Under New Management
Under New Management
The coast of Honduras could be the site of a radical experiment: one in which foreign
investors bankroll a quasi-sovereign city. Backers say it will lift the region out of poverty -- but residents are anything but convinced.
BY Maya Kroth
SEPTEMBER 1, 2014
AMAPALA, Honduras — In a cinder-block building at the end of a narrow, washed-out dirt road, Alberto Cruz, the mayor of Amapala, wipes the sweat from under his white baseball cap. The July heat is oppressive, and beads of moisture form as Cruz faces the insistent stares of hundreds of his constituents, gathered for a town-hall meeting. People fill the small room before him and spill out into an adjacent, dusty lot, peering in through metal window screens. They are eager to pepper him with questions about a provocative new law that could change their lives permanently.
"I'm not here to defend or condemn a law that I didn't make or a project that I don't know about," Cruz tells the crowd. "But we need to be open to investment."
"This law was passed without consulting anyone here," protests one man in the crowd.
"We're only fishermen and farmers," says another, rising from his chair and stabbing the air with an angry finger. "We won't stand for the invasion of these model cities created for the benefit of the rich!"
The room erupts in applause.
Here, in a poor corner of one of the poorest countries in the Americas, a radical economic and political experiment may soon be underway. In May, the Supreme Court of Honduras ruled in support of a constitutional amendment and attendant statute that allow for the creation of "zones for economic development and employment" (ZEDEs). Sometimes called "charter cities" or "model cities," these zones would be quasi-sovereign entities built on Honduran soil with backing from foreign investors. Unlike the world's thousands of "special economic zones," such as Shenzhen in China, which attract foreign direct investment through tax breaks and other flexible economic policy measures, ZEDEs would operate with "functional and administrative autonomy that includes the functions, powers, and duties" of ordinary cities, according to the constitutional amendment. They could enact their own laws, set up their own courts, even establish their own police forces.
The first zone may be built on southern Honduras's picturesque Gulf of Fonseca, specifically in the small province of Valle (home to some 176,000 people, according to a recent estimate). The Honduran government has mentioned Amapala, which comprises several islands, as a potential charter-city site, and it is among the Valle municipalities that the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), South Korea's bilateral aid bureau, is analyzing in a $4 million feasibility study.
More:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/09/01/under_new_management_amapala_honduras_charter_cities
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