DRUGS-HONDURAS: Accord will Violate Sovereignty, Officials Say

By Thelma Mejía Reprint | | Print |

Thelma Mejia

TEGUCIGALPA, Jun 19 1996 (IPS) - An anti-drug accord to be signed with the United States has awakened fears in the government and parliament of Honduras that national sovereignty will be violated and the country will become a “rented republic.”

Attorney-general Edmundo Orellana said the accord will be beneficial for the country but that the terms of it must be carefully studied, because “national sovereignty must not be yielded.”

The United States wants the agreement due to be signed within the next three months to authorise the entry of its boats and aircraft into Honduran territory for operations against drug traffickers, which would be under the direction of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

According to preliminary versions of the accord made public by the press, the functions of the DEA would be backed by diplomatic immunity, and its operations would be carried out without the need of local authorisation.

“We have made some objections, because accepting the accord the way the United States wants it to stand would be to violate our national dignity. And we are not prepared to accept such actions,” said Orellana.

He added that Honduras has proposed the participation of local personnel in the anti-drug operations – a suggestion that has been resisted by the United States.

The president of the congressional Commission against Drug Trafficking, Carlos Sosa, who recently announced the upcoming treaty, said it will curb drug trade activity in the country. But lawmaker Byron Suazo of the governing Liberal Party countered that the accord is an attack on sovereignty, and warned that the United States “will practically come in as if it owned the place.”

Honduran President Carlos Reina said this week that “national sovereignty will not be violated under any conditions….We would never allow violation of sovereignty. On the contrary, what the convention will do is help Honduras and humanity in the fight against drugs.”

Sosa insisted that Honduras will exercise full sovereignty, and that the negotiations respond to a new U.S. stance regarding that concern. Countries like Costa Rica, Belize, Jamaica, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama form part of the new U.S. anti-drug model, he said, “which far from violating sovereignties, seeks to generate technical assistance for an effective fight against drug trafficking.”

The spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, Paul Koselka, said DEA participation is urgently needed in anti-drug operations.

Negotiations of an accord with the United States have stemmed from the growing presence of drug traffickers in Honduras over the past six years. The country has evolved from a bridge in the drug trade to a money laundering consumer nation rumoured to be equipped with small cartels and cocaine laboratories.