Trump's Alarming Ignorance About Foreign Aid

With threats to close the U.S./Mexican border - something that will cause possible severe economic damage to the USA and cause severe adverse impacts on U.S. border cities - and his cutting off of all foreign aid to Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, Donald Trump has shown his near total ignorance on the issue of foreign aid which more often than not is driven not by U.S. generosity  but instead by the benefits the USA derives. No doubt his ignorance embracing, knuckle dragging base loves that Trump is "punishing" "those people" and is too ignorant to grasp that Trump's actions will only make matters worse and harm U.S. interests.  A piece by former Republican Michael Gerson looks at the stupidity and self-inflicted harm that Trump's petulant ignorance will bring to American interests.  Here are excerpts:

There are times when President Trump manages to be so wrong — so empirically groundless, so logically fallacious, so stridently uninformed — that it seems like a form of parody. But more often than not, this reflects an authentic and alarming ignorance. The mask of a barroom political crank turns out to be the face of the president of the United States.

Such appears to be the case in Trump’s recent threat to cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign assistance to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — countries known as the Northern Triangle of Central America — as punishment for their failure to stem migrant flows to the United States.

To make this action a rational one, Trump must imagine that foreign aid is nothing more than cash loaded onto cargo planes and dropped on the presidential compounds of corrupt rulers as reward for subservience to U.S. interests. So he wants to cancel the deliveries until they do what we wish.

The reality of foreign assistance is very different. It is seldom given directly to foreign governments. The work is often contracted to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that work in partnership with locals. And it is generally designed to improve conditions within foreign countries that can give rise to global threats.

This role is obvious, say, in fighting infectious diseases. It is better to deal with an Ebola outbreak as close as possible to the source, rather than waiting for the threat to arrive in Georgia or Kansas. But this is equally true when it comes to a flow of refugees.

Consider an example in Guatemala. More than a decade ago, a remarkable institution called International Justice Mission (IJM) — an NGO dedicated to the fight against modern forms of slavery — began working with local authorities to improve the prosecution of child sexual assault. This partnership improved the capacities of police, prosecutors and courts, while making the whole system less traumatizing for survivors. As a result of the initiative — supported by a grant from the State Department — successful prosecutions in Guatemala have increased by 300 percent, imposing real consequences on predators.

Imagine you had a child and lived in a country where children were raped with impunity. Wouldn’t a dangerous trek north to the United States make more sense? But this program and others like it are threatened by [Trump’s] the president’s aid cutoff. In the real world of U.S. interests, we need more of these efforts to reduce the supply side of illegal migration. And the supply side of sexual trafficking. And of criminal gangs. And of the drug trade. And of illegal arms dealing. And of radicalism and terrorism.

One of the main drivers of illegal migration has been the collapse of criminal-justice systems in Central America. And it reflects a global problem. . . . . Roughly a third of people in the world live in relatively just and stable criminal-justice systems. Another third live under the protection of private security forces — a system that turns security into a luxury good. (In Guatemala, for example, there are seven times more people involved in providing private security than public security.) And a third of people live without the effective protection of the law, experiencing what Haugen calls “everyday violence” from corrupt and exploitative officials.

If U.S. policy does not address the functional collapse of criminal-justice systems in places such as the Northern Triangle, it is not seriously addressing the problem of illegal migration. Yet the IJM program in Guatemala and similar efforts are the kind of spending now being threatened by the president’s announcement. This means that U.S. policy has become self-destructive to U.S. interests.

[T]he lack of justice leading to everyday violence has become a global problem, with consequences that spill up on many shores, including our own. It is a matter deserving policy creativity rather than Trump’s public threats.

It would make far more sense to double assistance for these programs — designed to support local reformers, not to impose American solutions — than to end them. But an absence of vision is one cost of ignorance.

Inter-American Human Rights Court Backs Same-Sex Marriage

While the Trump/Pence regime and its Christofascists base continue their war on LGBT Americans and their civil rights, a major ruling has been handed down which could lead to same sex marriage being legalized across South America and parts of the Caribbean.  The ruling was addressed to Costa Rica, but the precedent should trigger a domino effect across the region.  The usual suspects - self-enriching scamvangelis, the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church, and hypocrisy-filled evangelicals will lament the ruling which is another defeat of their efforts to impose their hate and fear based religious beliefs on society and civil governments.  The Court specifically stated that domestic partnerships and similar arrangements short of marriage were not sufficient. The BBC has details on the ruling and the fallout it will trigger.  Here are highlights:

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has ruled that same-sex marriages should be recognised.  The court's rulings apply to countries which have signed the American Convention on Human Rights.

