[HNA] FW: NORTH AMERICAN TOURISM INDUSTRY IN HONDURAS, & CONFLICTS WITH GARIFUNA & CAMPESINO COMMUNITIES

Fri Nov 5 10:52:44 PDT 2010

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Rights ActionNorth American Tourism Industry & Conflicts With Garifuna Communities in Honduras 
November 5, 2010
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Rights Action
Honduras Coup Regime Watch
November 5, 2010

NORTH AMERICAN TOURISM INDUSTRY IN HONDURAS & 
CONFLICTS WITH GARIFUNA & CAMPESINO COMMUNITIES

"Canada's "Porn King" has found an unlikely second career building retirement homes in Honduras. While Canadian snowbirds snap up paradise at $85 per square foot, the locals say the developments are illegal-and they intend to get their land back."

BELOW:
* Article by Dawn Paley: "Snowbirds gone wild! Canadian retirees and locals clash in Honduras"
* Re-sending Honduras Coup Alert#89 (November 10, 2009): "Pro-coup regime Northamericans in Honduras"
* How to support pro-democracy movement

Please re-distribute and re-post this information, properly citing sourcesTo get on/ off Rights Action's listserv: http://visitor.constantcontact.com/d.jsp?m=1103480765269

MORE INFORMATION: Annie Bird (annie at rightsaction.org) & Grahame Russell (info at rightsaction.org, Rights Action co-directors

= = = = = = = 

SNOWBIRDS GONE WILD! CANADIAN RETIREES AND LOCALS CLASH IN HONDURAS
November 4, 2010, By Dawn Paley, dawnpaley at gmail.com
http://2th.is/RetireWild

Canada's "Porn King" has found an unlikely second career building retirement homes in Honduras. While Canadian snowbirds snap up paradise at $85 per square foot, the locals say the developments are illegal-and they intend to get their land back.

I'm sitting with the cab driver who has brought me to the end of a long gravel road, near the edge of Trujillo, a small town on the north coast of Honduras. He's flipping through a newspaper, telling me in halting English that he's saving up to buy an excavator. Anyone with an excavator has work, he says. I hear the sound of four-wheeled all-terrain-vehicles in the distance, humming as they near. In a cloud of dust, Cathy Bernier appears at the top of the hill, followed on another ATV by her two daughters. All of them are here for a vacation from a freezing Alberta December. Bernier, who works as a client-relations manager with the development, has agreed to take me on a tour of Campa Vista, a housing project for retired Canadians perched above the Caribbean Sea.

With a wave from a security guard tuning his radio in a tiny booth, we pass under the front gate, a cement arch built over a dusty gravel road. From the back of Bernier's speeding ATV, her blonde hair blowing in my face, I can see that the route we're on is cut through what was quite recently a thick jungle. Along one side, a high wall of earth shades the road, and on the other, a steep ditch drops away toward the ocean. Peeling around a corner, the road forks. We hang right, and Bernier slows to a stop in front of an imposing house with a pool set in the front patio. 

Within a few months, this house will be occupied by a 70-year-old rugby player from Edmonton - one of this gated village's first residents. Below us, dense jungle sprawls down the mountain toward the water, interrupted only by the newly built roads, faint outlines of staked-out lots, and high power lines.

Once completed, as promised in the promotional materials, Campa Vista ("Country View" in English) will afford a sunny, secure perch for Canadian snowbirds. The development's website boasts of a "Euro-Mediterranean-style private gated community, with each property possessing its own unique and outstanding view."

North American baby boomers have proven to have a boundless appetite for vacation or retirement homes in sunny, cheap places that aren't too racked by crime or war. It's been a global windfall for many other countries, and now the people who run Honduras want a cut.

Canadian entrepreneur Randy Jorgensen, developer of the Campa Vista complex, is happy to oblige. Jorgensen sells this tropical dream over the internet and in hotel conference-room seminars held in grey-skied Canadian locales: Regina; Etobicoke, Ontario; Duncan, B.C. His basic pitch: Honduras is the latest, best bargain available to Canadians wanting to own their own piece of a developing country.

