US embassy cable - 04TEGUCIGALPA2644

Disclaimer: This site has been first put up 15 years ago. Since then I would probably do a couple things differently, but because I've noticed this site had been linked from news outlets, PhD theses and peer rewieved papers and because I really hate the concept of "digital dark age" I've decided to put it back up. There's no chance it can produce any harm now.

HONDURAS SHARES CONCERNS OVER VAGUE UNESCO DRAFT

Identifier: 04TEGUCIGALPA2644
Wikileaks: View 04TEGUCIGALPA2644 at Wikileaks.org
Origin: Embassy Tegucigalpa
Created: 2004-11-24 20:26:00
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Tags: ETRD ECON HO WTO UNESCO
Redacted: This cable was not redacted by Wikileaks.
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS TEGUCIGALPA 002644 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EB/TPP/MTA/MST, IO/T, AND WHA/CEN 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ETRD, ECON, HO, WTO, UNESCO 
SUBJECT: HONDURAS SHARES CONCERNS OVER VAGUE UNESCO DRAFT 
 
REF: State 238056 
 
1.  Post delivered reftel talking points to Ambassador Mario 
Fortin, Director of Foreign Policy at the Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs, and to Norman Garcia, Minister of Trade and 
Industry, on November 8.  EconOff then raised the points in 
a meeting with Minister Garcia and other Trade Ministry 
officials on November 9, and confirmed, as suggested in 
reftel, that Trade Ministry officials were indeed entirely 
unaware of the UNESCO negotiation or its potential 
implications for a country's international trade 
obligations. 
 
2.  In response, Honduran Trade Ministry officials contacted 
their counterparts at the Ministry of Culture, Art and 
Sports responsible for the UNESCO negotiations.  Together, 
they drafted a report outlining the potential trade-related 
ramifications of the UNESCO draft and presented this report 
to Director of Trade Policy Melvin Redondo on November 19. 
Speaking with EconOff on November 23, Redondo stated that 
while he does not see precisely how the agreement would 
impact a signatory's international trade obligations, the 
very fact that the language in the current draft is so vague 
and open-ended raises the concern that it might.  Redondo 
stated that Honduras does not favor approval of such a 
vaguely worded document, and assured EconOff that the Trade 
Ministry will stay engaged as negotiations proceed so that 
their concerns will be addressed. 
 
Palmer 

Latest source of this page is cablebrowser-2, released 2011-10-04