Some of the signatories already recognise same-sex marriages while others recognise same-sex civil unions.

But others, such as Bolivia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Paraguay and Peru do not recognise either and will be expected to change their laws.

The court was established by the regional body, the Organization of American States (OAS), and signatories to the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights are bound by its rulings.

The ruling comes as a number of Latin American countries have changed or are debating changing their laws to allow same-sex couples to marry.

The judges said that governments "must recognise and guarantee all the rights that are derived from a family bond between people of the same sex".  They also said that it was inadmissible and discriminatory for a separate legal provision to be established just for same-sex marriages.

The judges demanded that governments "guarantee access to all existing forms of domestic legal systems, including the right to marriage, in order to ensure the protection of all the rights of families formed by same-sex couples without discrimination".

Recognising the difficulty in passing such laws in countries where there is strong opposition to same-sex marriage, they recommended that governments pass temporary decrees until new legislation was brought in.

The judges issued the ruling in response to a motion brought by Costa Rica.  The Central American government asked the court to give its opinion on whether it had an obligation to extend property rights to same-sex couples. The court ruled that it did.

The Costa Rican government also wanted to know whether it should allow transgender people to change their name on their identity documents. Again, the court ruled that it should.  Costa Rica's Vice-President Ana Helena Chacón welcomed the court's ruling, saying it would be adopted "in its totality".

Prominent Honduran LGBT Activist Is Murdered

Murdered Honduran LGBT activist Renee Martinez

As I have mentioned from time to time, my mother (and one of my aunts) was born in Honduras and under the terms of the Honduran Constitution, I qualify for dual citizenship although I have never taken steps to formally secure Honduran citizenship or a Honduran passport. Indeed, my family continues to have holdings in Honduras.  Thus, I am continually appalled at the anti-LGBT violence that is sadly the norm in that nation.  While the press tends to blame anti-LGBT violence on "gangs," given the continued power of the Roman Catholic Church and its anti-LGBT agenda, I suspect that the Church bears much blame since it continues to legitimize anti-LGBT animus notwithstanding the Vatican's lip service to treating gays with respect.  The Church's official position remains that gays are "inherently disordered" and "inclined towards evil," so it isn't a stretch to regard these positions as a license to commit violence against LGBT individuals.   The latest victim of anti-LGBT animus is LGBT activist Rene Martínez (pictured above).  The Washington Blade has the disquieting details.  Here are highlights:

A prominent LGBT rights activist in Honduras was murdered this week.

La Prensa, a Honduran newspaper, reported Rene Martínez’s family reported him missing on Wednesday after he left his home in the city of San Pedro Sula’s Chamelecón neighborhood and got into someone’s car.

La Prensa reported that Martínez’s relatives identified his body at San Pedro Sula’s morgue on Friday. The newspaper said it appears that Martínez was strangled to death.

Martínez, 40, was president of Comunidad Gay Sampredrana, a San Pedro Sula-based LGBT advocacy group that worked throughout northern Honduras. He also ran an outreach center in Chamelecón through Youth Alliance Honduras, an organization that is part of an anti-violence program the U.S. Agency for International Development helped to develop.

USAID and the Gay and Lesbian Victory Institute co-sponsored a conference in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa last October that focused on bolstering LGBT political engagement in Latin America and the Caribbean. Martínez was among the more than 300 activists from across the region who attended the gathering in which Special U.S. Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI Persons Randy Berry and Tamara Adrián, the first openly transgender person elected to the Venezuelan National Assembly, participated.

Investigators have yet to identify a possible motive for Martínez’s murder or potential suspects.

San Pedro Sula, which is Honduras’ second largest city, is located roughly 150 miles northwest of Tegucigalpa.  The city has become known as “the murder capital of the world” because of rampant gang violence and drug trafficking. La Prensa reported that Chamelecón, which is a working class neighborhood in San Pedro Sula, has a high crime rate.

