Sunday, March 25, 2012

Conflicting stories on Canada and Honduran police problems

Canada made the news in Honduras again this week, in a confusing kind of way, after a visit by junior foreign affairs minister Diane Ablonczy.
The Honduras Weekly, an English-language online newspaper, had a headline that said “Canada Will Help Honduras Reform Security System.”
That would be a big commitment. Honduras Weekly said Ablonczy had agreed to name a Canadian expert to to a five-person Commission for Public Security Reform. The commission’s focus would be on cleaning up corruption in the police and justice system, and is expected to result in a major re-org and purge in the police forces. Its work will be controversial and difficult.
And potentially important. Corruption, gangs and the drug transport business have made life woefully insecure for Hondurans, which has the highest murder rate in the world, and are a major barrier to economic and social progress of any kind.
But La Prensa said Ablonczy, while offering generalities about helping improve security in the region, had refused to confirm Canada would name an expert to the commission.
And the Foreign Affairs Department new release on the visit offered no help, only one of those made-up quotes so beloved of the people who work for government communications shops. “Canada reiterates its support for the Honduran reconciliation efforts and reaffirms its commitment to assist the Government of Honduras in meeting serious security challenges,” Ablonczy allegedly said.
The confusion is unfortunate. The Honduran government has named three members - a former university head, a sociologist and a former interior minister. The government hopes Canada and Chile will add members to take an independent view. And delays would undermine the commission’s credibility, already viewed skeptically by Hondurans.
It was also interesting that the visit, and the issues, got no coverage in Canada, as far as I can tell.
That’s not a criticism. When I edited newspapers, I wasn’t likely to use scarce space for a report on Honduran security. Online news means space isn’t an issue, but reporting time still is. But it does indicate how little the world matters to Canadians, unless there is an earthquake or war or big sports event.
Footnote: Ablonczyy confirmed Canada will provide $130,000 this year to assist women victims of violence, the second highest cause of death for women between 14 and 40 here after AIDS. Canada will also provide $200,000 to help implement the recommendations of the Honduran Truth and Reconciliation Commission report into the 2009 coup that removed then-president Manuel Zelaya from power.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, pardon me while I die laughing. I think Canada's police, need to clean up their own backyards first.

The RCMP are so bad, Canadians don't even want them, as an icon for Canada.

Then, we have fifteen polices officers of the VPD, caught watching porn, on the computers at work.

opit said...

Then there is another matter poorly covered in Canadian media. What is the local perception of Canadian intercession ?

Canada Supports the Military Coup in Honduras

For the first time in decades, the world's eyes are on Honduras, a tiny country many Canadians know for those little stickers on exported bananas and the surplus of ...
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14369

We have not covered ourselves with glory.

Now go surf info on the presence of the U.S.base there against the very constitution of the country.

Anonymous said...

Money to help Honduran women victims of violence?!? God help us, because our own government won't.

How about money and help for Canadian victims of violence in nursing homes across the country, something that no politicians or media seem to want to address, other than as occasional 'bleeds first/leads first' stories? When oh when will someone start to take these ever-increasing horror stories seriously?

Ablonczy is using our money to give the Harper government a cheap cloak of respectability, when her leader presides over a country that permits abuse and worse of elderly people at the hands of staff in nursing homes. I don't mean neglect, I mean willful, almost sadistic, abuse by every means possible.

Thanks for this report Paul, I like it when you connect what's happening here with what's happening there.