Honduras in 2004

Honduras in 2004

Area: 112,492 sq km (43,433 sq mi)
Population (2004 est.): 6,948,000
Capital: Tegucigalpa
Head of state and government: President Ricardo Maduro

In February 2004 the IMF issued Honduras a three-year loan of about $107 million for a Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility, ending two years of negotiations during which Honduras lacked IMF assistance. The agreement was contingent upon government compliance with spending cuts and salary freezes for government workers. Honduran workers opposed a salary freeze, however, and teachers and medical workers struck for raises. Its compliance with the IMF agreement advanced Honduras’s admission process in the Heavily Indebted Poor Country Program. In August a constitutional amendment was passed by the National Congress that rescinded the immunity of government officials.

Honduran ports met a July 2004 deadline to implement security procedures required for shipping cargo to the United States, a key partner in Honduras’s foreign trade, but the Honduran government pulled its troops out of the U.S.-led coalition force in Iraq. Negotiations were concluded during the year for the Central American Free Trade Agreement; the legislatures of the five Central American countries, the Dominican Republic, and the U.S. would each have to ratify the treaty before it took effect. The problem of demarcation of Honduras’s border with El Salvador was finally resolved, and permanent markers were installed. The dispute resulted from the 1969 “Soccer War” and remained unsettled until International Court of Justice rulings in 1992 and 2003.

Pres. Ricardo Maduro announced his desire to freeze funds for the Central American Court of Justice and the Central American Parliament, arguing that the money would be better spent on domestic health and education programs. Constitutionally, however, the National Congress would have to renounce the relevant treaties before the president’s proposal could be effected.

The World Food Programme (WFP) distributed food in drought-stricken southern Honduras. The government and the WFP began a program to expand irrigation and help farmers switch from traditional corn (maize) and bean crops to sorghum, sesame, and alternate bean varieties that required less water.