The global economic decline has hit Central America hard. Unemployment has increased, remittances from emigrants have declined and governments face rising deficits and debt that jeopardize their ability to meet increased social demands. The story is similar in much of the world, but the situation is particularly precarious...

Lynchings are wreaking havoc again in rural Guatemala. In a recent 15-day span, nine people have been lynched here by citizens who chose to take justice into their own hands. And in the past year, lynch mobs have attacked over 250 people, resulting in at least...

With the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) nearing completion of its first pass through Honduras' election results, a more subtle (albeit still incomplete) analysis has become possible. What is certain is that the National Party won an unprecedented victory. What remains in question is precisely why. Answering this question requires a...

Porfirio Lobo will be Honduras's next President. Consistent with recent polls, Lobo, the National Party candidate, won a resounding victory over Liberal Party candidate Elvin Santos. The results were unambiguous, and Santos quickly conceded victory while Lobo and the National Party celebrated their victory. This sharply contrasts with the 2005...

As Hondurans go to the polls this Sunday, months of negotiations and years of diplomatic precedent hang in the balance. The Obama administration hopes that the presidential elections will end the political crisis in Honduras. The deep divisions in Honduran society and the firmness with which most Latin American leaders...

Earlier this week, Mary Anastasia O'Grady shamelessly pulled the God card to defend the Honduran coup. Specifically, she handed her Wall Street Journal column over to the coup-supporting Cardinal Rodriguez to curry favor for the June 28 ousting of President Manuel Zelaya from power. Her article ignores the Church's...

Since the June 28th coup removed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya from power, the de facto government of Roberto Micheletti has vigorously defended the upcoming elections as the way out of the political crisis. In recent weeks, the central question has become whether the international community will recognize the upcoming presidential...

The stakes for the United States in the Honduran political crisis are higher than ever. At the end of October, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton celebrated the unprecedented overturning of a coup through dialogue. That assessment has now proved naïve, and the State Department finds itself in the awkward...

Minor miracles can happen, after all. After beating El Salvador, Honduras qualified for the World Cup when the United States scored a goal to tie Costa Rica in the final minute. In seconds, Hondurans' emotions flipped 180 degrees--from exasperation at thinking they had come up just short to jubilation at...

The political crisis has brought out the worst of Honduras. The media has already documented many of the country's ills since June: the reliance on the military to address internal political problems and the sharp polarization with Cold War echoes as well as political violence, repression and censorship. One nasty...

Hondurans had high hopes for two things last week: qualifying for the World Cup and settling the political crisis. Unfortunately for the catrachos (Hondurans), they came up short in both. And the country's two failures mirrored one another.

High hopes dominated Honduras in the run-up to Saturday's World Cup qualifying...

Since Manuel Zelaya's surreptitious return to Honduras last week, the media has focused on the hordes of Zelaya supporters trying to make their way to the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa and the military and police repression that these would-be protesters faced. But there are three faces to Honduran society these...

In times of great turmoil, the steady hand of capable leaders can provide citizens with comfort and the hope for better days. Sadly, in the current Honduran stand-off, Roberto Micheletti and Manuel Zelaya have shown themselves to be political novices without the maturity and intellect to guide this country out...

Tens of thousands of Hondurans took to the streets of their capital, Tegucigalpa, on Tuesday to commemorate Independence Day. One group, dressed in the white and blue of the Honduran flag, followed the Civic-Military March to the National Stadium, where soldiers marched, paratroopers landed dramatically, and the crowd cheered for...

Three months before Honduras' scheduled elections, tensions remain high in Tegucigalpa. Walls and campaign propaganda are covered with pro-Zelaya graffiti; explosives have destroyed several fast food establishments and targeted certain media outlets; and a bomb scare took place near the airport this week.

The military remains positioned at strategic...

Since the Honduran military seized and expelled President Manuel Zelaya, the country's de facto government has been losing the battle for international legitimacy. De facto President Roberto Micheletti and his allies have tried to convince the world that Honduras experienced a "constitutional succession", not a coup. But beyond failing...

Despite the recent military coup against Manuel Zelaya, Hondurans will most likely elect their next president by the end of 2009. This might end the crisis that led to the coup. But elections will not fix all of Honduras' political ills. Honduras must also address the decline in the quality...

The Organization of American States (OAS) finds itself in a conundrum. When it condemned last week's coup in Honduras, the OAS was convinced that it was defending democracy. Today, the OAS is not so sure. In his recent visit to Tegucigalpa, the OAS secretary general José Miguel Insulza found himself...