Arab pride of Honduras: over the past century, Arab immigrants have been key to the commercial and political life of this Central American nation.

• Author: Luxner, Larry

In a small, brightly decorated classroom at the Escuela Trilingue San Juan Bautista in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, eighteen little boys and girls gaze intently at the blackboard as their teacher, Bethlehem-born Buthaina de Bandy, writes out the morning's Arabic lesson.

School rector George Faraj, who is taking a couple of visitors around this sunny day, peeks in the classroom, exchanges a "Sabah al-Kher" (good morning) with the teacher and continues onto his office, which is dominated by a framed map of Palestine and a large blue-and-white Honduran flag.

"This is the only trilingual school of its kind in Central America," Faraj says proudly. "We have 155 students from kindergarten through ninth grade, and all of them learn English, Spanish, and Arabic. We also emphasize religion, but of course it's not the main purpose of the school."

Down the street, at the Iglesia Ortodoxa de Antioquia San Juan Bautista, religion is the main purpose. Father Boulos E. Moussa, known by his parishioners as "Padre Pablo," says 220 families belong to the church, which was consecrated in 1963.

"Most of the Arabs in Honduras are Christians who were escaping injustice," says the forty-seven-year-old Moussa, who was born in Tartus, Syria, and arrived in Honduras in 1995 after ministering to Christian Arabs in Venezuela for twelve years. "Here they live in a free environment. We can never forget this. As long as we respect the laws of Honduras, nobody tells us what to do."

And nobody does. Over the years, Arabs have quietly become a potent force in this small country, with an influence in its business and political life that is unparalleled in the Western Hemisphere.

Statistics are very difficult to come by, though it's generally agreed that between 150,000 and 200,000 of the six million inhabitants of Honduras are of Palestinian descent--the highest proportion of any Latin American nation. In absolute numbers, only Chile has more Palestinians.

While 3 percent of the population may not sound like much--and it isn't--the fact is that most of the country's leading businessmen are Arabs. Among them: free-zone and textile entrepreneur Juan Canahuati, mattress maker George Elias Mitri, and shoe manufacturer Roberto Handal. Palestinian Arabs also occupy many important positions within the Honduran government, including former president Carlos Flores Facusse, whose mother--like many of the early settlers--hailed from Bethlehem.

Another influential Honduran of Palestinian descent is coffee exporter Oscar Kafati, the country's former minister of industry and commerce.

"My grandfather was one of the first Arabs in Honduras," Kafati says. "He came at the end of the nineteenth century, from Beit Jala. He was heading for Colombia, where he had a very rich friend. But he didn't like it there, so he decided to visit friends from Beit Jala who were already living in Honduras. I admire those first immigrants like my grandfather, because they arrived in the country without speaking the language."

Kafati's family has been in the coffee business since 1933. Gabriel Kafati S.A. is the principal coffee roaster of Honduras, and the company owns nearly three thousand acres of coffee plantations in El Paraiso, near the Nicaraguan border.

"I was born in 1930, and I grew up in the business," Kafati says. "I later joined the diplomatic corps and was ambassador to Egypt for...