Glossary -- Honduras
- amparo
- Law that gives protection to a legal claim while the claim is
under litigation. Under Spanish common law, a person could obtain
a temporary title to a tract of lands, protecting his or her claim
until a survey could be made and full title granted. This concept
of protection of a land claim while under litigation, the
amparo, has since been codified and extended to any type
of legal claim.
- audiencia
- Literally audience or court; a subdivision of a viceroyalty
under Spanish colonial administration. As well as being the name of
the administrative unit, the audiencia, composed of five
men, was the highest governmental authority in the territory.
During most of the colonial period, the president of the
audiencia held the additional titles of governor and
captain general; hence the alternative name for the
audiencia was captaincy general. Although technically
subordinate to the viceroyalty, the governor, or captain general,
was appointed by the Spanish monarch and was responsible only to
him or her. In practice, the governor frequently ignored orders
from Spain and acted independently. For this reason, the Audiencia
of Guatemala was frequently referred to in colonial times as the
Kingdom of Guatemala.
- Central America
- Here used in a geographic sense. Central America is considered
to be the entire isthmus between Mexico and Colombia, including
present-day Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua,
Costa Rica, and Panama. A more traditional political view of the
term, most often used in the region itself, is that Central America
encompasses only the five successor states to the United Provinces
of Central America (1821-38): Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador,
Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.
- compadrazgo
- Literally, "copaternity." A system of ritual "coparenthood"
that links parents, children, and godparents in a close social or
economic relationship.
- Constituent Assembly
- A deliberative body made up of elected delegates who are
charged with the responsibility of drafting a new constitution and,
in some instances, electing a new president. Traditionally, after
it completed its work, a Constituent Assembly reverted to a
National Congress, which then served as the country's legislative
body until the next scheduled elections.
- Contadora
- A diplomatic initiative launched by a January 1983 meeting on
Contadora Island off the Pacific coast of Panama, by which the
"Core Four" mediator countries of Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and
Panama sought to prevent through negotiations a regional
conflagration among the Central American states of Guatemala, El
Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. In September 1984,
the negotiating process produced a draft treaty, the Contadora
Acta, which was judged acceptable by the government of Nicaragua
but rejected by the other four Central American states concerned.
The governments of Peru, Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil formed the
Contadora Support Group in 1985 in an effort to revitalize the
faltering talks. The process was suspended unofficially in June
1986 when the Central American governments refused to sign a
revised Acta. The Contadora process was effectively superseded by
direct negotiations among the Central American states.
- Contra
- Short form of contrarevolucionario
(counterrevolutionary). Member of the Nicaraguan Resistance, an
armed resistance movement in the 1980s supported by the United
States and fighting against the national Sandinista government.
- Creole
- In Honduras a term used for an English-speaking person of
African or mixed African and indigenous ancestry.
- Enterprise for the Americas Initiative
(EAI)
- A plan announced by President George H.W. Bush on June 27,
1990, calling for the United States to negotiate agreements with
selected Latin American countries to reduce their official debt to
the United States and make funds available through this
restructuring for environmental programs; to stimulate private
investment; and to take steps to promote extensive trade
liberalization with the goal of establishing free trade throughout
the Western Hemisphere.
- European Currency Unit (ECU)
- Instituted in 1979, the ECU is the unit of account of the
European Union. The value of the ECU is determined by the value of
a basket that includes the currencies of all European Union member
states. To establish the value of the basket, each member's
currency receives a share that reflects the relative strength and
importance of the member's economy. One ECU was equivalent to about
US$1.22 in July 1994.
- fiscal year (FY)
- Honduras's fiscal year is the calendar year. Where reference is
made to United States aid appropriations or disbursements, the
United States government's fiscal year, which runs from October 1
to September 30, is used, with the date of reference drawn from the
year in which the period ends. For example, FY 1992 began on
October 1, 1991, and ended on September 30, 1992.
