Honduran judges rule against privately run 'model cities' project

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Honduran judges rule against privately run 'model cities' project

[Case set to be heard by full session of supreme court after government-backed plan deemed to be in breach of constitution

Associated Press in Tegucigalpa
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 October 2012 11.32 EDT

The Honduran supreme court has ruled that privately run cities in the Central American country would be unconstitutional, threatening a project to build "model cities" with their own police, laws, government and tax systems.

The five-judge panel voted 4 to 1 to reject the proposals, in a ruling that goes against the Honduran government and the country's elite.

Because the decision was not unanimous, the case now goes to the full 15-member supreme court, which is expected to take up the issue within the next 10 days.

The judges argued that "the foreign investment expected to be received by the state of Honduras implies transferring national territory, which is expressly prohibited in the constitution," according to a copy of the ruling obtained by the Associated Press.


Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/04/honduran-judges-reject-model-cities

[Arctic Dave]

1. All the ex-pats don't want to have to associate with "those" people.

Love the weather, hate the people.

[formercia]

2. Aww, Mitt won't have anywhere to go....

He's well-connected to that project.

[HiPointDem]

3. seriously? got a link?

[Judi Lynn]

5. From a recent post by tremendous DU poster, Octafish:

Mon Sep 24, 2012, 04:52 PM
Octafish

If you like Charter Schools, you're gonna love Charter Cities.

THE WORLD'S FIRST CHARTER CITIES IN HONDURAS: From neo-liberalism to neo-colonialism

Friday, September 14, 2012
Posted by Rights Action Team

~snip~
A partner in the Boston financial advising firm Bain & Company, Harry Strachan started Central America's leading financial management firm, coordinating regional mergers and acquisitions. He was Rector of the leading Central American Business school INCAE. When he first moved to Costa Rica in 1992 he dedicated much of his time to promoting the Central America Free Trade Initiative that unified Central America's mega-wealthy through a platform he helped to found, the US-AID-funded Caribbean Central America Alliance (C-CAA) which coordinated forums where Strachan presented at panel discussions with former Honduran president Ricardo Maduro. After CAFTA was ratified across Central America, in 2007 he founded the Central America Leadership Initiative, a networking platform.

HARRY STRACHAN -MITT ROMNEY'S SALVADORAN DEATH SQUAD CONNECTION

In 1984, it was Strachan that connected Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney with El Salvadoran investors at same time they financed the ARENA party with its associated death squads. According to Huffington Post, the Salvadoran group provided a significant 40% of the start-up capital for a spin-off of Bain & Company, Bain Capital, launched in 1985 by Mitt Romney. The Salvadorans have been loyal patrons of Bain capital ever since.

Romney explains that his Salvadoran customers not only facilitated his massive fortune but he also learned from them: "These friends didn't just help me; they taught me." Romney describes as friends his initial investors, including the Salaverria, Poma, de Sola and Dueñas families who "were also at the time financing, either directly or through political parties, death squads in El Salvador."

THE CENTRAL AMERICA MATCHMAKER - TRANSNATIONAL MERGERS, MARRIAGES, OLIGARCHS AND POLITICIANS

In 1992, Strachan moved to his birthplace, Costa Rica, where he had grown up in a Presbyterian missionary family. In Costa Rica, Strachan founded Mesoamerica Investments, which INCAE's website describes as "the leading regional mergers and acquisitions firm with strategic consulting and private equity branches," while the firm's own website emphasizes its ongoing relationship to Bain Capital and Bain & Company.

Central American wealth and political power is coordinated through family dynasties, powerful oligarch clans that control different sectors of the economy in different countries - as Strachan describes them, family businesses. The trend over the past two decade has been to diversify, moving beyond financial alliances through marriages, to the creation of regional capital investment funds and corporations jointly owned by many families.

The Poma clan, whose patriarch Ricardo Poma is described by Harry Strachan as one of his best friends, is one of Central America's wealthiest families and is an investor in Bain Capital. Both Poma and Strachan are close to former Honduran president Ricardo Maduro. Maduros' company Inversiones la Paz manages Poma's Grupo Roble and Grupo Poma's Honduran subsidiarias.

More:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021408422

[HiPointDem]

6. the article says the honduran project is financed by MGK. Is there are connection?

"The investment group MGK was expected to invest"

[formercia]

7. One Link:

http://www.elreporterosf.com/editions/?q=node/6769

[Judi Lynn]

4. I saw something about it recently, regarding some of the investors from El Salvador,

I believe, who fronted a lot of start-up money for Romney's Bain corporation. They have been involved in this project, as well.

Thanks for the reminder.