Comment by TrackerFF | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TrackerFF | Hacker News Reader

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Used to date a girl from Honduras (Tegucigalpa), and heard some real horror stories about the day-to-day crime. One day a gang knocked on her parents door (they owned an apartment) and pretty much gave them a 2-day notice to get out.

They packed their stuff, and left. Their senior neighbor did not - she ended up getting killed. Apparently gangs like that just seize apartments, and use them for criminal activities (prostitution, drugs, kidnappings, torture/executions, etc.).

Her parents eventually managed to get to the US, but her uncle died on the way - victim of some kidnapping scheme, where gangs/cartels snatch up immigrants on the way, and blackmail their families in the target countries.

Suffice to say, we never visited Honduras - but it's pretty surreal to know that this is the everyday stuff a lot of people go through, in Central America. One day everything is normal, the next day you're a refugee, just like that - and there's no justice in sight, because that would mean getting yourself or your family killed.

It's worth mentioning that the violence in Honduras is, in no small part, part of the US State Department's bipartisan foreign policy from which we benefit. Fast fashion, which Americans consume, is enabled by the precarious situations we've foist upon the Hondurans by destabilizing their government, and installing leadership sympathetic to our colonial interests. Your ex-girlfriend's uncle died for my t-shirt.

> Ten years ago, on June 28, 2009, a general trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas arrived with troops at the home of the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, and forced him at gunpoint onto a plane bound for Costa Rica. An interim president was appointed by his political opponents who was quickly legitimized by United States. — [The Hill](0)

> There was a 1950s-style coup in Honduras in 2009 backed by the government of the United States, and things appear to have been unremittingly messed up ever since. Let me emphasize this one more time. If Honduras is in shambles, it is not because Hondurans are any less resourceful or fundamentally decent than anyone else, or even because its rulers are any more wretched and callous than our own. It is because the structure of the North American economy has made any other outcome impossible. — [No Wall They Can Build](1)

- 0. https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/45046...

- 1. https://crimethinc.com/books/no-wall-they-can-build

Something I find interesting is how we get bombarded all the time about the bad conditions in Venezuela, but we heard very little about, for instance, Honduras and El Salvador.

"[Venezuela] has the world's largest known oil reserves and has been one of the world's leading exporters of oil. " [1]

Honduras is just not internationally interesting, either militarily or economically (outside of some refugee situation).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuela

Various US Army academies and schools are broadly open to members of the military in the United States’ allies. It’s like saying the general when to an American university—that doesn’t imply any American endorsement of his actions.

I'm not willing to accept this argument, School of the Americas (now Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) is not a public-access educational institution. It is purely for the spread of imperialist propaganda around Central and South America.

The US obviously has a self interest in providing training to military members in the Western Hemisphere. That’s why we allow foreign students to come study at any American university. But it’s a conspiracy theory to say that it’s all just a plot to destabilize governments in Central and South America.

It's no conspiracy, it's simply self-interested foreign policy. That "self interest" is very overtly expressed by the Kennedy, Johnson, and Reagan Doctrines exemplified by the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion, the 1965 invasion of the Dominican Republic, and the United States providing military support to the contras in Nicaragua.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_doc...

Blaming the US for the endless violence in Honduras is typical internet nonsense.

Yet the "nonsense" is the one with the cogent argument and citations? Interesting.

He wrote "in no small part", which is accurate.

At least in El Salvador, things are getting better.

The Salvadoran president, Najib Bukele, a 39 year old businessman is effectively controlling gang activity. He is a pretty cool guy, and serves his country without collecting his salary.

Gangs in Central America extort people with jobs, so that in the end it's too inconvenient to have a job, and more convenient to be a gangster. If you have a honest job, some random armed guy shows up to collect most of your money.

It's a self-reinforcing phonomenon that kills the economy and turns everyone into gangsters.

> The Salvadoran president, Najib Bukele, a 39 year old businessman is effectively controlling gang activity.

Some say that this is due to... shady deals with gang leaders: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-54033444

Bukele is also under fire for attacking freedom of the press: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-06/el-salvad...

