Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
In Latin America, U.S. focus shifts
government security forces firing on unarmed demonstrators, according to Amnesty International.
Despite the turmoil, the Trump administration announced Dec. 7 that it was certifying the Honduran government’s compliance with a 12-point program to improve human rights and corruption safeguards. The certification is required to release its share of nearly $650 million in U.S. aid allocated this year for three Central American countries.
Hernandez used the certification to claim U.S. support for his government and his candidacy.
“On behalf of the Honduran people, I thank the United States and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for recognizing our progress,” Hernandez said last week.
His supporters claimed a boost Saturday when Heide Fulton, the top-ranking U.S. diplomat in Honduras, appeared beside an embattled electoral commission official who critics say helped Hernandez commit fraud.
Fulton said she believed a planned partial vote recount would resolve “irregularities” and said the United States is “ready to work with whomever is the winner.”
Most of the opposition is demanding a complete new election.
Tillerson, in certifying Honduras, said the country had taken “effective steps” to counter criminal gangs, drug traffickers and organized crime, as well as protect the rights and lives of political dissidents, journalists and others.
Human rights activists counter that the country’s sky-high homicide rate has fallen but killings of journalists, environmentalists, trade unionists and others remain a serious problem. They also say Hernandez and members of his government are dogged by accusations of looting a public health fund as well as drug trafficking.
Congressional Democrats who specialize in Latin America expressed dismay at the State Department action.
“Certifying (Honduras) in the middle of election crisis is a huge blunder,” Rep. Norma Torres, D-Calif., who was born in Guatemala, wrote on Twitter, asking if the State Department was “biased, head in the sand, or just incompetent?”
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said U.S. diplomats were “keeping a close eye” on Honduras.
Congress allotted about $650 million in the 2017 budget for Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala in an effort to cut crime and improve economic conditions there sufficiently to stem immigration.
Hernandez has appeared eager to cooperate, making him a favored, known commodity in Washington.
The Trump administration wants “continuity with Hernandez, who they know will support policies on drug interdiction and undocumented immigration,” said Rosemary Joyce, an anthropologist at University of California, Berkeley who has studied Honduras for decades.
Hugo Noe Pino, a prominent economist in Honduras who supports Hernandez’s opponent, said Washington has helped legitimize the embattled electoral tribunal, citing Fulton’s appearance, even as international election observers have raised questions of possible fraud.
One reason, he said, is Hernandez has a friend in the White House. Trump’s chief of staff, John F. Kelly, had led U.S. Southern Command, which has a task force in Honduras.
But Pino said the U.S. strategy could backfire.
“People feel deceived and frustrated,” he said. “If Hernandez is declared winner, it will create more instability” and probably push more illegal immigration northward.