Anti-LGBT violence and discrimination remain commonplace in the Central American country.

The Panama Canal - The First and Next 100 Years

Click image to enlarge

Much of my mother's family history links to Panama and Central America.  My grandfather - pictured above - worked on the building of the Panama Canal and with the money he earned - the pay was good for that era, especially given the high death rate from malaria and yellow fever - that he was able to go to Vanderbilt University where he earned his medical degree.  Graduating just in time to spend America's period of involvement in World War I as an army doctor, he returned to Panama at the war's end where he met my grandmother - they are pictured below.  My mother was born in Honduras and under the Honduran Constitution I am entitled to dual citizenship in Honduras.  All of the family saga began, however, with the building of the canal.  

The 15th of August was the centennial of its opening.   A piece in The Economist looks at the history of the Canal and its possible place in geopolitics in the coming years.  Here are article excerpts:

IN 1914, troubled by the onset of the Great War, The Economist published a 176-page special edition on what it called a great “achievement of Peace”: the opening of the Panama Canal. “It may be long before the tolls become remunerative, but its immediate effect on commerce will be stimulative,” it said. “Eventually the Isthmus is likely to become one of the busiest resorts of shipping upon the face of the globe.”

Half right. In fact, the first world war meant there was almost no commercial traffic on the canal for its first six years. But from 1921 onwards, the canal quickly started paying rich dividends—particularly to its owner, the United States.

On the eve of the anniversary of the Panama Canal’s opening on August 15th, the Egyptian government has announced a plan to upgrade the Suez Canal for the first time in its 145-year history. Nicaragua has endorsed a 278km (173-mile) route for a $40-billion canal linking the Atlantic to the Pacific, the quixotic-sounding dream of a little-known Chinese magnate and the country’s Sandinista government. Causing further intrigue, on August 8th a delegation of Chinese businessmen from the state-owned China Harbour Engineering Company visited Panama to explore the idea of building and financing a fourth set of locks—even before the third set, part of the existing expansion plan, are in place.

As 100 years ago, numerous commercial and geopolitical interests are at play.  In 1914 Panama’s beauty was its lack of competition. It was the dawn of an American century. The United States’ west coast was enjoying an oil boom and wanted a cheaper way than the steam train to move goods and fuel between the Pacific and Atlantic. The canal lopped 12,600km from the sea route between New York and San Francisco. It also had strategic value. After the Spanish-American war in 1898 gave it territories and protectorates from Cuba to the Philippines, the United States needed a naval route between Atlantic and Pacific.

The gains were swift. By 1922 real shipping rates on some routes had dropped almost one-third below their pre-war average, according to “The Big Ditch: How America Took, Built, Ran and Ultimately Gave Away the Panama Canal”, by Noel Maurer and Carlos Yu. American taxpayers quickly recouped their investment. After the second world war, however, America’s trade with Asia soared above that between its east and west coasts . . . . Competition to the canal came from America’s interstate highways and new diesel-fuelled railways. That led to the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which handed control of the canal to Panama in 1999.

Panama has done a good job of running it. But competition is emerging on all sides. . . . Nicaragua, once deemed too earthquake-prone for a big canal, is trying to rekindle its 19th-century dream. Many doubt the commitment of Wang Jing, a 41-year-old billionaire, to build a giant waterway through Nicaragua. But the pharaonic project, and the more recent interest of Chinese businessmen in expanding the Panama Canal, reflect the fact that China may want a say in the isthmus’s future.

In a fiercely competitive shipping market, analysts say the key to Panama’s competitiveness in future may be niggling issues like the size of its tolls. But for now it is focusing on the long term. “They’re not doing this for 2017,” says Paul Bingham of CDM Smith, an infrastructure firm. “It’s the 100-year view that’s important.”

 Interestingly enough, one of my nephews just finished a stint in the Peace Corps - in Panama.  Who would have thought that 100 years later, a family member would be once again in love with Panama.

