficking. Since the American war on drugs has intensified its efforts in Mexico, the area just East of Trujillo has become a major conduit for cocaine to travel from Colombia, through Central America and to the United States. The main corridor for this traffic runs through Tocoa, just to the South of Trujillo, and many of the locals act as mules—moving drugs to the interior of the country. Recently, the cartels have begun to make payment to mules in the form of crack cocaine instead of cash. The result is an epidemic of crack addiction, especially in Cristales and San Martin. The extensiveness of this drug problem has contributed significantly to la inseguridad and to the diminishment of trust in the area.

The police have few resources and little will to combat any of this. There is just a small force based in the center of Trujillo. Private security forces that protect the property of tourism investors or drug lords far outnumber the local police force. There exists only one police vehicle which is often broken down or out of gas. As police interviewed for this study reported, even when the vehicle is working, the criminals communicate with one another. When the police are in San Martin, crimes will be committed in Trujillo. When they are in Trujillo, crimes will be committed elsewhere. Police make paltry wages—between US$150 and $200 per month. At the same time, big money is going through the area attached to the drug trade. As a local judge asserted during an interview, most of the police have been corrupted—they work for the cartels.

This has garnered the police little respect in the area for three reasons. First, they are seen as hopelessly ineffective and underfunded—rarely responding to community needs. Second, a police officer who refuses to be corrupted will not be respected locally. The locals respect power and wealth. The criminals have power and wealth while the police are poor. Third, the locals are fully aware of who the police really work for—the cartels and the foreigners. As a caller on a local news show put it when a tourist was assaulted and the police aggressively apprehended the perpetrator—“they do nothing for us, but as soon as a gringo attacked, they do everything they can … this is gringo justice, not justice for the people.”

One might think that a burgeoning tourist industry could do much to help the economic and security issues in the area, but this does not seem to be the case. According to a 500-person survey I conducted in 2014, virtually no locals have been hired for construction work on gated tourist communities or the cruise ship port. A few ladino locals have been employed as security guards but no Garifuna have been employed for this purpose. Save one sincere agreement in far-off Guadalupe by a new Canadian investor, no meaningful community consultations have been held regarding tourism planning and implementation. Although Garifuna culture is being used in the marketing of the port, plans were initially made to truck cruise ship passengers past the Garifuna villages to Randy Jorgensen’s zoo a few miles to the West. Recently, Jorgensen has agreed to a trial stop in the Cocopando restaurant in Cristales where tourists would have an opportunity to see Garifuna dancing, eat Garifuna food, and purchase wares from local craftspeople.

The main problem with this plan is the lack of funds local people have to invest in infrastructure, sanitation, garbage removal, and security. Garifuna artisans have approached what they call “the Canadians”— those in charge of tourism—several times asking for small loans to help them to produce crafts for sale to tourists and have been told “no” and to simply “wait until the tourists come.” Local artisans simply have no products to sell the tourists because of a lack of even the most miniscule of investment capital. Washrooms at the hotels and restaurants are far below the quality expected by tourists and there is no money being provided for an upgrade. The beach is filled with garbage, and the area 20 meters to the East of Cocopando is an informal dump used by locals since there has been no municipal garbage pickup in years. Water is at times only available in Cristales for a few hours, two days out of the week—less since the 2014 drought. Furthermore, the lack of policing makes any area outside of the cruise ship port dangerous to tourists.

Jorgensen is well aware that these needs need to be addressed throughout the Trujillo area in order for tourism to be successful. He expects the local community, municipality, and national government to incur the costs for such things however, as he explains,

we are … educating the local community leadership regarding the need for safety and sanitation that are main foundation pieces to a tourism economy. Tourists obviously do not go to places they have an increased chance of being hurt or getting sick. I know the Honduran Ministry of Tourism provide additional funding for tourist areas and special training for local police forces who are stationed in these areas, much like other countries. I suspect their plan is to continue to implement these activities, and I know they also work closely with tourism operators like cruise lines and charter vacation operators to improve practices. Trujillo specifically already practices increased security during events that attract large amounts of visitors such as Holy Week, and I anticipate this will also be implemented on ship days. (Randy Jorgensen, personal communication, January 2, 2014)

Microimperialism

We see clear evidence of microimperialism in all of this evidence, and this is embedded in meso and macroimperial processes. The UNDP and Honduran government’s “land rationalization” program of the 1990s reduced Garifuna land holdings. This eventually served to benefit foreign investors by making this land available for purchase. The acquisition by Randy Jorgensen of some of his lands was of such questionable legality that a warrant was issued for his arrest. Though Jorgensen interacts daily with local police, the warrant has never been exercised. Furthermore, the right of eminent domain—usually reserved only for public interest projects was granted by the postcoup Honduran government to allow the evictions of Rio Negro that allowed the building of Jorgensen’s cruise ship port. These actions were facilitated by Jorgensen’s privileged access to the Honduran oligarchic political class, especially via his close relationship with the Lobo family. This relationship and the actions that resulted were legitimized by the Canadian government’s refusal to denounce the 2008 coup.

