Location: Municipality of Guajiquiro, Department of La Paz, Honduras, Central America

Resource: Pine forests. Guajiquiro has been declared a biological reserve because it has five of the seven species of pine identified in Honduras.

1. Guajiquiro is one of the last remaining Lenca communities which still retain many of their traditions, despite evidence of transculturalization and syncretism of magical and religious elements.
2. Guajiquiro forms an enclave in a mountain region known as La Sierra which is one of the poorest in Honduras, with an indigenous population whose per capita income, according to a 1990 study, is just 28% of the national average.
3. Although governed by the country's general laws, the municipality has adopted the Consejo Municipal de Desarrollo [Municipal Development Council] (COMDE) model as a modality for local participation in decisionmaking on matters concerning the community. The COMDE is not included by name in the Honduran Municipalities Law, which makes no reference to its structure and functioning or the scope of its authority; nevertheless, it operates efficiently.
4. The COMDE was organized by an Integrated Rural Development Program run by the Honduran Government with Swiss funding back in the 1980s. The writer, in his capacity as Director of a similar program (Integral Rural Development Project - PROINTEGRAL) executed over a five-year period by a consortium of private development organizations with financial sponsorship from the Inter-American Foundation (IAF), was familiar with the experiment, observed it in operation, and had the opportunity to support its consolidation indirectly through the different training and rural development projects carried out by PROINTEGRAL in 12 of the 42 Guajiquiro communities.

Guajiquiro is a small town of some 450 inhabitants, all of Lenca origin. The Lenca were one of the most numerous indigenous peoples at the time of the arrival of the Spanish and the ones most representative of the national identity. The town is located 140 km southwest of Tegucigalpa, in the department of La Paz, at an altitude of 1,800 m above sea level on the slopes of the cordillera known as La Sierra. It is assumed that the people moved there around 1524 after the Spanish began to subjugate the country, abandoning their sacred city of Tenampúa and other settlements in the flatlands of the Comayagua Valley. However, Spanish influence made itself felt very quickly even in their new location; the construction of the town's simple and unpretentious church goes back to 1550, making it one of the oldest in the country.

Guajiquiro, whose name in the Lenca language is said to mean Water Basket or Container, is one of the two Lenca towns (the other is Yamaranguila in the department of Intibucá) which have best preserved many of the traditions of their past. The Lenca language died out around 1925, but in the communities of Guajiquiro municipality especially, many of the customs of their Lenca ancestors are still practiced, much in private, although now inextricably mixed with catholic rites.

The Spanish colonial administration brought in the concept of the municipality for public administration purposes; however, the persistence of certain indigenous customs led the Spanish to introduce what was known as the Alcaldía de la Vara Alta, which allowed the indigenous peoples to elect their own authorities to manage certain aspects of their community life, while the alcaldes (mayors), elected or appointed by the executive branch, retained "official" final authority for decisions on the main points of public administration at their level.

The first Honduran Municipalities Law dates back to 1927, but in the 1950s the State centralized public administration and almost completely eliminated municipal autonomy. The municipalities were replaced by Local Districts and the chiefs of these districts were appointed by the Ministry of Administration and Justice, through the respective Gobernaciones Políticas (local government authorities) in each department

In the early 1960s the municipality was reintroduced in public administration; however, the mayors continued to be appointed in the same way as were the local district chiefs and their sphere of authority and responsibility was so limited that they were nothing more than a third or fourth-line administrator in the governmental structure.

In 1990 a new Municipalities Law was promulgated which restored the system of election by the people of mayors and the entire municipal corporation, the latter being made up of a variable number of councilmen based on the number of inhabitants in the municipality concerned. This law also restored municipal autonomy, granting the mayors broad powers and authority for administering their municipalities, while as the same time assigning them important responsibilities for the protection of natural resources and the environment, in coordination with the state agencies charged with oversight of each particular resource. However, this election was by one signal ballot, which also included the department deputies and the President of the Republic, so that voting tended to be more by party planks than by the personal qualities and qualifications of the candidates.

This was changed when it came to the 1997 elections, when separate ballots were introduced for voting for the President of the Republic, deputies and mayors. Although spectacular results were not to be expected the first time round, the citizen vote clearly displayed a discriminating approach in the selecting of its mayors. With more experience, intensification of political and civic experience and refining of the system the people will undoubtedly be able to exercise more informed participation in electing their authorities. But the matter does not stop there.

