Anglican Schism

After 491 years after it broke away from Catholic Church the Anglican Church is itself breaking apart. The schism begun with a 2008 warning letter from Anglican’s traditional wing -Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON) and in October 2025 it became a break, a schism if you will. Forty-two million, or 85% of all practicing Anglicans are part of the GAFCON. The recent appointment of Sarah Mullally as Archbishop of Canterbury, a liberal woman was the final straw for the church’s traditionalists. The GAFCON bishops who hail from outside of Europe have condemned the ever progressing drift of “advocating liberalized sexual or moral teaching” and “abandoning of scriptures” by the Archbishop of Canterbury. GAFCON states that they represent the traditional doctrine of Anglican church and that liberal, Canterbury centered north have strayed into schism. Honduras belongs to IXth Province of the Episcopal Church and is not part of GAFCON.

Bye Bye Nuclear

Germany continues to blow itself up into economic irrelevance, as on October 25, its last two nuclear cooling towers were destroyed in Bavaria. Since 2017 Germany has shut down all of its 10 nuclear reactors. According to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, in 2023, the US Navy has blew up three of four German-Russian Nord Stream pipelines in a case of biggest since WWII industrial sabotage. This inter NATO sabotage has broke off the inconvenient for NATO German-Russian energy cooperation. This sabotage has helped Germany’s economy to continually contract since 2023 and now its energy costs are the fifth most expensive in the world. At 38-44 US cents/kWh, Germany’s consumer energy prices is around 5% more expensive than Roatan’s.

Trump frees JOH

On December 1, 2025 the ex-Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was pardoned by President Trump and few people seem to understand why. The Honduran head of state was arrested in 2021 and extradited to US where he was convicted of drug smuggling charges and sentenced to 45 years in jail JOH, but served just 19 months. JOH was extremely pro Israel in his eight years as Honduran president, to the point that in 2021 he converted to Judaism with his entire family. According to Israeli media JOH received assurances from influential Israeli officials that they would act on his behalf in an event of extradition to the US. It looks like while Israelis couldn’t fight JOH’s extradition during Biden they did secure his pardon during Trump. JOH is one of several Jewish criminals pardoned by Trump, including Joseph Schwartz, Philip Esformes and Joe Lewis. Israel is likely eyeing JOH as someone key
in implementing the Isaac Accords in Honduras.

Honduran Elections Fiasco

Honduras is no stranger to creative presidential coups and Hondurans were served yet another electoral fiasco in their November 30 elections. After around 12 hours of counting, on December 1, 57% of presidential votes were counted and National Nasry “Tito” Asfura was 515 votes ahead of Liberal Salvador Nasralla. The counting was inexplicably suspended with a “technical tie” and it took another 23 days to finish courting the remaining 43% of the votes. In the end, the Colombian based Grupo ASD [Grupo Asesoría en Sistematización de Datos Sociedad por Acciones Simplificada], which won the election counting bid, counted 3,793,868 cast ballots, with 5.2% of them being blank or null. In recent Honduran elections the invalid votes have been between 6% and 8% in 2013 Honduran elections. Nasry “Tito” Asfura was declared a winner by 27,026 votes, or below 1% of the vote. If the voting inconsistencies weren’t enough there was plenty of foreign interference in 2025 Honduran elections. President Trump meddled in just two days before the vote with a tweet threatening to suspend US aid: “If he [Asfura] doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad.” Brad Parscale, a former Donald Trump campaign manager and registered Israeli government agent has become part of making sure Tito Asfura won the elections. Nasralla and president Rixi Moncada’s Libre party called it the 2025 elections an “electoral coup.”

There was one example of Hondurans protesting Israeli crimes against Palestinians during the Gaza war after the Hamas attack and Israeli stand down operation of October 7. On October 23, 2023, dozens of Honduran Palestinians demonstrated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Tegucigalpa. Since then, the long-established and influential Arab Palestinian community has been mostly silent about the plight of their Palestinian relatives amid Israel’s escalating atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank.

There is certainly a disconnect as the 300,000 members of Honduras’ Christian Palestinian community are the third and fourth generations to be born outside of Palestine. Their ancestors began arriving in Honduras from Palestine in the 1890s, and today their connection to and knowledge of Palestine and Israel is mostly superficial.

Most Honduran Palestinians don’t know the full scale or nature of the barbarism inflicted on their compatriots who stayed behind and continue to face Israeli oppression, violence, discrimination and now genocide. A Honduran Palestinian businessman told me that many in his community are afraid of being accused of anti-Semitism and facing potential consequences. Simply acknowledging that a systematic genocide may be occurring in Gaza is viewed by some as anti-Semitic.

It is hard not to notice. Since October 2023, Israeli military actions have resulted in the deaths of many Christian civilians in Gaza who have nothing to do with Hamas. In October 2023 Israeli military bombed a Christian orthodox church and murdered 18 Christians. In December, 2023 Israeli snipers executed two Palestinian women on Gaza Holy Family Catholic church property. In July 2025 Israeli soldiers fired a tank shell at a cross of the same church killing three, and wounding a catholic priest. While this all fell on death ears in Honduras, it does seem that the Israelis don’t like Christians very much.