But-as you might have guessed-this sunny picture doesn't tell the whole story. Just off the beach in Trujillo, six men sit around a peeling wooden picnic table. They've agreed to meet me here to discuss their concerns about the Canadians they say are squatting on their ancestral lands.

"Canadians have a strong sense of private property," said Evaristo Perez Ambular, a native of Trujillo and member of Honduras's major organization representing the Garífuna indigenous population. "We don't have any access to that land anymore, including to some of our traditional pathways."

Ambular speaks fluent Spanish, but switches back to the Garífuna language at times to discuss with the other men. The Garífuna language and its people are unique in a way that is recognized worldwide: the language, dance, and music of the Garífuna peoples were added to the United Nations' list of rare cultural traditions in need of safeguarding.

Popular lore has it that Garífuna peoples descend from a slave ship that washed up on St. Vincent Island, whose passengers escaped slavery and instead intermarried with local indigenous people. The Garífuna were once called "Black Caribs" by the British, who forced them off St. Vincent and onto Roatán Island and the Central American mainland in 1797.

A fishing people, the Garífuna developed a rich collective lifestyle dependent on the ocean, the forests and the beaches. Expert seafarers, many Garífuna became deckhands for cargo ships travelling up and down the coast of Latin America. Today, there is a significant Garífuna diaspora in the United States.

The latest threat to Garífuna people, says Ambular, is the wave of Canadian settlers who are cutting them off from their land base.

In the first decade of the 20th century, the Garífuna who live in Trujillo were given collective titles for a fraction of their territories. But community members allege that in 2007 a former leader misrepresented himself as the owner of the land and wrongfully sold off parcels of real estate-land that eventually ended up in Randy Jorgensen's hands.

"There are many Canadians in our communities on the coast, and we haven't seen a positive presence from them," says Ambular. "They use our bridges and our roads, and they don't leave us a thing."

José Velasquez, the current president of the two Garífuna communities in Trujillo, hands me a photocopy titled "Pronunciamiento No. 3." It outlines the Garífuna peoples' desire to reclaim their ancestral territories, and demands that the Honduran government nullify all land sales to Jorgensen.

Randy Jorgensen has lived in Honduras for 20 years, on and off. It's been a getaway of sorts from his bustling life in Canada, where he conceived and oversaw the creation of Adults Only Video, the country's first national chain of pornography stores.

Originally a muffler salesman in small-town Saskatchewan, Jorgensen was nicknamed Canada's "porn king" in a 1993 Maclean's profile. His specialty, as the article put it, was to "bring dirty movies into the clean streets of middle-class Canada," and by the early '90s, Adults Only Video was bringing in $25 million a year. Faced with lawsuits and police raids because of the content of his videos, Jorgensen maintained that everything he did was within the boundaries of the law.

Later, when I called Jorgensen to get his response to the claims of the Garífuna on the land where he's building Campa Vista, he laughed, chalking the claims up to a form of "extortion."

"For Canadians, the easiest way to compare it is to compare it to our own native Indians in Canada," he says. "Depending on what's going on, they may or may not decide that they have a land claim going on." He says all of the paperwork for the land that he's purchased is legitimate, and there's no conflict. "As soon as there is any development going on generally, the Garífuna start checking around and seeing if there isn't some way that they can extort some funds or something out of whoever is doing that development," said Jorgensen.

Today, Jorgensen lives full-time in his home near the Campa Vista development in Honduras. He runs AOV Online, the internet broadcasting version of what his porno chain once was. But his first career is downplayed in his most recent venture into real estate, where he instead positions himself as a lifestyle expert. However, it's clear that he's learned something from his years in the porn business: sex sells.

The marketing videos for a partner project sold in Costa Rica include close-ups of various young, attractive women in tight, white T-shirts. After I watched these videos with a crowd of prospective buyers, the first comment from a man sitting nearby was "I wonder if she's single." Should he choose to move down to Honduras, he wouldn't be the first to discover that sex tourism abounds.