The Circle of Time - Please Donate

A little over a century ago my mother's father worked on the building of the Panama Canal and made enough money to put himself through medical school at Vanderbilt University.  Shortly after graduating and after a stint as a U.S. Army doctor ironically stationed in Hampton, Virginia, he returned to Panama (with an interlude in Honduras where my mother was born) working for United Fruit Company's Medical Department to provide medical services to both company employees and local inhabitant free of charge.  Now, the circle of time has closed and my nephew (pictured above) is working in Panama for the Peace Corps.  As part of his effort for underprivileged my nephew is seeking donations to finance a project that will help needy residents.  I hope readers will consider helping out by making donations to this effort.   Here are details on how to make a donation:

This project’s webpage can be viewed by going to www.peacecorps.gov/donate and searching by project number (14-525-005) or my last name Godburn.  

 Here is a message from the Peace Corps about the grant being sought:

We are excited to tell you about Matthew Godburn’s Peace Corps Partnership Program project.  Since its inception in 1964, the Peace Corps Partnership Program has helped thousands of Peace Corps Volunteers implement community-initiated projects worldwide.  Now Matthew is taking on a new Latrine Initiative project in Panama that needs your support.

This project, developed to address a pressing community need, will be implemented by both Matthew and local partners.  This project will benefit the people of the community for many years to come. 

In order to begin implementation, Matthew must raise $1,300.60 from friends, family and other interested donors.  Matthew and the people of the community are asking for your assistance to turn this project into a reality.

I continue to think of my late mother and her youth in Central America.  If you are able, please donate to my nephew's project.   Below are photos of what is left of the hospital where my mother was born and a scenic vista that she would have known.

Former hospital building in Puerto Castilla where my mother was born.

View across Trujillo Bay that my mother would have known

The Passing of a Generation

Yesterday I received the news that the last of my late mother's sisters has died (my aunt is pictured at left in the family passport photo from 1930 - my mother is the youngest child in the center).  There is no one left now who remembers first hand the remarkable and unusual lives my mother's parents and that she and her sisters experienced.  Like my mother, my aunt was born in Puerta Castilla, Honduras, which at the time was a model town built by United Fruit Company ("UFC") which thrived until a banana blight struck after my mothers family had moved to Puerto Armuelles, Panama.   My grandfather was the head of the hospitals in locations and as such was among the most important men in both places.  Despite United Fruit Company's many faults during the years that it was the de facto ruler of much of Central America, it did one thing right: the medical department treated everyone in the towns regardless of whether they were employed by the company.  As a result, medical care was significantly improved.

Today, Puerto Castilla is a container ship port and little remains of the 1920's town (pictured below at upper right) save and except for the former hospital building.  The structure in the upper left of the photo was the UFC built and operated school where my mother and her sisters began their education - in Spanish. 

Despite my entreaties that they write down their memories of this time that seems so remote, neither my mother or her sisters did so.  Hence my effort in some small way to keep the story alive via this blog and the assistance I gave three years ago to a Costa Rican publication that did a piece on the UFC medical department.   Here are some brief excerpts from my aunts obituary:

Catharine "Ann" Lopushinsky was born June 3, 1925, in Puerto Castilla, Honduras, to Dr. Bruce M. and Mary Azelie Hibben Phelps. Her early childhood years were spent in Honduras with her family. While she lived there, she learned to speak Spanish fluently. Ann attended Marymount Boarding School for Girls in NYC for grades 4-8. She later settled in Lowville, NY, with her family, where she finished her high school years.

During the '70s, '80s and into the '90s, she was an active member of the Red Cross Disaster Action Team. She responded at all hours of the day and night to fire calls in Syracuse, aiding those who lost their homes and needed assistance in housing, clothing and food. She also participated in Red Cross National Disaster Relief efforts. The longest one was in Puerto Rico for three months, during the mudslides. She stayed on there because she could speak Spanish with the residents and helped them to receive the aid that they needed.

Throughout her life, Ann loved gardening. She maintained extensive gardens in Liverpool and Syracuse, including an English garden, and belonged to the Rose Society. Her most favorite flower of all was the Hybrid Tea Rose.

Ann was predeceased by her beloved husband, Michael, and her sisters, Mary Alice Isachsen and Marion Hibben Hamar.

 
May they all rest in peace.  Oh, an in a bit of irony, my late sister's son is currently in the Peace Corps - in Panama.
 