One person who spoke with concern about the plight of Palestinians was president Xiomara Castro. In November 2023, the Honduran government recalled its ambassador to Israel for consultations due to escalating massacres of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. President Castro described Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide during a U.N. speech in September 2024.

Still, words have not turned into actions. Honduras is nowhere near recognizing Palestine as an independent state or moving its embassy from Jerusalem back to Tel Aviv. In fact, Honduras remains firmly in the pro-Zionist camp as it continues to support Israel’s military by purchasing 15 Black Mamba military vehicles.

Pro-Zionist sentiment is strong in Honduras. Israeli flags are flown throughout the country. Hondurans increasingly wear the Star of David around their necks, and taxi drivers display the Israeli emblem on their vehicles.

Honduran roots of Zionism and judeophilia run deep, well over a century. The country now counts three of its presidents to be Jewish: Juan Lindo, Ricardo Maduro and Juan Orlando Hernández.

In fact, you could argue that there was a fourth Jewish president of Honduras who ruled the country from 1911 well into the 1950s. Samuel Zemurray, the Banana King, was responsible for the 1911 Honduran presidential coup that secured land and concessions for his United Fruit banana company. American mercenaries hired by Zemurray deposed President Miguel Dávila and made Honduras his “banana republic.” Zemurray installed his puppet, Manuel Bonilla, as president and received 20,000 acres of land in return.

After President Bonilla’s death in 1913, Zemurray continued to be a virtual puppet master of several other Honduran presidents. In 1947, the World Zionist Organization tasked Zemurray with delivering Honduras’ U.N. vote in support of the creation of the state of Israel. Reportedly, in a personal phone call, Zemurray tried to bribe then-Honduran President Tiburcio Carías Andino. Because of pressure from the Honduran Palestinian community, Honduras abstained from voting for Israel.

Since then and with plenty of CIA help, Christian Zionism has made many inroads in Honduras. CIA fronts such as World Vision, USAID and Protestant Church World Service for many decades worked to undermine the cohesiveness of Honduras society. Since 1950s CIA, what could be considered an Israeli captured agency, promoted establishing and expansion of Protestant churches in Latin America. The excuse given was that Protestants were more anti communist and a good alternative to Liberation Theology movement preached in many Catholic parishes.

Israel’s investment in JOH obviously paid off.

The percentage of Catholics in the country fell from 97% in the 1960s to 47% today. Protestant denominations undermined the Catholic cohesion of Honduran society. Religiously divided Honduras is much easier to manipulate, with one denomination pitted against another.

Sixty years later, those Catholic-to-Protestant converts have not only become Zionists, they are actually converting to Judaism. According to El Heraldo, 37 families converted to Judaism and, in 2022, established Honduras’ first synagogue.

The San Pedro Sula Mishkan Shlomo synagogue members advertise their plans to judaise and convert thousands of Hondurans. The plan is for the expanded synagogue to be a six story tall, shaped like a Star of David building, and be able to accommodate 456 people. This would make it the biggest synagogue in Latin America.

Ex-President Juan Orlando Hernández was key in expansion of judeophilia and Zionism in Honduras. Just in terms of economy, according School of the Americas, between 2013 and 2019 Honduras purchased $342 million in military and surveillance equipment from Israel. Basically Honduras has been supporting Israel to the tune of around $5 million a month for that period.

Ex-President Juan Orlando Hernández was key in expansion of judeophilia and Zionism in Honduras. Just in terms of economy, according School of the Americas, between 2013 and 2019 Honduras purchased $342 million in military and surveillance equipment from Israel. Basically Honduras has been supporting Israel to the tune of around $5 million a month for that period.

Road to conversion of Juan Orlando Hernández begun in early 1990s when he completed a one year Mashav leaders course in Israel. Israel’s investment in JOH obviously paid off as he learned Hebrew, moved Honduras’ embassy to Jerusalem in 2021 converted to Judaism with his entire family in 2021. The last one right before going to a US jail for 45 years convicted of decade’s long drug and arms smuggling operation.

Honduras is likely getting set up for a rough ride. Israel funded military dictatorships where even CIA would not venture. Israel trained and supplied arms to many bad actors that destabilized the region: genocidal regime in Guatemala in 1980s, Colombian drug smuggling death squads, Los Zetas drug lord Heriberto Lazcano. “Israel has given its soldiers practical training in the art of oppression and in methods of collective punishment.

Some of those officers choose to make use of their knowledge in the service of dictators,” said Israeli general Mattityahu Peled.

Honduras will likely become an increasingly polarized and violent society.