In the tropical coastal town of La Ceiba, a few hundred kilometres from Trujillo, I meet Rick Mowers. I find him, a retired Ontario Provincial Police officer from Hamilton, sitting at the computer beside the bar at Expatriates, a restaurant that he now co-owns.

"I just quit, moved here, went to instant retirement, did nothing for one year," he says. The boredom eventually got to him, though. "It costs money to do nothing all day long. We find that too many of us drink too much alcohol or beer if you have nothing to do all day long." Buying the restaurant has given the young-looking 53-year-old something to do with his time. He tells me he moved to Honduras with his wife, but they split after he had an affair. A warm breeze moved through the restaurant, stirring up the air under the high, thatched roof.

"It's too cold, it's too expensive, and I'm not going to live there for the free health care," says Mowers of Canada. He rattles off how much cheaper things are in Honduras, from rent and food to crack cocaine and sex.

"Here sex is, in the whole country, sex is $10. So if you go downtown, and you stop and the girl gets in your car, it's $10, 200 lempiras, for you to go have intercourse," he says. Mowers didn't mention the AIDS epidemic in the north-coast region, where over 60,000 people have HIV/AIDS, the highest infection rate in Central America.

Later, I Google Mowers. It turns out he was a bad cop. He had at least six disciplinary sanctions on his record when he left the Ontario Provincial Police, including neglect of duty when responding to a domestic violence complaint. On his partial police pension, he now lives like minor royalty in Honduras, a country where more than half the population lives below the official poverty line, and at least two million people live on less than $2 a day.

Sitting in the central park of San Pedro Sula one hot afternoon, I get a text message from a friend who says that the Honduras National Tourism Federation is having its annual meeting in the city tonight. After stopping at my hotel to change from shorts and a T-shirt into my most stiflingly hot, but fanciest, dress, I catch a cab over to the Crowne Plaza Hotel. 

The downstairs lobby, in from the heat, noise, and chaos of the outside, might as well be in Winnipeg, Los Angeles, or Shanghai. Air conditioning blasts the air, and well-dressed Hondurans sip fancy drinks and drag on cigarettes. San Pedro Sula has long been home to the country's richest families, and today is the hub of Honduras's sweatshop industry. 

I finagle my way into the upstairs ballroom and mingle with the upper crust of the tourism business in Honduras. They're happy to talk about Canadian tourists. "Canadians are super-important to us," says John Dupuis, the top representative for tourism in La Ceiba. In some hotels in the region, 70 to 80 percent of the guests are Canadian.

"Tourism from Canada, especially in winter, represents the largest source of income in the tourism sector in the Bay Islands and the north coast of the country," said Piero Dibattista, who owns and manages several hotels in Roatán.

Canada has always been an excellent ally of the tourism industry, says Juan Antonio Bendeck, the chair of the Honduran Chamber of Tourism. Honduras' tourism industry is small by comparison with its neighbours: the country welcomed 247,082 visitors in 2001, compared to nearby Costa Rica's 823,575.

But following the June 2009 coup d'état in Honduras, the already struggling tourism sector took a substantial hit. "I'd like to tell everyone to come to Honduras and that it's a tranquil place and everything is beautiful, but you think I'd be successful with that message?" asked deposed tourism minister Ricardo Martínez, after showing footage of riots and repression in Tegucigalpa during a presentation to the Central American Travel Market.

"Well, Central America is Central America," says Jorgensen, when asked about the safety of travelling and living in Honduras. He says Trujillo is a small town, and the "really bad guys" tend to stay away from the area.

Jorgensen's Campa Vista development in Trujillo is being marketed by Tropical Freedom Properties Ltd., who promise just that for only $85 per square foot. Tropical Freedom is a subsidiary of Fast Track to Cash Flow, a St. Albert, Alberta-based company. The local Better Business Bureau gives the company a D on a scale of A+ to F, expressing "concerns with the industry in which this business operates."

