HONDURAS INDICATES IT WILL SIGN UN ANTICORRUPTION

UNCLAS TEGUCIGALPA 002938

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

STATE FOR INL, INL/C, AND IO/UNP
STATE FOR WHA, WHA/CEN, AND WHA/PPC

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV KTIA KCRM KJUS EFIN ECON PHUM SOCI HO
SUBJECT: HONDURAS INDICATES IT WILL SIGN UN ANTICORRUPTION
CONVENTION

REF: A. TEGUCIGALPA 2221

B. TEGUCIGALPA 2757


1. (SBU) Honduras was surprisingly absent among the 94
countries that gathered December 11 in Merida, Mexico to sign
the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. According
to press reports, apart from Honduras, the only other Latin
American and Caribbean countries not to sign were Uruguay,
Belize, the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, and Jamaica. Some
two weeks before the signing ceremony, Marco Bogran, Legal
Advisor to the Ministry of the Presidency, had told PolOff
that Honduras would in fact be among the original convention
signatories.


2. (SBU) In comments before the Honduran press, Foreign
Minister Leonidas Rosa Bautista said the Government of
Honduras (GOH) was still in the process of internal
consultations regarding the convention and had been unable to
reach a consensus before the signing ceremony. However,
based on PolOff's conversations with other high ranking MFA
officials, it appears the GOH was simply caught unaware and
unprepared for the convention ceremony. At this point, it is
unclear whether the Honduran mission to the UN ever informed
the MFA about the convention. (Comment: On December 18, the
International Court of Justice in The Hague announced its
decision on El Salvador's request to revise the court's
original 1992 decision demarcating the Honduras - El Salvador
border in Honduras' favor (ref A & septel). The border
demarcation issue continues to be among the MFA's highest
priorities (ref B),and much of its energy these last few
weeks has been focused on this issue. As such, many high
ranking MFA officials are in The Hague attending to the
court's proceedings and were not available to focus on the UN
Anticorruption Convention. End Comment)


3. (SBU) On December 17, Wendy Flores, Director for
Multinational Affairs at the MFA, told PolOff that Honduras
would indeed sign the convention, but she was not sure
exactly when. PolOff encouraged the MFA to move the signing
process forward as soon as possible so as to avoid sending
the wrong type of signals to the international community.


4. (SBU) Post will continue to encourage Honduras to sign
the convention and closely monitor Honduras' progress on this
issue.
Palmer