No menu items!

COSTA RICA'S LEADING ENGLISH LANGUAGE NEWSPAPER

HomeTopicsArts and CultureHonduras torches effigies of president, 2015's problems

Honduras torches effigies of president, 2015’s problems

GERMANIA, Honduras — Hondurans ushered in 2016 on Friday by burning symbols of last year’s problems — an effigy of President Juan Orlando Hernández among them.

Wooden representations of a former president, Rafael Callejas, who was also an ex-football chief caught up in the FIFA corruption scandal, and symbols of government graft and violence also went up in flames overnight.

The New Year tradition, held across cities and towns in the Central American nation, is meant to burn away the “bad things” of the passing year to make way for the new, positive ones.

The effigy of Hernandez sitting in a mock-up locomotive was torched in the town of Germania, just south of the capital Tegucigalpa.

One of the man who made it, a 64-year-old owner of a tire-repair business named Francisco Cruz, explained: “The locomotive is Honduras, and the president is the driver driving the country to ruin.”

Another resident, Francisco Luis Lagos, 38, added that the effigy was a form of protest meant to show that “the people are unhappy, we can no longer handle so much violence, so many deaths.”

Country of violence

Honduras is ranked as one of the deadliest peacetime countries in the world. Along with neighboring El Salvador and Guatemala it is prey to vicious gangs given to widespread murder and extortion.

That violence, along with rife corruption, unemployment and poverty, have pushed many in the three countries, often called the Northern Triangle, to try to emigrate to the United States.

“This country is a disaster because of the corruption, because — even though they try to cover up the statistics on violence — there are massacres everywhere,” Lagos said.

Some of the incendiary anger was also directed at Callejas, who in December flew to the United States to face charges that he was part of a cabal of FIFA officials who took bribes in exchange for handing out lucrative broadcast rights of football games.

The former president — who was also accused but not convicted of graft in his country dating back to his years in power between 1990 and 1994 — pleaded not guilty.

He has been released after posting a $4 million bail, pending trial in the United States.

Otoniel Martínez, a 40-year-old upholsterer in Germania, built an effigy of Callejas boarding a plane.

He told AFP that each year he builds figures representing the past year’s major news event in the country.

His latest work “symbolizes the corruption in FIFA and that in the United States they are going to put him in  prison… because here he got 11 get-out-of-jail free cards.”

Martínez disagreed about mocking up President Hernández to be consumed by flames, however.

“The president is doing good things, the number of murders has gone down,” he said.

A dummy of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández
STR/AFP

‘Nightmare’ in Honduras

In the next village, a cardboard mock-up of a ballot box marked with the words “Corruption,” “Poverty,” “Impunity” and “Violence” goes up in a blaze.

One resident, Vilma Matute, explained that the annual tradition was a way to “vent over the past and to hope for new things for the coming year.”

Not all is political, however.

In the nearby town of Ojojona, where work is focused more on creativity and structural design, the effigies included a two-meter high werewolf and a giant model of Freddy Krueger, the razor-fingered villain of the “Nightmare on Elm Street” horror films.

But even there, residents cast their work against the real-life conditions they live in.

“Krueger is a nightmare character, and what we’re living through is a nightmare with so much violence,” said its 24-year-old builder, Walter Hernández.

Trending Now

Costa Rica’s Poás Volcano Park Reopening to Tourists With Safety Measures

The Poás Volcano National Park will reopen its doors to tourism starting July 30, after  scientific entities reported a decrease in volcanic activity. This was...

El Salvador at Center of Controversial U.S.-Venezuela Detainee Exchange

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele received the 10 Americans exchanged on Friday between Washington and Caracas for 252 Venezuelans who had spent four months in...

Costa Rica Faces Economic Blow as Intel, Pfizer, and Qorvo Announce Restructuring

Intel announced that it will shut down its chip assembly and test plant in Costa Rica, part of a broader global restructuring aimed at...

Why I Choose Real Life in Costa Rica Over the AI Hype

When it comes to AI, call me OG. Old school. I sometimes wish I could go back to a time before it existed. Artificial...

Costa Rica Court Sanctions Road Official Over Delayed Wildlife Crossings

Costa Rica’s wildlife faces perils, as authorities have continously failed to build wildlife crossings. Nonetheless, the Constitutional Court has taken a firm stance in...

Costa Rica Celebrates 201st Annexation Anniversary With New Nicoya Park

Nearly 200 people joined the Municipality of Nicoya this Sunday to inaugurate a new park at the Annexation Monument, an initiative that blends recreation,...
spot_img
Costa Rica Coffee Maker Chorreador
Costa Rica Coffee Maker Chorreador
Costa Rica Travel Insurance
Costa Rica Rocking Chait
Costa Rica Travel

Latest News from Costa Rica