On this sunny morning in June, I'm attending a meet-up hosted by Tropical Freedom Ltd. in the basement of a Travelodge hotel on the freeway beside the sleepy retirement town of Duncan, B.C. Cindy Storme, a petite blond woman in a gold-accented brown pantsuit, wowed the three dozen or so mostly retirement-age people attending the event with stories about waking up to the sound of howler monkeys, banana boating, barbecues, and life beside the water. 

As her audience chewed on white-bread sandwiches cut into little triangles, Storme talked about Costa Rica, a much more stable country, which she says is "exactly like the movie Avatar." 

At the tail end of Storme's talk, she spends about 10 minutes talking about Honduras, a country that she says "every Canadian" can afford to buy property in. Not only will investing in Honduras give Canadians a place to get away, says Storme, but there's no credit check involved. Jorgensen is even offering a travel allowance for anyone to go visit the properties, and there are income-tax breaks to boot. 

At least a few people in the room signed up for a $500 gold membership with Tropical Freedom, which gives them the right to buy property with Jorgensen's Honduran project. Jorgensen is making sales. But the global market in pleasant tropical experiences is a highly competitive business, and members of the North American middle class have certain expectations when they purchase their own little slice of a Third World paradise.

My mind went to a conversation I'd had with two tourists from Gatineau, Quebec on a beach near La Ceiba. They told me that they found their hotel boring. They were too scared to go into town. 

The two of them were the closest thing I can imagine to professional beach-goers: deeply tanned, lathered up in oil, laid out on folding lounge chairs with most of their middle-aged skin exposed to the scorching sun. For the money, they said, Cuba is a better deal.

Honduras isn't for the faint of heart, or stomach, as anyone who strays from their supervised beach resort or walled-in retirement complex to a larger city will soon learn. There were 4,473 murders in Honduras in 2008, giving the country the chilling designation of having one of the highest murder rates per capita in the world.

Canadians who ignore the country's security situation do so at their peril. But Canadians who choose to ignore the long-standing conflicts over rural land do so at the expense of all who have lived there before, and put themselves at risk as well. Consider the advice of the U.S. State Department: "U.S. citizens should exercise extreme caution before entering into any form of commitment to invest in real estate, particularly in coastal areas and the Bay Islands." 

Instead of buying into a smooth sales pitch, Canadians would do well to ask themselves why they expect to land in one of the hemisphere's poorest countries, which is also one of the most dangerous countries in the world, and be treated like gods.

- By Dawn Paley [dawnpaley at gmail.com]

= = = = = = = 

(Re-sending, from 2009)

Day 136 of HONDURAS COUP RESISTANCE
PRO-COUP REGIME NORTHAMERICANS IN HONDURAS
(November 10, 2009, Honduras Coup Alert#89)

"Please help us on Roatan ... We have all cut back our help and tightened our belts, which further hurts the islanders." (This plea is not from Hondurans, but from pro-military coup North Americans living on Roatan, an island in the Caribbean, just off the north coast of Honduras)

Since June 28th, Rights Action has been involved in a range of work (direct funding, human rights accompaniment, reporting) in response to the oligarchic-military regime in Honduras, and the repression it is using against the people's pro-democracy, anti-coup movement, headed by the National Front Against the Coup.

In over eighty-five Honduras Coup Alerts published since June 28th (www.rightsaction.org), as well as in information from other human rights and solidarity organizations (Quixote Center, School of the Americas Watch, Narco News, Chiapas Indymedia Center, etc), we have reported on repression and human rights violations, including killings, illegal detentions and torture and rape, military curfews, crack-down on freedom of expression, etc.

We have focused most of our efforts on supporting the pro-democracy, anti-coup movement (providing funding, human rights accompaniment and reporting) and on educating North Americans about the coup, so that we may pressure our governments to do everything possible to help return the government of President Zelaya to power.

