US embassy cable - 05TEGUCIGALPA990

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.

MEDIA REACTION ON CAFTA, MAY 09, 2005

Identifier: 05TEGUCIGALPA990
Wikileaks: View 05TEGUCIGALPA990 at Wikileaks.org
Origin: Embassy Tegucigalpa
Created: 2005-05-09 22:23:00
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Tags: OIIP KPAO ETRD HO USTR
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 000990 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT. FOR WHA/PD; IIP/G/WHA DIPASQUALE; AND IIP/T/ES 
DEPT. FOR EB/TPP DCLUNE, WHA/EPSC AND WHA/CEN 
DEPT. PASS USTR 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OIIP, KPAO, ETRD, HO, USTR 
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON CAFTA, MAY 09, 2005 
 
 
1. On 05/07 the Tegucigalpa-based liberal daily "La Tribuna" 
published an op-ed by Gautama Fonseca entitled "Customs 
Union and CAFTA."  "Juan Manuel Villasuso, Costa Rican 
economist, published in the newspaper `La Republica' the 
following: `Last's week Central American Customs Union is 
clearly a objective of the governments of the region. But 
CAFTA will affect negatively efforts so far.'" 
 
"It will affect external customs, deviate commerce, change 
commercial legislation and will cause subordination on 
CAFTA's integration." 
 
"Toward this reality, could we still be talking about 
Central American integration after CAFTA's approval?" 
 
2. On 05/09 "La Tribuna" carried an op-ed by Selim Kassis, 
entitled "Mr. Maduro and CAFTA."  "On July 1991, Mr. Maduro, 
was President of the Central Bank, said: `Many businesses 
that thought they would be affected expressed optimism that 
a bigger market will bring them advantages.' This was said 
reference to a multilateral agreement with Central American 
countries. Also he said there will be stabilization and 
price decreases." 
 
"Fourteen years later we now hear that CAFTA will be good if 
negotiated properly, but the previous experience was that he 
didn't stabilize the economy. We are now at the edge of 
misery." 
 
"Either we are against or not for CAFTA, let's hope it will 
be signed when Mel Zelaya is president so there is 
transparency and real benefits to the Honduran people." 
 
It also ran an editorial entitled "Duet."  "Thanks to the 
information given by Antonio Saca we found out that the May 
12 meeting in Washington to will talk only about CAFTA." 
 
"What is not clear is the convincing power of Nicaraguan and 
Costa Rican presidents, when they haven't even convinced 
their own Congresses." 
 
"So the rest of the Central American presidents will have an 
uncomfortable task to convince the U.S. Congress, with that 
duo they are dragging. Let's see if they can convince anyone 
there if they haven't been able to convince anyone here." 
 
Pierce 

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