Reuters IT took just seconds to ignite the fire that killed more than 350 inmates in a Honduran prison on Valentine's Day, but the country's messy spiral into lawlessness has been years in the making. One of the world's worst prison fires has turned a spotlight on the crime, corruption and weak government that has made Honduras a case study for a nation in crisis. Once a treasured hub for US geopolitical interests in Central America, it is better known today as the world's most murderous country. Rampant lawlessness, poverty and a crumbling justice system has left the coffee-exporting nation of some 8 million people battered by ultra-violent gangs and drug cartels. Gunmen have taken control of slums and villages, well aware that the police are ineffective and corrupt. “Our neighborhoods have become war zones,” says Jennifer Castellanos, whose son was gunned down in San Pedro Sula, Honduras' most violent city. “Where is the government to protect us?” Often, it is working with the perpetrators. In November, President Porfirio Lobo of the conservative National Party, fired his police chiefs and arrested another 176 officers on murder, kidnap and drug charges. “We have to get rid of the rotten apples,” Lobo said. But critics say the corruption is systemic. Saddled with one of the weakest economies in the Western hemisphere, nearly 70 percent of the population live in poverty. Many see crime as their only option. Or they leave, making the long trek to the United States. Street gangs known as Maras have morphed into deadly organized crime syndicates, while Mexican drug traffickers buy up land and recruit their own squads of killers. For those who run afoul of the law, justice can be a far horizon. Nearly half of the country's prisoners have not been convicted and many wait years before they even get a hearing. Others die in jailhouse stabbings, shootings or fires like the one which surged through the Comayagua prison, trapping prisoners screaming in their cells as they burned alive. One bone-thin gang member calling himself Flavio is typical of a new generation of street thugs driving the violence in Honduras. Growing up with a poor single mother in a slum in the bustling capital Tegucigalpa, Flavio joined a Mara gang and left home before he had barely entered his teens. __