The impetus behind these acts is speculative capital. Of course, Jorgensen as the main investor was seeking a conduit to valorize his stock of excess capital that was originally accumulated in the pornography business in Canada. The other major land investors are engaged in speculation based on the bet that property values will increase in the area due to tourism. More than this, 90 percent of the properties sold by Jorgensen and other investors have been paid for from the excess earnings of Canadian oil workers who leave the land dormant in hopes of turning a profit once tourism inflates property values. Meanwhile, fences and guards assure that this land is off limits to locals who may want to use it for traditional farming and hunting practices.

All of the capitals essential for human development in the tourism sector have been depleted for the Garifuna just as foreign investment has increased. Any political capital that the local community gained during the Zelaya presidency was taken back by the postcoup government. Garifuna individuals and organizations have little impact at any level on the political decisions that govern their lives. They, along with the bulk of civil society organizations, have been actively suppressed since 2008. Meanwhile, foreign investors and national oligarchs enjoy a reinvigorated access to the mechanisms of political power. Political capital, in other words, has been redistributed from the poorest, including the Garifuna, to foreign investors and national oligarchs after the coup.

Financial capital has declined, as land base of locals has diminished and wages forced down. Virtually no programs have been put in place by tourism investors or government to supply the local community with the financial capital it would require for it to take an active part in the tourism industry. The single acceptation to this is the ARNPO which was given a 10 percent stake by Randy Jorgensen in the cruise ship port. This was only applicable to about more affluent 50 property owners in a small part of the Rio Negro area—and only the proportion of those who opted into the program. This program itself has been critiqued by locals as a manipulative attempt to dissuade property owners from attempting to negotiate fairer sale prices—a carrot to go with the stick of eminent domain. This was far from the comprehensive community inclusion scheme for the Trujillo bay area that would be necessary to assist in the acquisition of financial capital necessary for the community to benefit from tourism development. Furthermore, holding sex trade and drug trafficking aside, virtually no local Garifuna have been employed by the tourism sector or the construction efforts that have accompanied it.

The community does have a measure of social capital in that it has strong community ties and a number of active and long-standing groups and political institutions. These, however, have been rendered ineffectual by a lack of trust that is associated with increased corruption, criminality, poverty, desperation, and drug addiction. This lack of trust is severely debilitating the community’s ability to organize and take effective action and marks a severe drop in social and political capital resources of the community. Stocks of physical and built capital have declined among the Garifuna since many of their houses and community centers have been destroyed to make way for tourism projects and, since they receive no tax revenues from international tourism investors, local public infrastructure associated with garbage collection, electricity provision, water, and sewage has been left to decay.

Both human and cultural capital have depleted due to an underfunding of education since the coup. Furthermore, virtually none of the Garifuna we spoke to had received any training in relation to the tourist industry. The Garifuna do still enjoy relatively high literacy rates, however, and focus groups undertaken for this study have revealed a good understanding of business and ability to plan for such as well. Drops in educational funding have impacted cultural capital however. As a former Garifuna teacher insisted, “we used to have a complete program of teaching of our language and culture but all government funding for that has gone away.” Finally, the lack of sanitation and waste disposal results in the pollution of the Trujillo bay and the Garifuna villages. Finally, the desperation of local impoverished people to deplete natural capital as they overfish and overhunt in search of sustenance has forced environmental capital stocks into steady decline.

Summary, Discussion, and Conclusion

The literature on tourism development—especially as it relates to indigenous populations—suggests that it is possible for tourism to have positive well-being impacts for local populations. Such benefits only accumulate, however, when local communities have access to stocks of important capitals. Due to the manner in which tourism planning and investment have been carried out in the Trujillo area, unfortunately, the local community remains precariously deficient in such resources. It is clear, then, that the investments in the tourism industry in the area have not resulted in any measure of human development. In congruence with past literature, we can expect therefore that tourism development in the area is likely to exclude and further marginalize the people of the Trujillo bay area, as they are pushed aside in the interest of foreign tourists, foreign investors, Honduran elites, and drug cartels.

If we cannot label tourism in Trujillo as development, can we accurately call it imperialism? Strict definitional criteria were established in the first section of this article to assist in such an evaluation. It is clear that this is a case in which the economically powerful assert their dominance through control of political institutions, economies, and resources in the interest of speculative investment and capital accumulation through the dispossession of local populations. Extreme amounts of financial, political, and legal resources have been mobilized by local tourism investors with the end result of disenfranchising the local population out of large tracts of valuable land. The local population has also been edged out of political and legal processes and the judicial and political systems seem to work speedily in the interest of elites and foreign investors and very slowly in the interest of those who oppose them. We can see here that imperialism in the Honduran case has been motivated by the peculiarities of a capitalist system that demands excess capital to be put to speculative work in the pursuit of profit. Political and economic activity enacted by transnational corporations, governments, and local investors have all been motivated by the expansionists needs of capital.

