By Melissa Shadrick
OXFORD, OH -- Last Wednesday, Miami University guest lecturer Tomas Ayuso shared the harrowing tale of his exploration into dilemmas within the Honduran state.
Honduran native and photojournalist Tomas Ayuso presented his project “The Right To Grow Old” to students of Miami University in a stunning photo set and interactive lecture. The event hosted by the International Studies and Latin American Studies departments showcased his photographs of life and gang violence in Central America today. In the lecture given at Miami University’s famous Farmers School of Business, Ayuso explained why organized crime holds so much power within Honduran society.
Covering this series of issues, Ayuso specifically discussed the impact of organized crime within Honduras. That, the people of the collapsing communities of Honduras are seeking shelter across borders due to the overall instability of the nation. Ayuso opened his talk by describing the three factors he believed to be key in causing Honduran displacement - stating, political instability, crime, and climate change economic disposition as the three main factors in describing displacement.
The engaging visual presentation included photographs from Ayuso’s many travels abroad - specifically in Central America. When explaining the main issues of Honduras Ayuso explains, “Majority of Hondurans slide in the margins of society.” Then continued to pose the question as to why there is no Honduran form of Nelson Mandela. His answer? “If you raise your head even a little bit you get shot.” With this point, he continued to explain the oppressive nature of both the government and Honduran police.
Looking at Honduras it is hard to determine how bad the state of the nation really is from an outside perspective due to the closed-off nature of the Honduran government. In front of the students, Ayuso explained that the start of the issue stemmed from the right-wing party of Honduras attempting to double down as a means to continue to plunder the country. As a response, this triggered a mass mobilization of the people - responding with great violence - as an attempt to stop this. As a result, citizens stormed the Presidential Palace of Honduras. Honduran police attacked with batons, lives fire, and tear gas working to combat citizen protestors. Due to the nature of the attacks, the protests quickly turned violent. From his personal experience at the protest, Ayuso stated, “if you looked into the crowd you didn’t see any Honduran flags, it's become a one-party state.” The protest itself left Ayuso personally injured with a broken rib, that being just one of the many injuries received from his travels throughout
Honduras. The extent of the injuries ranging from rib fissures to kidnappings and being shot at. So - when commenting on the nature of the violence in Honduras as a whole Ayuso stated comically, “From what I understand Chicago has the worst gang violence in America...well, I’m here to tell you Honduras would make Chicago look like Sesame Street.”
When asked to explain why he believed the situation has not improved in Honduras Ayuso answered, “The political elite in Honduras are responsible for what's happening, the states and the institutions have a responsibility... Secondly, As long as the drug war happens there will be viable income for this to continue... As long as the U.S. has a cocaine problem, this issue will exist. Though despite a tremulous road, Ayuso pushed on dedicated to sharing the true story of the situation in Honduras. In the discussion portion, Ayuso addressed the reason behind the project stating, “I have a genetic predisposition to be intolerant towards injustice so I have a calling to go to these place “someone's gotta do it” Sometimes the people that go and tell these stories bring their biases with them.”
After the lecture, students hurried about the room discussing the lecture, highlighting key points, and reveling in the information just learned. Miami University junior, and political science major Jacob Harold stated, “I think the lecture brought interesting insight to a topic far from what Is usually in my immediate realm. This lecture isn’t something I’d usually attend but I was pleasantly surprised, Ayuso made me feel both compassion and fear for the Honduran nation...” when asked about the lecture.