Are the accusations credible?

Some areas of Brazil suffer from a lot of that too.

Day-to-day violent crime was the #1 reason that I wanted to leave the country.

Left the US(A) in early 2019 for this exact reason (SFBay) after 18 years. Now back in my native Iceland comfortably retiring. And kids no longer need to practice for active shooter situations at school. And I don't worry that a trigger happy cop gets too excited at traffic stop either.

Are there any countries that enjoy a low crime rate that do NOT have a largely homogeneous populations like Iceland and Japan? Not a rhetorical question, I'm genuinely curious.

EDIT Are there any low crime countries with a diverse population that don't employ big brother style surveillance like Singapore?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Honduras at the very least you need more than that, Honduras itself is 87% mestizo

Reading your article

> Because of social stigmas attached, many people denied having African ancestry, and after African descended Caribbean workers arrived in Honduras, an active campaign to denigrate all people of African descent, made persons of mixed race anxious to deny any African ancestry. Hence official statistics quite uniformly under-represent those people who have ancestry in favor of a "two race" solution.

Contrasting your example, Japan and Iceland are near 100% homogeneous.

Canada?

Canada, like the US, is pretty diverse compared to places like Japan and Iceland. Am I missing something?

I think he meant that Canada is a diverse country with low crime. In contrast to how Japan and Iceland have no crime while having homogenous populations.

Thanks for the clarification. According to the data, it's comparable to the US which makes sense since the diversity and even culture are similar.

> comparable to the US

In diversity? Or crime rate?

Both

Me too, which is "funny" when it comes up in conversations, because people assume you left to earn more money, and then you tell them that you actually earned more in Brazil than you do now, but you have the constant fear of random violence.

I also came to the US deciding to leave my country and relatives behind for the exact same reason. Once you have kids your perspective changes and security of your family is much more important than money or work. The crimes you see in my current neighborhood today look like kid's pranks when compared to the real dangers I had to face on a daily basis back in my country.

As someone who is from the US but lives in a poor country, it's hard to imagine what it would be like to take the already dire situations of place like this and then add in 2-3x the drug trafficking violence compared to the US.

Legalizing most recreational drugs around the world is absolutely imperative! If it is not done sooner than later then the largest drug trafficking organizations will be so entrenched that it may become impossible.

Many lives would be saved if these drugs could be purchased in consistent doses with standardized labeling and packaging.

Legalizing recreational drugs may help, but it won't solve the problem; hard drugs are still a thing, the cocaine trade is booming (read an article that the amount of cocaine intercepted in the Rotterdam port has gone up 10x in the past three years, and that's just the stuff they catch; wouldn't be surprised if that represents only 10% of what comes in. The article mentioned that the interception doesn't seem to have any effect on the 'street price').

If for example the US manages to somehow curb the drug crisis, they'll find other buyers easily. Or switch to other products in demand, like insulin.

One rarely discussed effect of drug legalization is that pharmaceutical companies would start developing recreational drugs. I expect they would create milder versions of current drugs specifically for the recreational market. That market would almost certainly be huge. Because of this, Big Pharma ought to be one of the biggest proponents of drug legalization. Whether the net effect on society would be positive or negative I do not know.

Wait, insulin is in demand in a way comparable to illicit drugs? Can't it easily be accessed through prescription?

In US, big pharma realized that they can increase their profits a lot by increasing the price of insulin as the patients don;t have much option here. So, insulin is ridiculously expensive, and those on insurance can't afford spare doses in case they break one.

So, with demand, comes supply. Since pharmaceutical companies were the ones who raised prices and used patents laws to curb any legal competition, only illegal competition remains.

a diabetic training partner of mine told me that black market for the insulin is ridiculously developed

I was referring to hard drugs! Legalize cocaine, duh!

If the drugs become legal who do you think will be making and distributing them in the US? The same cartels and criminal organizations who traffic drugs today.

The end users will have a different experience but selling and trafficking drugs will remain illegal.

I've heard similar from a Honduran girl who moved to my country. She says she's never going back.

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