Honduras Launches New Anti-Corruption Body After Huge Protests

Honduras is set to ramp up its fight against corruption after a wave of scandals rocked the Central American country last year, but Honduran activist Ariel Varela told teleSUR the plan, though a step in the right direction, falls short of what Honduran people want.

“MACCIH (Support Mission Against Corruption and Impunity) is not what the people were asking for,” Varela, a member of the Indignados movement launched last year in Honduras. “It doesn’t seem to have sufficient autonomy and strength in its investigative ability.”

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez and Organization of American States Secretary-General Luis Almagro signed an agreement on Tuesday in Washington, D.C., to launch the MACCIH.

According to Varela, MACCIH can be a tool in the fight against corruption, but it has major limitations and will not be able to solve the deep problems and rampant impunity suffered in the country.

La #MACCIH es un logro de los indignados aunque ellos pedian la CICIH,a raíz de ese movimiento surge esta comisiòn ojalá sea para mejorar

— Glenda Cañas (@dinoraca) January 19, 2016

“MACCIH is an achievement of the Indignados, even though they demanded CICIH, from the roots of this movement came this commission, I hope it will be improved.”

Varela argues that a “change of attitude in Honduran society” and cultural shift of not tolerating corruption will be key in pressuring for deeper solutions to the crisis of corruption and impunity.

He added that although MACCIH falls short of what activists had demanded, the new initiative shows that social movements succeeded in pressuring the government to recognize the problem of corruption.

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“After the government accepted that it did not have the ability to solve the enormous social crisis caused by corruption, we forced the government to involve the international community,” Varela said of the anti-corruption mission.

The Honduran government and OAS, on the other hand, expressed optimism about the new mission. Almagro said the initiative will “open a chapter of hope in Honduras,” while President Hernandez heralded the plan as a “key moment in the history of the country, Central America, and the continent,” the Honduran daily La Prensa reported.

La instalación de la #MACCIH genera esperanza en todos los hondureños. @JuanOrlandoH @MACCIHOficial @OEA_oficial pic.twitter.com/iv0Z20BRps

— Visita Sorpresa JOH (@Visita_Sorpresa) January 19, 2016

“The launch of MACCIH creates hope in all Hondurans.”

The new anti-corruption body has been in the works since last September, after massive protests over a high-profile embezzlement scandal implicating the ruling National Party brought the issue of corruption to the fore.

Protesters who took to the streets in weekly torch-lit marches against corruption and the Hernandez government from last May, known as the “Indignados,” have long demanded an independent United Nations body to tackle corruption.

But calls for the proposed International Commission Against Impunity in Honduras, known as CICIH, have long been ignored by the Honduran government.

Proponents of CICIH, a body modeled after the Guatemalan equivalent CICIG, which has been key in rooting out and prosecuting corruption, say the government’s proposals lack the independence to take meaningful action against impunity.

La #MACCIH es el lugar común de #JOH y el otro sector de la oligarquía; respaldar esa comisión es respaldar al Bipartidismo. #Honduras

— Gilberto Ríos grillo (@Grillo779) January 19, 2016

“MACCIH is commonplace of Juan Orlando Hernandez and the other sector of the oligarchy; supporting this commission is supporting bipartisanism.”

The Indignados movement has criticized the OAS-backed MACCIH.

​When teleSUR spoke to Varela last August, he said he saw corruption as one of the underlying causes of poverty in Honduras and that the establishment of CICIH would be key to the fight against corruption. Varela argued the fundamental aim of CICIH would be to serve justice to the perpetrators of fraud and enable development by cracking down on corrupt officials.

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But others have said that even CICIH would fall short of getting to the roots of structural inequality in Honduras. Karen Spring, Honduras-based coordinator for the Honduras Solidarity Network, told teleSUR last August that corruption is linked to the post-coup consolidation of political and economic power in Honduras and that the Indignados movement lacked “a structural analysis that examines corruption and impunity in the context of neoliberalism, the power of the Honduran elite, and the role of the U.S. and allies in Honduras.”

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Many expect MACCIH will be much more limited than the proposed CICIH.

According to Insight Crime, the lack of access to “strong data and information from which to draw reliable conclusions” will be a key limitation to Maccih’s fight against corruption.

MACCIH has been approved for four years with an annual budget of US$8 million. Next steps will include setting up the headquarters in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa and appointing prosecutors to staff the mission.

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Part of the funding will come from the controversial US$750 million Alliance for Prosperity for Central America, slammed by critics as a plan that will exacerbate poverty and inequality in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador while boosting U.S. corporate interests in the region.

For Varela, the launch of MACCIH brings a skeptical hope that the crisis can be improved.

“We have hope that we can right a wrong in the history of our political class and our society as a whole and we can deliver a better nation for our children,” he said.

WACTH: Central America Rising