Porfirio Lobo Sosa
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Porfirio Lobo Sosa was the president of honduras succeeding micheletti after the coup. His government was involved in a lot of corruption and increased crime.
He has been infamous of misusing public funds for his own personal gain.
Biography edit
Porfirio Lobo was born in Trujillo, Honduras, on December 22, 1947. “Pepe”, as he is commonly known, was the last child of the marriage formed by Mr. José Porfirio Lobo López and Mrs. Rosa Sosa Hernández. Porfirio Lobo's father was a nationalist political leader in the Department of Olancho where he was from.
Little “Pepe” grew up on the farm that the family ran in La Empalizada, near Juticalpa, along with his three brothers.He learned his first letters at the Niño Jesús de Praga primary school in Juticalpa from the department of Olancho. He completed his secondary studies at the San Francisco Institute, located in the capital of the country, exactly in the city of Comayagüela, during the years from 1961 to 1965. Upon finishing high school, he moved to the city of Miami, United States of America, to study business administration at the University of Miami , where he graduated in 1970 with a Bachelor of Business Administration.
The official resume of "Pepe" Lobo omits any reference to a dark passage in his formative stage that some political opponents have blamed him for and that he has not denied: that for a time he lived in Moscow, as a student of some science courses Politics taught by the Patrice Lumumba University, currently the Russian People's Friendship University, which welcomed thousands of students from Asia, Africa and Latin America into its classrooms.
After finishing his university studies, he returned to the country and since then, for more than 38 years, he has dedicated himself to agriculture and livestock activities, first as his father's assistant and then independently.
From a very young age he was involved in political activity with the National Party together with his father. At the age of 20, he was president of the Nationalist Youth of Olancho and from there he continued to hold various positions within the party until he became president of the Central Committee.
For 11 years he dedicated himself to providing his knowledge, in the public institute La Fraternidad de Juticalpa, where he taught English and economics classes to young people. In addition, he became an active member of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CODEH). Likewise, "Pepe" Lobo was one of the founders of the National Council of Producers for the Agricultural Policy of Honduras (CONPPAH) and the "Association of Ranchers and Farmers of Olancho (AGAO)".
Since 1989, he was elected deputy to Parliament on three consecutive occasions for the National Party, of whose Central Committee he was president for the first time between 1999 and 2001, and then from 2005 to 2010. Likewise, “Pepe” Lobo was a member of the committee of Ricardo Maduro's candidacy campaign in 2001. He was also manager of the state-owned Honduran Forestry Development Corporation (COHDEFOR) between February 1990 and June 1992, in the government of President Rafael Leonardo Callejas (1990-1994).
Government (2010-2014) edit
First year of government edit
Porfirio Lobo was rejected by the Honduran citizenry in his first year in office. According to a survey conducted by the University Institute of Public Opinion (IUDOP) in conjunction with the Reflection, Research and Communication Team (ERIC) of Honduras, Lobo Sosa was rated with an average grade of 5.11, on a scale of 0 to 10.
At the end of 2010 almost half of the people (45.5%) believed that the country had worsened under the Lobo government. While 39.3% assured that things remained the same, and only 14.5% considered that the country had improved. However, when asked if Lobo's management represents a positive or negative change, 49% of those surveyed said that the change was positive against 38% that it was negative. 7.8% assured that the Lobo administration is more of the same.
Among the achievements attributed to Lobo Sosa in his first year in office, the approval of the National Plan and the granting of Bono 10,000 stand out as the only two promises that the President has managed to begin to fulfill in 2010. The National Plan It has been analyzed since 1998, but it was not until the government of Lobo Sosa that its approval became a reality. Although it has not been fully implemented, some important aspects are already known, such as its first objective, which is to eradicate extreme poverty; educated, healthy citizens with social security systems by 2022.
On the other hand, Lobo's main failures in his first year in office were the increased violence and insecurity, which represents one of the main sources of concern within the Honduran population. 63.4% of Hondurans believe that crime increased during 2010. 25.2% assured that things were the same and only 11.4% thought that crime decreased.
Likewise, 51.75% of the population stated that the presence of drug trafficking had increased in the country. While 23.45% claimed to have been a direct victim of a criminal act. “A revealing fact related to the institutions responsible for ensuring the safety of the population is that 50.8% of Hondurans believe that the police are involved with crime, only a little more than a fifth 22.0 % consider that the police protect citizens, 18.9% think that some members of the police protect others who are linked to crime”, indicates the IUOP and ERIC survey.
Police Corruption edit
The murder of two university students in October 2011 at the hands of the police uncovered a wave of drug-related corruption in Honduras that infects virtually all layers of law and order in Honduras. The murder of the university students provoked the reaction of various sectors demanding the purge of the Police, among them the Human Rights Commissioner, Ramón Custodio, and the rector of the National Autonomous University, Julieta Castellanos, mother of one of the murdered students.
According to the Miami Herald, the Honduran National Police were closely linked to the drug cartels, which, in turn, have the protection of politicians, judges and prosecutors. According to Honduran police, military and human rights sources, the crimes committed by the Honduran authorities range from murder to extortion and carjacking.
Even drug operations are often run by the police, with the complicity of their bosses, who drive around in luxury cars and live beyond their means. Arms stores of the police and the armed forces are stolen and the supplies go to Colombia.
Faced with this problem, President Lobo insisted that "I never imagined the problem that existed in the Police", "I was confident that a minister who spent almost four years with (Ricardo) Maduro and two years" in his government "could solve problem," said Lobo, alluding to former Security Minister Óscar Álvarez, whom he dismissed on September 10, 2011, due to strong pressure from police headquarters.
Before he was ousted by President Lobo, Óscar Álvarez had publicly accused the police of being "air traffic controllers" for drug planes, and announced the need to purge the police.
The seriousness of the problem led President Lobo and his security minister (Pompeyo Bonilla) to meet in Miami with senior officials from the National Security Council and the United States Department of State to discuss the matter. . In addition to North American assistance, experts from Colombia and Chile, following a separate evaluation of the Honduran National Police, concluded that a purge is needed police.