There is also a growing Israeli pressure on the Honduran public by co-opting its anti Gaza genocide sentiment into nebulous movements. The normally restrained Honduran Ministry of Foreign Affairs complained that Israeli Ambassador Nadav Goren meddled in internal Honduran affairs by meeting with Protestant church leaders preparing for the August 16 March for Peace and Democracy. “We express to the Honduran people our deep discomfort at their participation in said public event. The involvement of a diplomat not only ignores his limitations,” stated the Honduran ministry.

There are plenty of other players seeping discord. Until its recent defunding by the Trump administration, San Pedro Sula was also home to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS). The worldwide HIAS organization does not assist Palestinians, Arabs or Christians in moving to Israel, but used U.S. tax dollars to help move undocumented migrants through Honduras to the United States.

For decades, certain interest groups have promoted racial resentment —particularly among Black communities— while fostering a sense of guilt among white, European and Christian populations. In Honduras, this strategy is reflected in the 23-year-old movement known as the Fraternal Organization of Honduran Blacks (OFRANEH), which has received funding from organizations such as American Jewish World Service and the Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros. These groups have been involved in fermenting revolutions, protests and underhanded political activism around the world.

Just as with organizations such as Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA — which was recently designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization — OFRANEH fosters division, racial tension, grievances and expectations of compensation in the historically well-integrated Garifuna community.

Honduras, in the second quarter of the 21st century, will likely become an increasingly polarized and violent society. Powerful interest groups are working hard to implement this, and Roatan is increasingly a party to those tensions. In September 2025, OFRANEH conducted demonstrations in Cayos Cochinos, and in March 2025, there were protests in Diamond Rock. Tensions on Roatan are just starting to heat up.

While the Israeli operation in Gaza keeps bearing more ugly fruit, few have analyzed the role Israeli intelligence services played in the October 7 Hamas operation.
Israeli services had foreknowledge of the Hamas attack from multiple sources. NYT reported on Israeli military having detailed plans of the Hamas attack more than one year before October 7, coincidentally an exact 50 year anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, a date that should have anticipated violence. Also Egyptian military provided Israeli government with repeated warning about the attack days prior. Haaretz reported on Shin Bet and IDF discussing a threat to Nova music festival and hours before the attack. Yet the public was told that IDF was caught by complete surprise on the 50 year anniversary of its Yom Kippur War, a time where all units should be on high alert.
While Israel prides itself with having a vast network of spies, informants and fool proof electrical surveillance, yet somehow Shinbet, Mossad, IDF, Israeli Air Force and Navy allowed 3,000 Hamas fighters to breach a secure, electronically monitored fence in 12 places and reach Israeli settlements causing uninterrupted chaos for seven hours: between 6:30am and 1:30pm.
We also don’t know why Israeli citizens in communities adjacent to Gaza called out to Israeli forces and family for help, but no help came for seven hours. When it finally did, it resulted in friendly fire deaths. Out of the 1,140 Israelis killed, a sizable percentage have been killed by IDF implementing Hannibal procedure, a policy where Israelis should be sacrificed, killed even as not to allow them to be taken as hostages and taken to Gaza.
There is a long tradition of Zionist and later Israeli false flag operations: King David Hotel bombing (1946), The Lavon affair (1954), the USS Liberty attack (1967), Dancing Mossad Agents (2001) to name a few. Increasingly October 7 looks like another false flag operation allowing Israel to perform a land grab action like it did in Golan Heights and is doing in West Bank.
Hamas, alongside the ISIS and Al-Qaida is yet another useful golem is the quiver of Israeli intelligence services. A proper investigation of October 7 would lead to some uncomfortable answers and rolling heads in Israel and that current regime there cannot have.

Road Blocking

On February 8, a group of José Santos Guardiola residents took to the streets and at 6am blocked the main road connecting the two island municipalities. One of the protesters was holding a sign: “Free NASA driving courses in JSG.” Indeed the main road is ridden with so many potholes it is not only dangerous to drive on it is also reminiscent of a lunar landscape. They were demanding that central government rebuild the damaged road from Oak Ridge to JSG western border. No cars or motorcycles were allowed through the protesters. It seems that the government heard the protester. According to Wendy Carter, one of the protest’s organizers, three companies bid for the rebuilding of the damaged JSG road. “I’m hoping that by the beginning of April they will start the work on the main road,” said Carter.

Honduran President in Jail

On March 8, US federal court found the Honduran ex-president (2014-22) Juan Orlando Hernández guilty of a conspiracy of a several decade long smuggling of cocaine to the US.
While US presidents enjoy freedom from prosecution for wars started for false pretenses, importing cocaine to airports in Mena, AR, taking bribes from foreign companies and assassinations, things work differently in Honduras. Not that JOH has not been warned of dangers of his lifestyle by fate of his predecessors: CIA assassin and later president Saddam Hussein, CIA drug runner and spy president Manuel Noriega for example. CIA, the Praetorian guard for the deep state, creates these bad actors, supports them and sacrifices them once their usefulness has run its course.

“The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind simply has not come to a realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst”.  

