Clinton Presses Region to Recognize Honduras

By ELISABETH MALKIN, Published: March 5, 2010

MEXICO CITY — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ended a five-day tour of Latin America Friday with a lightning trip to Guatemala, where she promised Central American presidents more help to fight drug trafficking and repeated her call for more countries to recognize the new government of Honduras.

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Hillary Clinton urges Latin America to fight drug corruption
By Anne-Marie O'Connor, Saturday, March 6, 2010

MEXICO CITY -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called for Latin America to fight drug corruption in a regional swing that ended Friday in Guatemala, days after that country's drug czar and national police chief were jailed on suspicion of leading a police ring that stole cocaine from drug traffickers.

The arrests underscored Guatemala's vulnerability to traffickers, whose billions of dollars in profits and bribes are undermining a fragile country still recovering from years of military rule and civil war.

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Clinton has said that despite increased cooperation in the region against drug traffickers, the Obama administration wants governments there to work harder to confront corruption.

Upon arriving in Guatemala, she praised the arrests and called on officials to "weed out corruption." Congress has authorized $1.6 billion for fighting drug trafficking in Mexico, Central America, the Dominican Republic and Haiti under the three-year Merida Initiative.

"We're going to be asking more of a lot of our friends," Clinton said earlier during a stop in Costa Rica. "A number of them are not respecting democratic institutions. A number of them are not taking strong enough stands against the erosion of the rule of law because of the pressure from drug traffickers."

Guatemala has one of the highest rates of violent crime in the world. Drug traffickers and gangs have revived insecurities in the impoverished people, who are recovering from a 36-year civil war that killed 200,000 people, most of them civilians.

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-- Edited by Sanders on Monday 8th of March 2010 10:33:33 PM