Mary Hibben Phelps Isachsen - A Tribute to a great Lady

The boyfriend and I are back from Washington, D.C., and I wanted to continue my tribute to my late Aunt who died on Friday. She was a great lady and a lot of fun. She played a huge role in my childhood and she will be forever etched in my memory and in my heart. Ironically, her late husband grew up at the same orphanage as the one where my father and his siblings spent their childhoods - his widowed mother was a house mother at one of the dormitories. It was through my father that my uncle and aunt met. In her younger years she was a stunning beauty and served as a Wave in World War II. I will miss her so deeply. Here's a portion of her obituary from the Troy New York newspaper that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of her amazing life :

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Mary Hibben Phelps Isachsen, 88, of Sixteenth Street, died on Friday, May 27, 2011 at St. Mary's Hospital. Born in Panama on May 3, 1923, she was the daughter of the late Bruce and Azelie Phelps and beloved wife of Dr. Nils O. Isachsen who died May 6, 2009. They were married for 60 years.
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Mary was a graduate of Marymount Academy and Syracuse University. She was a veteran of the U.S. Navy, serving as a nurse during World War II. Mary was a Mico Biologist with St. Mary's Hospital in Troy for over 35 years. She loved sailing and gardening.
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Survivors include a son Bruce Isachsen (Jennifer) of Ballston Spa, a daughter Sara Ann Hines (Tom) of Lansingburgh, four grandsons Eric Hines (Kimberly) of North Carolina, Justin Hines of Lansingburgh, Ryan Isachsen (Cassi) and Evan Isachsen of Ballston Spa, a granddaughter Caitlin Isachsen of Ballson Spa, a sister Ann Lopushinsky and several nieces and nephews. Mary is predeceased by a sister Marion Hamar.
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I truly feel that an era is passing. Only my aunt in Syracuse remains from that generation. I know that life gores on, but it is so hard to see wonderful individuals pass on. Again, my condolences to my cousins. They are traveling down a road all too familiar to me and my siblings.

Honduras: An Ugly Story of the Murder of Gay and Transgender Citizens

My late mother was born in Honduras but left as a teenager to move with her parents to the United States who needed to care for ailing relatives. She and no one else in my immediate family ever went back and, based on current news coverage, the country sounds like a place LGBT individuals ought to avoid at all costs. Repeated murder of LGBT people occur with little or no criminal prosecutions or consequence. Indeed, one gets the impression that the government - and general populace which is still in the thrall of the anti-gay Roman Catholic Church - acts as if the murders are not objectionable. Lives of LGBT individuals under this atmosphere are "not worth a penny" as Human Rights Watch describes it. This is a mind set that I suspect is spurred at least in part by the Church's constant depiction of gays as "inherently disordered" and "motivate toward moral evil." Whatever the motivations, as Human Rights Watch has reported the situation is horrifying (a detailed report can be found here). Here are some highlights:
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(Tegucigalpa) - The Honduran government should ensure a prompt and thorough investigation of the recent murders of transgender women and bring those responsible to justice, Human Rights Watch and Red Lésbica Cattrachas, a Honduran lesbian rights organization, said today. Six transgender women have been murdered in Honduras since November 29, 2010, with the latest killing on January 17, 2011.
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The women were murdered on the streets or in their homes in the capital, Tegucigalpa, and in the cities of Comayagüela and San Pedro Sula. The attacks ranged from gunshots to setting the victims on fire.
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"The impunity with which these murders have taken place has shaken the entire lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in Honduras," said Indyra Mendoza, director of Red Lésbica Cattrachas. "We need legislative change and prevention programs to end discrimination in Honduras, because at the moment we are living our lives in hiding."
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In its May 2009 report, "Not Worth a Penny: Human Rights Abuses against Transgender People in Honduras," Human Rights Watch detailed the abuse and harassment of the Honduran transgender community and the government's failure to investigate and prosecute bias-motivated attacks on transgender people.
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Since the release of the report, 34 members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community have been murdered in Honduras. But there has only been one successful prosecution and conviction for an attack on a transgender woman.
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"The government needs to act urgently to fulfill its obligations under international treaties and swiftly arrest and bring to trial those responsible for these murders," said Dipika Nath, researcher in the LGBT program at Human Rights Watch. "It is up to the government to fulfill its commitment to protect the rights of all Hondurans regardless of their gender identity and sexual orientation."