Panchamé, who was a member of the ruling Partido Nacional, will also be charged with attempted homicide for trying to run down two police officers who tried to arrest him in the western department of Olancho. Panchamé is attempting to hide behind his legislative immunity from prosecution, but the president of congress, Porfirio Lobo, said that the legislature will not serve as a shield for criminal behaviour.
Honduras has toughened up on drug trafficking since it was blacklisted by the US earlier this year for failing to pull its weight in the war against drugs. It has since shot down two planes, carrying over a tonne of cocaine, in two separate incidents on the border with El Salvador. These were the biggest seizures for several years.
New anti-crime policies. President Ricardo Maduro has launched his long-awaited second drive against violent crime. He has asked the national assembly to pass legislation to severely punish members of violent street gangs, popularly known as 'maras'. Under Maduro's new legislation, merely being a member of such a gang will be punishable by 9-12 years in prison.
The proposal has met with a mixed reception: business groups applauding it, humanitarian groups deriding it as likely to achieve the opposite effect and actually increase crime. They argue that it will only be successful if the government tackles the roots of violent crime, namely poverty (at 79% Honduras boasts the highest rate in Latin America), unemployment, corruption and drug trafficking. The police force itself is corrupt and needs to be purged, the Honduran committee for the defence of human rights (Codeh by the Spanish acronym) argues.
An intense police operation in the capital Tegucigalpa earlier this week resulted in the arrest of 50 maras.
NICARAGUA / Free Alemán? The opposition Sandinistas have teamed up with the rump of the liberal party, which is loyal to former President Arnoldo Alemán, to divide up the supreme court (CSJ). This is a serious political reverse for President Enrique Bolaños, who had sought to reform the CSJ by filling it with independent justices rather than partisan members.
The CSJ is composed of 16 justices. Nine new members were sworn in yesterday -five Sandinistas and four Arnoldistas. The court has been short five members since June last year when their mandates ran out. The other four justices replace those whose terms expire in September. This will leave the Sandinistas and the liberal party (Arnoldistas) with seven seats apiece, thus ensuring a continuation of the political duopoly at the top of the judicial system and thwarting Bolaños's reform drive.
Bolaños could seek legal advice as to the constitutionality of the election of the justices by the national assembly. In accordance with the constitution, the justices should have been elected one candidate at a time not en masse. Speculation is rife among the local media and political analysts that the 38 Sandinista legislators and the 41 liberals loyal to Alemán (an overwhelming majority in the national assembly) formed a consensus on the supreme court appointees in order to secure the release of Alemán, who is under house arrest on corruption charges. The Sandinistas, however, are far more intent on shoring up their own power base than colluding in the release of Alemán. It was, after all, their support which enabled Bolaños to successfully strip Alemán of his parliamentary immunity from prosecution to face corruption charges last December.
PANAMA /Debt-for-nature. Panama has signed a debt-for-nature swap with the US under which it will protect endangered wildlife in the 130,000-ha Chagres river basin, the main basin of the Panama canal, in exchange for a reduction in its debt payments to the US. It is the sixth such swap under the Tropical Forest Conservation Act, drawn up in 1998. Peru, Belize and El Salvador have also signed similar agreements.
Panama's debt payments will be reduced by US$10m over the next 14 years, the US Treasury revealed. The government will feed the money into a development fund, which will cover the cost of more park rangers and the implementation of conservation programmes. The park is renowned for being the home of some 560 bird species, including the harpy eagle, the largest eagle in the world and Panama's national bird. The US will provide a further US$5.6m for the fund, and the international NGO The Nature Conservancy (TNC), US$1.2m.
The deal was signed by economy and finance minister Norberto Delgado and the US ambassador to Panama, Linda Watt, who earlier this week presented a second batch of heavy all-terrain vehicles for deployment in the Darién border region with Colombia, taking the total provided so far to 14. Panama's President Mireya Moscoso recently paid a visit to Washington where she agreed with US counterpart George Bush to establish a framework for a bilateral free-trade agreement. Bush said he would instruct US trade representative Robert Zoellick to 'accommodate' Panama. Zoellick will be charged with choosing a model for the negotiations from the current US-Cafta or the recently-concluded FTAs with Singapore or Chile.
Moscoso has come under pressure for failing to get Panama included in the US-Cafta trade accords being negotiated with the rest of Central America. Panama is keen to narrow a large trade deficit with the US: at some US$1bn, imports from the US are three times the value of Panama's exports to the States.
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