- Garifuna
- An ethnic group descended from the Carib of the Eastern
Caribbean and from Africans who had escaped from slavery. The
Garifuna resisted the British and the French in the Windward
Islands until they were defeated by the British in 1796. After
putting down a violent Garifuna rebellion on Saint Vincent, the
British moved the Garifuna across the Caribbean to the Bay Islands
(present-day Islas de la Bahía) in the Gulf of Honduras. From there
the Garifuna migrated to the Caribbean coasts of Nicaragua,
Honduras, Guatemala, and southern British Honduras. The term
Garifuna also refers to the group's language.
- gross domestic product (GDP)
- A measure of the total value of goods and services produced by
the domestic economy during a given period, usually one year.
Obtained by adding the value contributed by each sector of the
economy in the form of profits, compensation to employees, and
depreciation (consumption of capital). Only domestic production is
included, not income arising from investments and possessions owned
abroad; hence the use of the word domestic to distinguish
GDP from gross national product (q.v.).
- gross national product (GNP)
- The total market value of all final goods and services produced
by an economy during a year. Obtained by adding the gross domestic
product (q.v.) and the income received from abroad by
residents and subtracting payments remitted abroad to nonresidents.
- import-substitution industrialization
(ISI)
- An economic development strategy that emphasizes the growth of
domestic industries, often by import protection using tariff and
nontariff measures. Proponents favor the export of industrial goods
over primary products.
- International Monetary Fund
(IMF)
- Established along with the World Bank (q.v.) in 1945,
the IMF is a specialized agency affiliated with the United Nations
(UN) that takes responsibility for stabilizing international
exchange rates and payments. The main business of the IMF is the
provision of loans to its members when they experience balance of
payments difficulties. These loans often carry conditions that
require substantial internal economic adjustments by the
recipients.
- lempira (L)
- Honduras monetary unit from 1926 to present. For most of that
period, the lempira's value was pegged at US$1=L2. Devalued in
1990, in December 1993, the official rate was US$1=L5.9.
- Paris Club
- The informal name for a consortium of Western creditor
countries (Belgium, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan,
the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States) that
have made loans or have guaranteed export credits to developing
nations and that meet in Paris to discuss borrowers' ability to
repay debts. Paris Club deliberations often result in the tendering
of emergency loans to countries in economic difficulty or in the
rescheduling of debts. Formed in October 1962, the organization has
no formal or institutional existence. Its secretariat is run by the
French treasury. It has a close relationship with the International
Monetary Fund (q.v.), to which all of its members except
Switzerland belong, as well as with the World Bank (q.v.)
and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
(UNCTAD). The Paris Club is also known as the Group of Ten (G-10).
- San José Accord
- An agreement between Mexico and Venezuela, signed in 1980 in
San José, Costa Rica, whereby the two oil producers committed
themselves to supply crude oil on concessionary terms to ten
Central American and Caribbean nations.
- Sandinista
- Originally a member of the Marxist group attempting to
overthrow the Somozas or their hand-picked president in the 1960s
and 1970s. The group took its name from Augusto César Sandino, who
led a guerrilla struggle against the United States occupation of
Nicaragua in the 1930s. The political arm of the group, the
Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de
Liberación Nacional--FSLN), was the national government of
Nicaragua from July 1979 to April 1990. After the late 1970s, the
term Sandinista came to be used to designate a member or
supporter of the FSLN or as the adjectival form of the FSLN (the
"Sandinista" government).
- World Bank
- The informal name used to designate a group of four affiliated
international institutions: the International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International
Development Association (IDA), the International Finance
Corporation (IFC), and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency
(MIGA). The IBRD, established in 1945, has the primary purpose of
providing loans at market-related rates of interest to developing
countries at more advanced stages of development. The IDA, a
legally separate loan fund but administered by the staff of the
IBRD, was set up in 1960 to furnish credits to the poorest
developing countries on much easier terms than those of
conventional IBRD loans. The IFC, founded in 1956, supplements the
activities of the IBRD through loans and assistance designed
specifically to encourage the growth of productive private
enterprises in less developed countries. The MIGA, founded in 1988,
insures private foreign investment in developing countries against
various noncommercial risks. The president and certain officers of
the IBRD hold the same positions in the IFC. The four institutions
are owned by the governments of the countries that subscribe their
capital. To participate in the World Bank group, member states must
first belong to the International Monetary Fund (q.v.).
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