[Politics] Xiomara Castro: How Honduras Became an "Uncomfortable Ally" of the US (and What Can Change Under a Left Presidency)

[S e u o n g]

 

When the head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, congratulated Xiomara Castro on his historic victory in the Honduran presidential election, he warned that the two countries "enjoy a long-standing relationship."

"We hope to work with the next government of Honduras," said the US Secretary of State in a statement issued on Tuesday night, after confirming the triumph of Castro, with whom the left will return to power in the Central American country.

Although the text does not say so, Washington considers Tegucigalpa an ally on priority issues for the White House such as the control of migration and drug trafficking.

However, the last 12 years of the conservative government in Honduras were marked by corruption and drug trafficking scandals that involved current President Juan Orlando Hernández and some of his close associates.

Hernández himself was singled out by US prosecutors as a co-conspirator during a drug trafficking trial of his brother Tony, sentenced to life in prison in March in New York.

 

 

No formal charges have been filed so far against President Hernández, who denies having ties to drug trafficking and claims to fight it.

But Honduras has become "an annoying ally" for the United States, argues Juan Jiménez Mayor, a former Peruvian justice minister who headed the Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (Maccih) between 2016 and 2018.

"The strategic position of Honduras in Central America (specifically due to its proximity to Nicaragua) makes it indispensable, even more so in the current scenario as the Northern Triangle is decomposing," Jiménez Mayor tells BBC Mundo, referring to the area they form. Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

The question is what can change in the relationship between the US and Honduras when the leftist Castro takes office on January 27 as the first woman president in the history of this country.

 

LINK: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-59500272