The basic problem is how to achieve true citizen participation on decisionmaking regarding the nation's fundamental policies and directions. At the municipal level there has always been what is termed the Cabildo Abierto (open town meeting) as an option the mayor can use in seeking counsel when faced with a very delicate problem going beyond the decision capacity of the municipal cooperation. However, the purely consultative character -- possibly extending into the formulation of proposals -- of the Cabildo Abierto means that its views or recommendations are not binding on the mayor, who retains the last word, together with the municipal corporation. The Cabildo Abierto is made up of such citizens who freely choose to attend upon the open invitation extended by the mayor on one specific occasion, and it ends as soon as the meeting in question is over, without further significant consequences.

The new Municipalities Law envisions formation of a Consejo de Desarrollo Municipal (CODEM) made up of what are referred to as the Fuerzas Vivas of the municipality, i.e. the public and private organizations that operate within it boundaries. In the majority of cases, these CODEMs are simply decorative, nonfunctional and innocuous bodies that do not serve as effective channels of citizen participation and expression. But what is happening in Guajiquiro is different.

Throughout the 1980s, the MARGOAS program operated in a large area having as its administrative centers Marcala in the department of La Paz and Goascorán in Valle department, in southwest Honduras. This was a joint program of the Honduran and Swiss governments that was set up to promote the integrated development of this zone, which is one of the most poverty-stricken in the country. As part of its multiple actions, the MARGOAS program sought to help strengthen the municipal authorities, to which end it promoted the organization of a social structure called the COMDE (Consejo Municipal de Desarrollo, or Municipal Development Council) as a citizen-participation body that acts in support of the municipal structure, but itself lies outside of the legal structure.

Although COMDEs were organized in all the municipalities within the area in which the MARGOAS program operated, inexplicably only in Guajiquiro did it take on a life of its own with the enthusiastic involvement of the citizenry and is still functioning successfully thirteen years later, more as a result of the communities' active validation than the backing of the mayor's office.

The COMDE is made up of one representative and one alternate for each of the 42 hamlets and settlements forming the municipality of Guajiquiro. These representatives are generally the presidents of the community boards who are elected by meetings of each community for varying terms of office as specified by the community. The COMDE meets on the first Thursday of each month, in the municipal hall, and no fewer than 90% of the representatives must be in attendance. Although the meeting is chaired by the mayor, for the purposes and duration of the meeting he is no longer the mayor but the COMDE Coordinator, with appreciably limited authority.

A typical COMDE meeting will first review implementation of and compliance with the resolutions of the previous meeting, then discuss current problems in each and every one of the communities and make decisions with a view to resolving them. Compliance with COMDE resolutions is mandatory, even though they may be contrary to the views expressed or resolutions passed by the Municipal Corporation.

One of the Lenca population's greatest concerns has always been care of their forests, since they consider them to be a heritage from their forefathers and virtually their sole community asset.

As a result, an obligatory agenda item at almost all COMDE meetings is review of the status and condition of the natural resources. There have been concrete instances when the COMDE has blocked or revoked decisions by the municipality concerning the community's forests:

1. Prohibition of extraction of timber in log form by loggers both from the zone and from outside of it, including erection of roadblocks and seizure of trucks to enforce the prohibition.
2. Prohibition, notwithstanding permission already given by the mayor, of extraction of bromeliads and other nonlumber products.
3. Cancellation of the operating permit of a manual sawing cooperative, made up of residents of the zone and producing pine lumber, but without the required management plan.
4. Opposition to a lumber concession already verbally given by the mayor to a resident of the municipality, a serving Honduran army officer.
5. Revocation of a municipal resolution granting a lumbering concession to an important entrepreneur in Tegucigalpa.

The orthodox concept of democracy differs from the view held by the Lencas, so programs to strengthen democracy are probably without meaning for them or violate customs that are best left as they are; nevertheless, this does not mean that there are no forms of citizen participation that are not just as legitimate as those that promote the democratic system. The important thing is to pinpoint what makes them work and help to strengthen them. The decisionmaking in community meetings or in the COMDE itself is not necessarily by voting; decision are almost always made by consensus; i.e. if nobody is opposed the matter is approved; other times the meeting will defer to the authority of the elders and, clearly, established authority is recognized and respected.

The COMDE demonstrates that, while there is certainly some residual "bossism", maybe more strongly evident in some communities than in others, it is possible to stimulate citizen participation processes and open up spaces for formal discussion of matters of common interest. Not just to criticize actions by the authorities, but also to propose solutions.

Established authority functions better when it knows there is a citizen body capable of checking up on its actions and holding it to account for them.