We continue with this work.

During these months, Rights Action has learned that some Canadians and Americans living in Honduras are actively writing letters and pressuring the Canadian and US governments, in support of the military coup and the illegal regime of Roberto Micheletti & General Romeo Vasquez.

Some of these North Americans operate 'property development' projects and businesses in the tourist industry along the northern coast, on the Bay Islands and Roatan island.

BELOW - are various letters written by North Americans.  Their words speak for themselves.  Variously, they are denouncing the "inaccurate media accounts," and "all the untruths re: a military coup, riots & unrest" being reported on by various organizations and news sources, including Rights Action.

Their letters and emails to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the U.S. State Department and tourist websites and forums, are followed by pleas for stronger action in support of the Micheletti-General Vasquez regime, in order to prevent the continued decline of tourists and investors in their businesses and property projects that have lead to decreases in their incomes.

GARIFUNA-INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES UNDER SIEGE FROM GLOBAL TOURISM
Since Hurricane Mitch in 1998, Rights Action has supported the Garifuna-indigenous organization OFRANEH (Fraternal Organization of Black and Garifuna People of Honduras), helping them denounce the often times illegal and forced purchasing of land along the northern coast of Honduras, for large tourist resorts, hotels, and 'property development' projects.

When tourist projects are initiated, local communities are often forcibly and illegally driven from their lands, never receiving the so-called benefits that foreign owned tourism is supposed to bring to the local communities.

WHAT TO DO: see at bottom.

* * *

LETTER TO RIGHTS ACTION (FROM ANGRY CANADIAN ON ROATAN ISLAND)

"The fact that a military coup, in fact, does not exist here in Honduras is what any responsible person knowledgeable of the long term history, short term events leading up to June 28th and what has transpired since, should be reporting."

[Dave Barons, a Canadian business owner in the tourist industry on Roatan Island sent this email to Rights Action after listening to Grahame Russell (Rights Action) on the CBC's "The Current" radio program.  Listen to interview: http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2009/200907/20090729.html.]

"After hearing Grahame Russell's ridiculous interview on CBC, I have to question the mandate of this organization (Rights Action).  You were either telling a lie that you participated with "hundreds of thousands" of supporters of returning Zelaya to power or you simply weren't here in Honduras as you stated on CBC radio.

"Either way, I am disgraced as a Canadian that CBC chose to air your crap.  The fact that a military coup, in fact, does not exist here in Honduras is what any responsible person knowledgeable of the long term history, short term events leading up to June 28th and what has transpired since, should be reporting.

"Further, the fact that Zelaya was illegally pulling a short run on the country exposing it to a future that would mirror that of Venezuela is what you should have been reporting. The fact that your organization obviously has motives that promote the transition from democracy to dictatorship in Honduras categorizes it as a Leftist Propaganda vehicle.

"I challenge you to retract your statements and provide a follow up interview that clarifies the reality of the Honduran situation; one that indicates that the legal and constitutional removal of Zelaya by his own government was necessary for the good of Honduras and its people.

"I plan to live here for awhile yet and wish all the best to the Honduran people.  To wish Honduras to become a communist regime, like you imply, is not in the best interest of the Honduran people and their future.  The reporting of inaccuracies of our situation to the media like you have done is embarrassing, frustrating and counter-productive to the cause of maintaining democracy in Honduras.

"Please read the accurate items that I have included below and get a grip on reality.  Then, I urge you to use your site to promote democracy and not fascism.

Dave Barons, davebarons at hotmail.com"

http://mack.house.gov/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=5473bba0-37fe-4033-8979-57ab98441fa8&ContentType_id=8c55a72b-64f8-4cba-990c-ec1ed2a9de24&Group_id=b3c463ca-96b6-41ff-94e5-a945437bc123
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=334537207260360
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052970204251404574340570960456550.html
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-5325-Orlando-Republican-

* * *

LETTER TO CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER STEPHEN HARPER

[A letter to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, written by investors and property owners of Villas Paraiso Escondido, a forty acre Canadian resort community on the Caribbean Coast of Honduras (www.go2-paradise.com).  Project contact: Tom Stollery (tomstollery at hotmail.com).  