 ―J. Edgar Hoover. FBI Director 1924-1972 

Honduras’ nine million inhabitants are mostly poor, most don’t have bank accounts, can’t afford smart phones, and don’t even have internet access. The country still functions as an all cash economy and many citizens are self reliant on food. Hondurans haven’t yet learned to be helpless and over reliant on the state to solve their problems.

In other words, Honduras does not belong to the first tier of counties being coerced to enter the technocratic New World Order with its digital passes, social credit score system, digital currencies, mRNA injections and New World religion.

While for decades Honduras was trying to catch up to the US and other developed countries, now that lag might be exactly what will make life here easier and more free than in lock-downed Canada, or as in the USA, arresting nine-year-olds for not having a vax certificate, or report-on-your neighbor for social credit points as in China.
Bay Islands, while much more connected to the world than other parts of Honduras, are still just a department of Honduras. That is what has made the archipelago attractive to a growing trickle of “refugees” from the USA, fleeing surveillance, mandates, passes and restrictions. In other words, seeking freedoms they lost, or they feel they are losing at home.

I recently met an Arizona businessman who purchased several beach front acres here sight unseen discovering about Roatan’s existence, in an internet search in July 2021. “These masks don’t make sense,” said this baby-boomer “refugee.” People like him have already purchased dozens of properties around Roatan and their numbers will just keep growing.

We have been subjected to a two-year-old COVID PSYOP involving propagation of fear, isolation, demoralization, and confusion resulting in increasingly fragmented, frightened, addicted and easily manipulated societies. While most developed countries have been attacked hard, other countries follow their own path.

For example, countries that have been submitted to the “Twitter revolutions” in 2011 like Syria, Yemen and Sudan have mRNA injections rates below 5%. These are countries in a civil war, where fear of a virus is basically irrelevant as people focus on basic day-to-day survival.

Honduras in some ways has played it safe. Several presidents of countries who attempted to defy the imposed narrative of lockdowns and mass mNRA injection campaigns have met a dire end. In June 2020 Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza, 55, mysteriously died. In March 2021 Tanzanian President John Pombe Magufuli, 61, mysteriously died. In July 2021 Haitian president Jovenel Moise, 53, was assassinated in his home.

Despite their leaders being eliminated the populations of these countries continued to defy the war on COVID narrative. Burundi is probably the least mNRA jabbed state on earth with only 3,500 people injected and remaining 12 million doing just fine.
Tanzania, a much bigger African nation of 61 million, has less than 1.5% of its populations fully jabbed.

In the Americas it’s a bit of a different story. Haiti has managed to keep more than 99% of their people mNRA jab free. Guatemalans have the lowest mRNA injection rates (28%) in Central America with second lowest being Honduras with 44% of their population injected with mRNA therapies.

No one will be part of the New World Order unless he carries out an act of worship to Lucifer. No one will enter the New Age unless he receives Luciferian initiation.

―David Spangler, Director of the United Nations Planetary Initiative Project

In order to transition to the New World Order, the current order has to be destroyed. That requires a phase of obliteration and chaos we are currently experiencing. The last such global order restructuring took place during World War II.

The WWII bedlam started with Germany invading Poland in 1939 and ended with the creation of Israel and communist China in 1948-49.
That mayhem lasted for 10 long years and this time around should be no different. While there were many places to wait WWII out peacefully, this time around there will much fewer places of relative refuge.
Perhaps Honduras and its little Bay Islands department will be one of these places, a sort of Humphrey Bogart’s Casablanca of relative calm.

We are yet to witness the severity of the attempt to corral Hondurans into the NWO. While Juan Orlando Hernández, the outgoing Honduran president, is a great friend and follower of globalist Benjamin Netanyahu, we are yet to see how president elect Xiomara Castro will navigate her own agenda under pressures from above.

Unlike what we are repeatedly told, we are not living in a time of a reset as we will not be going back to ‘Mario Brothers’ video game after the restart. When the dust settles, we will be getting a brand new video game. Most places around the world will be likely getting ‘Omikron’ a video game from 1990s where “people are ruled blindly by an ancient supercomputer and a communist dictator with an iron fist who carries out the computer’s orders.”

90 Days into LOKIN-20 the Island faces first 50 Cases of COVID-19

By June 16 President Juan Orlando Hernández has joined the ranks of politicians like British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and is now officially infected with COVID-19. Fortunately, the 50-year old Honduran president has a great chance at recovery. The little publicized fact is that the with COVID-19 deaths happen mostly to the elderly and those with compromised immune system. In Canada 81% of all with COVID deaths happened to old-people care facilities. In France 89% with COVID-19 deaths were amongst people 64 and older.

Still neither Honduras nor Roatan has done nothing to protect the most vulnerable to the virus: the elderly and the poor. For 90 days now SINAGER has forced vast majority Bay Islanders to stop working, stay home and wash their hands every chance they get. On June 4, wanting to look like they are doing something, the local Municipal governments went further and installed “disinfection tunnels” around the island.

 “Stuck at the border. They won’t let me into Roatan without going through the tunnel,” wrote about Roatan Municipal Police Mitch Cummins, a Roatan based American resident attempting to return from Jose Santos Guardiola on June 4.