This general climate is reinforced on macroimperial and mesoimperial scales. The postcoup national government has been actively supported by the Canadian government and Canadian transnational mining corporations. Because of its dedication to the war on drugs, the American government has done little to stand up for democracy in Honduras and has been quick to recognize governments that have been elected through questionable procedures. In both the Canadian and American situations, we do not see an imperial power that is simply bent on domination, but a prudent government operating toward the support of a national business or policy scheme, resulting in an imperial-style support of an undemocratic regime. The World Bank too has supported this climate of fear and repression through its direct funding of the business of one of its main perpetrators—Miguel Facussé.

As a result of the postcoup national climate of violence, crime, increasing poverty, unemployment, and marginalization, community members in the Trujillo area have seen their power over material, political, and judicial resources dwindle. The processes of microimperialism can be seen on the local scale in the actions of foreign investors simply pursuing their interests by exercising their significant political, legal, and economic power. Mesoimperial and macroimperial processes reinforce these microimperial actions not necessarily through outright collusion across levels (although this remains a possibility) but through a simple confluence of interests. Local investors benefit from a national political and economic climate that favors wealthy elites, marginalizes the poor, and promotes neoliberal development. Elaborate tourism projects, in turn, make the national ruling party and international mining corporations look good. The mysterious fact that Barrick Gold is a partner in the Trujillo cruise ship port makes sense as a way to try and promote community respect as a supporter of high-profile development projects. This involvement has created a direct link between developments in Trujillo, directed by Randy Jorgenson, and the Canadian mining companies that influence national politics so greatly. Members of the Government of Honduras, are also eager, support such projects to be seen as not only promoting the interests of local economic development but also to facilitate the valorization of their own family investments.

The processes of imperialism are reinforced by ideologies that are held by actors at all levels. Clearly, the postcoup regime believes strongly in market-based development initiatives. This is evidenced by their support for large business, repression of labor rights groups, their advertising campaign that announced Honduras, in English, to be “Open for Business,” their hyperspeed negotiation of free-trade agreements, extensive tax-breaks offered to elites and foreign investors, and their enthusiastic embracing of the Charter Cities project which has now taken the form of an expanded free-trade zone and tax haven (a ZEDE) that is to be placed directly on the Trujillo region. Foreign investors believe strongly that their projects will eventually help the community. Jorgensen, for example, refers to the Rio Negro cruise ship port project as a “swamp/sewer wasteland [that was] developed as a cruise port; [a] redevelopment of a waterfront eyesore and a habitat for disease with a project that would create community wide benefits” (Randy Jorgensen, personal communication, January 3, 2014). Local ladino and Garifuna people seem to buy into this optimism despite their troubles. In the end, they believe, tourism will bring with it economic opportunity. Most eagerly await the promised money from cruise ship passengers while clearly understanding that they have little in the way of resources to allow them to take advantage of the influx. This is a clear multilevel example of the dispersed discursive power that tends to reinforce and validate imperialism.

Although there is debate on whether or not tourism can ever be beneficial to indigenous communities, we know that it can be operated in ways that avoid imperial-style domination. Unfortunately, what we see developing in the Trujillo bay is a clear example not only of a terminally ill-planned development project from the human development perspective, but of imperialism as it operates in the real world—at multiple scales, through the exertion of financial, legal, and political resources of powerful actors with confluences of interest, in the pursuit of narrow personal or corporate gain.

To combat this, policies that might contest such imperial tendencies and promote human development should be implemented on multiple scales. Clearly, we can see that governments in countries such as Honduras should undertake active processes in the interest of democratization, cultural protection, environmental protection, labor, and human rights. On an international scale, in lieu of promoting the interests of national capital or antidrug policies at all costs, foreign policy of powerful countries should be enacted with respect to human rights and environmental protection in all countries. Canadian and American nationals operating in poorer countries should be compelled by foreign policy instruments in their home country to adhere to such ethical guidelines. And this should be enforced. To this end, human rights and environmental protection agreements must accompany all trade agreements. And these must be given teeth by articles such as Bill C-323—a private members bill, introduced in the Canadian House of Commons, that would allow foreign nationals to “initiate tort claims based on violations of international law or treaties to which Canada is a party if the acts alleged occur outside Canada.” Beyond this, hard work must be undertaken to nurture a confluence of ethics to replace the current confluence of interests that presides in international politics and economics. If the Honduran government, for example, is truly interested (as it should be) in promoting human development, legal instruments, diplomacy, and good faith should compel foreign governments and foreign investors to comply with such motives. In the case of Trujillo, Honduras, such measures would compel foreign investors, the Honduran government, and the Canadian government to work in concert to assure that the local community is endowed with the resources that are necessary for it to benefit fruitfully from tourism investment, or to reject it outright should they deem it appropriate.