>From www.go2-paradise.com: "What we especially like about this enterprise is that we can live in a secure community, can live in our own home in a tropical climate, can get a bigger bang for our buck (check out the inexpensive year round bounty of fresh fruit and vegetables), can socialize with fellow Canadians, can become involved in local community works and can extend ourselves as much or as little as we want."]

July 28, 2009

Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, K1A 0A2
pm at pm.gc.ca

Dear Mr. Harper:

Re: Canadian Policy in Honduras, Central America

We are a group of investors who have bought property and have built houses in Honduras, CA.  We are writing to you to express our concern in regards to Canadian Government support of ex-president Zelaya being returned to a position of power in Honduras.

There appears to be widespread false information in the media that Zelaya was removed from office illegally, by a military coup d'état that was not supported by rule of law or the Honduran people.

Our understanding is Zelaya has been legally charged for criminal activity and for attempting to change the Honduran constitution for his own purpose, by the Honduran congress and judiciary, and was legally impeached.

Information available from international news services, as well as local contacts, indicate Zelaya was supporting drug trafficking from Venezuela to America and involved in various forms of corruption internally.

If Zelaya is allowed to return to power in Honduras and with outside influence from the ALBA group of countries it will result in the loss of democracy, freedom of speech and human rights for all Hondurans. The removal of democracy in Honduras will stop foreign investment and will result in financial losses to foreign and Canadian investments in that country.  This loss of investment will ultimately cause economic hardship for Honduras and its people which is already one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere.

We believe the legally empowered interim government of Roberto Micheletti is working in the best interest of Honduras and the Honduran people in support of democracy and human rights, including a free election as called for in the Honduran constitution.  We also believe the Honduran military is acting under the rule of law, in support of this interim government and with the greater support of the Honduran people.

For this reason we request the Canadian Government provide full public support of the legal interim government of Roberto Micheletti and acknowledge this support to the international bodies of the OAS and the United Nations.

We also request that Canada provide support to the continuation of foreign aid to Honduras to allow the interim government the means to continue their struggle for democracy and to provide for the basic needs of the Honduran people.

We suggest that Canada provide monitoring and assistance to ensure openness and fairness in the upcoming Honduras elections.

The Canadian Government must acknowledge that the rule of law exists in Honduras and support the position that Zelaya should stand trial for the corruption and criminal activity he has been legally charged with.

To prevent chaos and bloodshed Canada needs to immediately and publicly recognize that the vast majority of Honduran people support the impeachment action of their government and support peace and democracy in their country.

We believe violence and demonstrations against the interim government are being promoted and supported by ALBA countries to further their own interests and also by illegal organizations such as FARC.

We are extremely proud of Hondurans and the interim government to take impeachment action to preserve their democracy and we implore Canada to support their action in every means possible to assure their democratic freedom.

Thank-you for your assistance and attention, if required we can be contacted by return email.

Project contact: Tom Stollery, tomstollery at hotmail.com, www.go2-paradise.com

* * *

[Another business owner, Penelope Leigh, writes to her friends and family and to the U.S. State Department "clarifying" what is happening in Honduras, asking the U.S. government to lift the travel advisory to prevent a further decline in tourism.]

"We have all cut back our help and tightened our belts, which further hurts the islanders. I have to be very careful about what I buy for food and am rationing gasoline. It is quite grim and all because of the horrible lies in the media."

Dear Family & Friends,

We are having a terrible time here on Roatan (Ghost Island). Please consider helping us by writing to Trip Advisor. The postings on this site have a huge impact on our tourism business. Visitors are wary now due to the Travel Advisary not to visit Honduras. We have had no problems here on Roatan at all....nothing.