Roatan Municipality has announced that the tunnel’s liquid is made up of mixture of water with Peroxol and that “until now there are now reports that its use has caused damage to the skin or health to the persons.” While most native Roatanians have submitted to the useless and dangerous procedure, at least one Roatan resident has had enough and pushed back.

“I am asking to have the issue of these ineffective and dangerous spray tunnels put on the agenda at the next meeting of the Roatan Corporation,” wrote Amy Eader Beasley, a US resident living on Roatan. “Contact your embassy if you are not a Honduran citizen.” Her letter with hundreds of signatures including medical staff was presented to the Roatan Municipality that then made the tunnels “optional.”

A month after the first case of COVID-19 was detected on Roatan on May 16 there are now 50 cases of COVID-19, and because of the five-day-delay in shipping and analyzing the test samples, likely that number is much higher.

Meantime the costs of Roatan’s LOKIN-20 are mounting: thousands postponing preventive medical care, crime skyrocketing, depression, impoverishment and to come bankruptcies. Other than the now daily armed robberies, June 17 brought two brutal homicides to Roatan.

The manufactured collapse of American society and destruction of small business economy has entered phase two, Honduras is at least two weeks behind. The coordinated anarchist protests sparked by a Minnesota police killing of an African American criminal suspect on May 25 have erupted within days in places as disconnected with Minnesota as Colombo -Sri Lanka, Accra-Ghana and Osaka -Japan. The controlled media’s COVID-19 fear mongering has given way to coverage of violent protest, looting, and destruction of public statues.

At least artificiality of the LOKIN-20 operation and its deep state actors are being exposed by some brave vocal voices of authority. “The riots in these days were provoked by those who, seeing that the virus is inevitably fading and that the social alarm of the pandemic is waning, necessarily have had to provoke civil disturbances, because they would be followed by repression,” wrote Catholic Archbishop Viganò in a letter to in a letter to president Trump. Trump tweeted: “So honored by Archbishop Viganò’s incredible letter to me. I hope everyone, religious or not, read it!” As crime in US and on the island steadily rises the exhausted, confused public is faced with giving in to any solution the government will offer.

After declaring the perpetual war on drugs in 1982, the unwinnable war on Terror in 2001, in 2020 we entered the never-ending war on viruses. With roadblocks, paid snitches, controlled news, online censorship, spray tunnels, the never-ending war on virus the shadow of oppressive albeit inefficient police state has unofficially arrived.

More info about Archbishop Viganò’s powerful letter:

https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/archbishop-viganos-powerful-letter-to-president-trump-eternal-struggle-between-good-and-evil-playing-out-right-now

After Thirty Eight Days of Isolation, Island Officials Plead with Central Government to Reopen their Economy

Numerous pleas for Roatan and Bay Islands internal economy to be opened came from Mayors and other island officials, but have fallen on death ears. “We are asking to normalize internal movement in the Bay Islands because we have zero cases of Covid19. Here we have permanent monitoring so no one enters the island. Here we have people who are very hungry Sir”, wrote Steven Garcia Arch, Bay Islands COPECO chief on April 26 to Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández . The president read the message, but has not responded.

This latest plea for threatening Bay Islands on merits of its geographical uniqueness and stringent isolation comes after the escalation of restrictions by National Police arresting people attempting to travel between Santos Guardiola and Roatan and confiscating their vehicles. The de facto martial law has made it illegal to move about between 6pm and 6am and during entire weekends.

“We put the reward to keep the wolf outside the chicken pen. Now we have a wolf inside the chicken pen.”

Ironically it was the National Police itself has caused the biggest security medical threat to the island when on April 10 Jaime Barahona, Bay Islands police chief, with 11 other National Police and three Navy personnel came on a boat from highly populated and covid-19 reporting areas of the country. The officials spend the night at the Los Fuertes police headquarters. “We put the reward to keep the wolf outside the chicken pen. Now we have a wolf inside the chicken pen” said Jerry Hynds, Roatan’s Mayor at a security meeting about the quarantine violation and possible infection by the National Police. Due to the pressure of local authorities and public the 15 officials were forced to leave the island the next day.

While there are usually 230 National police officers stationed on the Roatan the security on the island rests mostly in the hands of private security companies at residences, banks and businesses.

With the economy on a shut down the security situation on Roatan has steadily deteriorated. There were several home invasions and robberies of basic materials such as fuel and food have been increasing. On March 29, Ron Kellerman, a retired special Ops Vietnam veteran was killed at his home in First Bight. Another murder occurred in Oak Ridge. The drug smuggling has continued and Honduran Navy has fired at a boat presumed to be bringing cocaine from the coast to Oak Ridge area.

While a majority of Bay Islanders would like to have their economy be open like Sweden, Holland did, and the Honduran Central Government is determined to confine healthy islanders to their homes. That is unlikely to happen as Bay Islands are just a speckle of little importance on a map of countries that fell to the global agenda of eliminating individual freedoms, total surveillance and economic looting.

