US embassy cable - 03TEGUCIGALPA2938

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