Due to all the untruths re: a military coup, riots & unrest, businesses here are failing. We have all cut back our help and tightened our belts, which further hurts the islanders. I have to be very careful about what I buy for food and am rationing gasoline. It is quite grim and all because of the horrible lies in the media.

Please help us. It won't take more than a few minutes. I have written my letter below as an example. If you could write of your positive "visit," etc., it could very well save a business from closing its doors. We have so many islanders on half pay or deferred pay, that can not feed their families, it is truly getting scary. 

You can write it in your own words, just asking them to PLEASE exclude Roatan from the Travel Advisory posting on their site.  Just double click on: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ContactUs?topic=tell_us_what_you_think
And fill in your comments. Thanx so much for your most needed help!!

Dear Sir;

We have read the warning from the U.S. State Department posted on the Trip Advisor "Roatan Tourism" page with great concern.  While this is the formal U.S. stance on the current situation, it must be noted that Roatan is an island over 30 miles from the mainland of Honduras. Roatan is technically a part of Honduras, but they are worlds apart in culture and geograpical location. The political unrest occurred only on mainland Honduras.  On the island of Roatan, we have had no incidents of any kind. It remains peaceful, tranquil and beautiful. 

Since the removal of president Mel Zelaya on June 28th, Roatan has remained a safe, quiet haven for its residents and visitors.  We've had many customers come in our store who feel the stance the US has taken is terrible and that it hurts the innocent people of the Bay Islands for no reason whatsoever. Direct flights to Roatan from Houston, Atlanta and Miami have continued as scheduled and cruise ship port calls have not changed.
In the Trip Advisor forums, there are multiple postings from travelers relating their positive vacation experiences in Roatan. If you feel it is your responsibility to post any travel advisories in effect, we believe there is a responsibility to present the complete picture so that travelers can make there own informed decision.

There are over 1000 US citizens residing in Roatan, many of whom have contacted the Ambassador of the United States in Honduras to request that the advisory be amended to exclude the Bay Islands. This change has not yet been made, so we sincerely request Trip Advisor add a sentence to the posting of the State Department warning as follows:  "Roatan is a safe island 30 miles from mainland Honduras and has not experienced any disruption. To see postings with information from travelers that have recently vacationed in Roatan, please visit the 'Roatan forums' section of Trip Advisor"

We business owners are watching our employees suffer from the lack of tourism dollars to support their families, while we struggle to keep our doors open. Please help us get the true facts out there.

Thank You,

Sincerely, Penelope Leigh, www.penelopesislandemporium.com

* * *

Message sent to Rights Action by a Honduran lawyer who handles real estate deals for foreigners interested in buying property on the Roatan Island, Honduras

To: info at rightsaction.org
Sender: Cesar  

"Taliban and Zelaya supporters call for boycoting elections"

* * * 

Another message sent to Rights Action

To: info at rightsaction.org
Sender: Giagnocavo
Email address: 

"Don't know where you get your info, but we live in Central America. The President who was deposed should not be allowed back in the country. The USA should support Micheletti. Your emails are rabble-rousing."

= = = = = = = 

HOW TO SUPPORT HONDURAS' PRO-DEMOCRACY, ANTI-MILITARY COUP REGIME MOVEMENT

TO MAKE TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS for community based groups in the pro-democracy movement, make check payable to "Rights Action" and mail to:

UNITED STATES:  Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
CANADA:  552 - 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8

CREDIT-CARD DONATIONS: http://rightsaction.org/contributions.htm
STOCK DONATIONS, contact: info at rightsaction.org

SPEAKERS:
Contact Rights Action to plan educational presentations in your community, school, place of worship, home, about the tireless and courageous Honduras pro-democracy movement.

EDUCATIONAL DELEGATIONS TO CENTRAL AMERICA:
Form your own group and/ or join one of our educational delegation-seminars to learn firsthand about community development, human rights and environmental struggles.

MORE INFORMATION: 
Annie Bird (annie at rightsaction.org) & Grahame Russell (info at rightsaction.org, Rights Action co-directors

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