The “Red Alert” laws have quarantined healthy islanders and convinced them to give up their rights to worship, right to travel, and rights to assemble “for their own safety.” While fearful and confused the islanders submitted to the draconian measures, but when the dust settles they are likely to be left with less security and less freedoms.

Roatan is Getting a Well-Earned Makeover and Setting Up for a Wave of Economic Growth

The entire cost of these projects is over 16 billion lempiras, or over 650 million dollars. All that in a country with 2017 estimated budget of $4.6 billion revenue, a debt of $9.4 billion and running a13% yearly deficit. Still barely a fraction of these infrastructure funds ended up on the island of Roatan.

The money awarded for the paving in Honduras’ municipalities must go through a frustrating process of educating, lobbying, and convincing the constantly rotating cadre of Tegucigalpa bureaucrats. “Every time it’s a different person.Two months later they send a different person and it’s the same thing, the same process,” says Ing. Gustavo Isnardi, project manager at Bay Islands Development Company [BIDCC], about the ungrateful task of asking the central government to spend money on the island that is perceived as better off than mainland Honduras.

Compared to other Honduran Departments Roatan is a small fish. Yet the Bay Islands and Roatan punch well above its weight category bringing in tax revenue for the Tegucigalpa’s coffers. “The money that they throw here is nothing. It’s not even what we deserve,” says Ing. Isnardi, about the government infrastructure project.

The mainland taxes collected on the island pay for the central government contribution to the island: by the small public-school system, semi-competent police force, neglected public hospital and roads. Very often the impression that government officials base their decisions on for funding the road works on Roatan, is from their brief visits as tourists to West Bay, or from brochures. “They come here, they get into their nice Prados and they don’t get to see the bad areas,” remembers Ing. Isnardi.

Roatan’s geography has been a challenge for road builders since 1970s. The island’s meandering coastline and ridges had been a challenging place to build paved roads in the 1980s without the heavy equipment available today. The Plan Grande to Camp Bay roads have been a construction project that has built a road on top of the ridge dividing the south and north side of the islands. While this was the cheapest, easiest way to go, this solution proved many challenges for a long narrow island like Roatan.

This simplest way locating roads, has proven a challenge to developers attempting to access beachfront condos in West Bay, Parrot Tree and the defunct Oceano project. The costly construction of steep roads has been a detriment to developers and a hazard to drivers. Properties that lie next to each other are often accessed only by driving back to the main road and back again onto another road.

This is particularly the case between West Bay and West End, but also in Sandy Bay and the main road heading east from the Santos Guardiola border. The better alternative is to develop a road along the island’s coast, maybe 100-200 meters from shore. This was the case in Sandy Bay, and also between Coxen Hole and French Cay and to an extent in Flower’s Bay.

The new wave of road construction on Roatan was initiated after 2017 elections in Tegucigalpa and in the Roatan Municipality. While roads on the Honduras mainland have been steadily improving for the last several years, by the rainy season of 2017 the conditions of the main roads on Roatan became abysmal.

The latest 2018-2019 road repairs and road construction have changed how Roatanians move around the island and how visitors perceive the island. The money for these paving projects came from several sources.

INVEST-H funded a. 60 million Lempira project for patching roads from West Bay to Oak Ridge. They also funded exploration of a road connecting Plan Grande, curving by Pristine Bay and resurfacing by Crawfish Rock and continuing to Palmetto Bay to connect with the northern road that has already been made. When that is completed one could stay on a paved road from Plan Grande all the way to West End.

When Mayor Jerry Hynds took over the Municipality in January 2018, things began to happen. The prior Roatan Mayor Dorn Ebanks oversaw practically no municipal road construction in his 2014-2017 terms. In the spring of 2018, Roatan is burdened with roughly $700,000 debt from prior administration .The Central Government was coerced to pave as well.

First a stretch of road between Pensacola and Flowers Bay received a 2.5-kilometer white top paving. This was followed by a 2.2-kilometer concrete paving from Flowers Bay to the West Bay road intersection. Finally, a 4.5-kilometer construction from West End to West Bay. That paving job was done in a record two-and-a-half-month period. “This was the most complicated job I was ever involved in,” says Ing. Gustavo Isnardi Jr., who oversaw the road’s construction, with San Pedro Sula PRODECON. The road to West Bay was opened just before the Holy Week tourist rush of 2019.

While the average concrete thickness was six inches, with the oscillating worn out road some sections ended up being eight or nine inches thick. The older roads were 6.5 meters wide while the newly built northern road was seven meters wide.

The concrete used for white topping the new roads has 4,500 psi strength and cut into 1.25 meter sections. The rebar was placed at the middle joint. The concrete is then cut into sections 1.25 meters apart. “That distributes the weight of the vehicles more evenly,” says Ing. Isnardi. “This concrete is made for any type of traffic.”
The white topping of the existing roads caused traffic delays during the day. Paving at night was not feasible according to Ing. Isnardi. “Everything about paving at night is more difficult. Except the traffic,” says Ing. Isnardi. Paving at night would require paying the workers additional 25% premium. It would also require lighting, danger of drunk drivers running into workers or skidding into newly poured concrete. Still Ing. Isnardi’s men did work at night: on occasion they would begin working at 3am and would finish at 7 or 8pm, well after sunset.

According to Ing. Isnardi the government used to delay payment to contractors for one or two years. “You basically have to fund the project. You have to finance the project and you get into debt with the bank…,” said Ing. Isnardi. “It’s gotten better. It’s maybe three-four months now.”

The road building on Roatan comes in spurts.

Roatan’s main thoroughfare, the PO-35 is the national road. Few people know about the road’s status let alone numbering. The national road that was repaired from local taxes set a precedent. While many roads are declared national and their paving is the responsibility of the central government, it is the Roatan municipality with its roughly $12 million annual budget that picked up the bill for paving and repaving the national roads.

The central government takes out in taxes much more then it puts back into the island department. So, for the last several years Roatan found itself in a conundrum: to pave or to wait, to lobby the central government. While some contemplate the complexity of what to do, others see acting as the right answer. “If you wait for central government you could be waiting for ever,” says Edward Ake, owner of Island Concrete. The bitter pill is that Roatan taxpayers are spending their locally raised taxes subsidizing the central government because Bay Islands politicians are unable or unwilling to lobby the central government to pave the government roads.
Currently Bay Islands, and Gracias a Dios are the only two of 18 Honduran Departments that have only one congress representative in Honduran National Assembly. “We are only one congressman and he is the wrong color,” says Ake.

The Bay Islands, despite its growing population that has likely surpassed 100,000 people, is still estimated at 40,000 according to 2010 census. According to the Honduran Embassy, the Bay Islands are the least populated department in the country with only 49,158 people. “We have at least one hundred thousand people on the island,” says Ing. Isnardi. With that many people living in the department, Bay islands are eligible for a second seat in Congress and twice as much lobbying power as they have now.

Roatan Municipality has been relieving the central government from doing its responsibility – they pave roads to keep up with growth and investment on the island. The locally funded paving projects have improved the island’s resilience and made it independent form the central governments whims and tribulations. “The seed for growth of the island is infrastructure,” said Ake. “If you improve the infrastructure you improve the economy, you improve the standard of living, improve education, and improve the crime.”

On the eastern edge of the Roatan Municipality a L. 32 million, Municipal bid for the white top paving of the of 5.6 kilometers from Santos Guardiola Municipal border to French Harbor was awarded to Island Concrete. The work took place between August 2018 and January 2019 with the company placing, 6 inches concrete topping on top of the weathered, damaged and often destroyed main road.

Due to angulation of the road and dips that were filled with concrete, the concrete often reached eight and nine inches in depth. According to Island Concrete 6,731 cubic meters of concrete were used in the project. While the weather cooperated, there were delays and other issues. “The biggest challenge was traffic control,” said Edward Ake, about the job. “People were extremely patient and extremely helpful.”

Island Concrete got into Civil Construction in the early 2000s with several road paving projects. They paved the road in Coxen Hole, French Harbour and in French Cay. Jerry Hynds was in his second term as Mayor and dove into improving the infrastructure of his municipality, focusing on bridges and roads. “[Mayor] Jerry [Hynds] asked us to design us a road for 20 years, and you can see it’s going to outperform that,” said Edward Ake, owner of Island Concrete, about the paving in Coxen Hole.

plant and building roads by happenstance. Ake came to Roatan on a diving adventure in 1994. Back in England he was a research analyst for Merchant Bank and island life made him make a career U turn.

When in late 1990s a expat put up for sale a concrete mixing plant, two trucks and attractor, Ake found himself catapulted into the concrete business. The Englishman dove into educating himself in the concrete mixing technique through research, books and seminars. “You couldn’t do that in the First World. You could not be a non-specialist and grow with it,” says Ake who has a BA degree in Business from Coventry University.

In 1990s Roatan was very much a place where an idea and some resources could give you not only a job, but often a monopoly. “There was a limited knowledge here on the island,” said Ake. “By learning the necessary amount, you could already lead the market.” Said Ake.

Twenty-two years later Island Concrete is a firm doing engineering, design, general contracting and selling concrete to many projects around the island. In fact, Island Concrete has become a major player in constructing the island’s road infrastructure. The company has focused on projects on Roatan, but on occasion has ventured outside the island for projects. Island Concrete has also built a cruise ship terminal in Trujillo and concrete docks in Guanaja and on Santa Helena.

Arguably the biggest change in recent island road infrastructure was cutting and paving the northern road. The 8.8-kilometer road relieved traffic between French Harbour and Sandy Bay and opened opportunities for investors. Ing. Luis Alvarado paved a 8.8 kilometer stretch of road between Blue Harbour Plantation and Palmetto Bay Plantation and across to Dixon Cove.

The road included a 640meters extension heading to Palmetto Bay Plantation, the cost of paving was of Lps. 49.5 Million and the entire project cost with earth moving and materials was Lps. 120 million, or $4.9 million. “The biggest challenge was doing the earthworks and stabilization of the swampy areas like Mudhole and Corozal, and installing all the storm water piping because all of the little creeks,” says Ing. Alvarado, who has 24 years building roads and infrastructure projects all over Honduras, Argentina and Germany.

The new paved northern road doesn’t always follow the dirt road that connected Sandy Bay and Corozal for the last few decades. The Roatan Municipality with Dale Jackson heading the effort made the road much straighter and wider. “Because of relationships he was able to negotiate with the landowners, I’ll take a bit here and give a bit here,” says Ake. “It’s built like a road should be built.”

Ake has nothing but compliments about the northern road. “They have done a remarkable job cutting it. Its first class,” says Ake about the northern road. “He made a road as a road should look. He didn’t just work with what he had.”

The north road not only made small, forgotten communities more accessible, but has lessened congestion and shortened a commute between Sandy Bay and French Harbour by 20 minutes. “It has opened up quicker access to the north coast side, Corozal, Hottest Sparrow, Palmetto, places that a lot of people would never even have considered purchasing real estate prior,” said Marci Weisman, an American realtor who has lived on the island since 1999. “We have only seen the tip of the growth, growing more in the near future for Roatan.”

Building a road on such a beautifully, visited by tourist island, is not just about cutting and paving. The road should be cost effective, environmentally friendly, and fit in with island esthetics. A major element in environmental road construction is balancing the cut and fill used. Whatever is cut should be used on the same project. That has not always been the case.

For the last several years Roatan found itself in a conundrum.

Honduras’ 298 municipalities receive funds to improve the existing road system. In 2019 The 24 million Pls. project was funded by the Honduras government from annual car registration fees. Ing. Alex Licona, from Tegucigalpa oversaw the projects that improved the road from the Megaplaza mall to Crawfish Rock, stabilized the New Port Royal road of 2.4 km, and Pandy Town’s road of 1.85 km was improved as well. According to Ing. Licona the grading project has also brought improvement to the drainage of the roads with 140 meters of pipe being laid underneath the existing roads.

Another project was the road patching and stabilization done from West Bay to Oak Ridge. The potholes were stabilized and filled in with asphalt. And a sealer with 3/8” gravel was placed on top to extend the life of the asphalt road. The more than 50 kilometers project cost 60 million Lps. and was paid by INVESTH, funded by Honduras’ Fondo Vial and paid from car registrations.

INSEPH in Tegucigalpa bid out a 600 meter stretch of the road, white topping from French Harbour to the Megaplaza Mall. Cordon’s Heavy Equipment from El Progreso won that bid. The company also won the bid from the Roatan Municipality for the construction of a three-lane road from Santa Maria to the Airport. Centrally located community of Dixon Cove is likely to become a hub for the island with the Galaxy ferry terminal, Mahogany Bay cruise ship terminal, a new hospital and a new municipal building just within500-meter radius.

Cordon’s Heavy Equipment has also won a concrete paving of 600 meters from Bojangles to ACE hardware store. In mid-November they moved their equipment to a base in Dixon Cove and are set to begin construction just as rainy season has begun. Crawfish Rock and Spanish Town road are also part of the bid preparation.

Over the last 10 years the island has been switching its original asphalt road system to concrete. “It’s a higher initial investment, but it’s less maintenance, better quality,” says Ake. “It’s greener. You don’t have the oils from the asphalt leaching.” The lower maintenance cost in maintaining concrete roads in key for the island municipalities.

While it is the central government that is responsible for the road building and the maintenance of the road surface, it is the local municipal authorities that are responsible to keep the culverts free from debris and trim the vegetation around the road. “The problem is its left individually up to the mayor to determine what gets done. And some mayors are very good about it and some mayors have not been,” says Ake. “There should be a process. Not just the mayor determining now there it is close to winter we should start cleaning. The engineering department should have it in the budget.”

‘Programa de mantenimiento’ is a system of local government maintaining a national government infrastructure like roads, and bridges. It is the local municipalities that are responsible for cleaning the road culverts, cleaning the gutters, trimming the vegetation and maintaining the roads free of debris.

The paving of the north coast road has been a huge improvement not just to the area but to the whole entire island.

Now that West End of Roatan has been practically crisscrossed by pavement and subdivided into developments, the island’s eastern half remains wide open.

Paving from Punta Gorda to Camp Bay, a stretch of around 8 kilometers has been on the horizon for over a decade. New strides have been made; making this project happen in preparation for the future construction of the paved main road east of Punta Gorda has already been made. The idea is to connect via concrete pavement the little developed communities of Camp Bay, Port Royal, Calabash Bight to Oak Ridge Road. “Maybe in a year this would be a bid,” says Ing. Isnardi. An economic growth spur for the entire island is on the horizon.