Thread: Obama vows closer cooperation with Central America

Obama vows closer cooperation with Central America
By BEN FELLER AP White House Correspondent

March 22, 2011, 5:45PM

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — President Barack Obama vowed closer cooperation Tuesday with the Central American nations where U.S. policies on crime, immigration and other issues have outsize influence on populations that depend heavily on their giant neighbor to the north and impact U.S. society in turn.

Speaking in El Salvador, the final stop on his three-country Latin American tour and the only one in Central America, Obama promised attention to increasing trade and economic growth, fighting drug trafficking and creating opportunities so that people can find work in their home countries and "don't feel like they have to head north to provide for their families."

"The United States will do our part" in combatting the increasing scourge of drug trafficking, the president said, standing next to El Salvador's president Mauricio Funes, who welcomed Obama's attention to the oft-overlooked region. Obama said $200 million would be spent as part of a new regional security partnership meant to combat drug wars that have led to a spike in murders here and in other Central American countries.

Yet Obama's five-day visit to Latin America has been overshadowed from the start by the war he's running in faraway Libya. Just before his news conference with Funes the White House said Obama would be cutting his trip short, departing El Salvador for the U.S. on Wednesday morning instead of in the afternoon as planned.

The U.S. and international partners are launching military strikes to protect civilians from attacks by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The White House said Obama was briefed on developments there by his national security team Tuesday during a conference call from Air Force One. He also spoke with British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy while en route from Chile to El Salvador, to discuss NATO's roll in the Libya offensive.

Obama said during his news conference with Funes that he was confident the U.S. would transfer control of Libya operation to an international coalition in days.

And despite Libya's shadow, Obama sought to make clear that El Salvador is a critical partner on immigration and narcotics wars, issues of increasing concern to the United States.

Among the issues he and Funes addressed was the rising crime south of the U.S. border. El Salvador has seen murder rates rise amid an influx of drugs and displaced traffickers from crackdowns in Colombia and Mexico. Obama said a new partnership to combat narco-trafficking could focus on strengthening courts and civil society groups in order to keep young people from turning to drugs and crime.

Obama said he was confident that Funes would show "great leadership" in using the money properly.

El Salvador also has one of Central America's highest rates of emigration, especially to the United States. About 2.8 million Salvadoran immigrants living in the United States sent home $3.5 billion last year, so laws that crack down on immigrants can significantly affect the Salvadoran economy. But congressional politics have made it difficult to restart talks about overhauling the nation's immigration laws.

Nonetheless Obama recommitted himself to the effort Tuesday in response to a question from a Salvadoran reporter. He said Republicans who now exert greater control in Washington were more reluctant than in the past to engage in comprehensive reform, but "My hope is that they begin to recognize over the next year that we can't solve this problem without taking a broad comprehensive approach."

Obama said immigration reform in the U.S. would also benefit Latin America, and would "ensure that relations between neighbors, and trade and economic relations between neighbors is more orderly and secure."

Obama, along with wife Michelle Obama and their two daughters, arrived in the capital of San Salvador Tuesday afternoon under a blistering sun following stops in Brazil and Chile.

After his meeting and appearance with Funes, Obama was headed to visit the tomb of slain Roman Catholic Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero at San Salvador's Metropolitan Cathedral. Romero spoke out against repression by the U.S.-backed Salvadoran army during El Salvador's 12-year civil war and was gunned down March 24, 1980, as he celebrated Mass in a hospital chapel. Rights activists and others were welcoming Obama's decision to visit the tomb as a gesture of recognition of Romero's cause.

In a broad-ranging speech in Chile on Monday that spelled out his policy in Latin America, Obama called on the region's rising economies to take more responsibility and play a larger role both in the region and around the globe.

He also described U.S. initiatives in Latin America to help curb the proliferation of drugs. Congress approved $1.8 billion for the so-called Merida Initiative to fight drugs in Mexico. After complaints that Central America was shortchanged, Congress created a separate Central America Regional Security Initiative with a total of $248 million so far. Central American leaders say that has not been enough.

Funes, who despite being elected with support from former Marxist guerillas has charted a moderate course in El Salvador, agrees with Obama that all countries in the region need to contribute to a solution.

Some Central American leaders have expressed annoyance that Obama chose to meet with Funes instead of a broader group of Central American leaders. But Latin America policy experts said it was important for Obama to endorse Funes' pragmatic approach despite the leftist inclinations of his party.

Funes said he would raise the issue of security with Obama in regional terms. "Security cannot be seen as exclusively an issue in El Salvador, or Guatemala or Nicaragua," he said recently. "Central American countries all suffer from the same problem."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/ ... 86526.html

Obama said immigration reform in the U.S. would also benefit Latin America, and would "ensure that relations between neighbors, and trade and economic relations between neighbors is more orderly and secure."

Translation: Send more of your poor and impoverished to the U.S. Our economy isn't in enough trouble so we need to pay for their medical care, education and welfare benefits. BTW, we also need more anchor babies to vote for Dems.

I wonder how much more of our sovereignty Obama gave away to Funes who once said illegally entering this country is a human right. Obama has no right selling out our sovereignty paid for in blood by countless brave Americans who fought, sacrificed and died protecting, defending and preserving our laws, values, institutions and way of life.

Obama Calls for an Economic Cure for Illegal Immigration

Wednesday, March 23, 2011
By JACKIE CALMES, The New York Times

SAN SALVADOR -- President Obama ended his three-nation Latin American tour on Tuesday with a visit to El Salvador, a source of one of the largest immigrant groups in the United States, and agreed with its president that "the best strategy" for curbing illegal immigration was to create economic growth in the region.

Mr. Obama, in a private meeting and a subsequent news conference with El Salvador's president, Mauricio Funes, said he remained committed to seeking a comprehensive overhaul of immigration law that both enhances American border security and provides a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who have lived for years in the United States and have jobs and families.

But that legislative goal, which Mr. Obama shelved in his first two years in office as he focused on the economy and overhauling the health-insurance system, is moribund now that Republicans, who oppose a citizenship process, have taken control of the House. In the news conference, Mr. Obama noted that some Republicans, including his 2008 presidential rival, Senator John McCain of Arizona, previously supported a comprehensive approach.

"My hope," he said, "is that they begin to recognize over the next year that we can't solve this problem without taking a broad, comprehensive approach" -- a prospect that is not considered at all likely as the 2012 elections approach. "The politics of this are difficult," Mr. Obama conceded, "but ultimately I am confident that we are going to get it done."

Mr. Obama, summarizing the leaders' private meeting, said, "President Funes is committed to creating more economic opportunities here in El Salvador so that people don't feel like they have to head north to provide for their families," or "join a criminal drug network" in order to stay in the country.

But unlike in Brazil and Chile, Mr. Obama's first two stops and countries with growing economies, El Salvador has had low rates of economic growth in the past decade and drug-related crime has flourished. The two presidents outlined ways in which El Salvador and the United States were working as partners with other nations in the hemisphere -- from Canada to Chile -- to address drug trafficking and economic development, including by involving the private sector in job-creation efforts.

It is estimated that more than two million people from El Salvador are now in the United States, legally and illegally. That is equal to about a third of this country's current population, underscoring the scale of migration north in the three decades since the civil war of the 1980s here, a conflict in which the United States backed the rightist government against the leftist rebels.

Before an official dinner, Mr. Obama visited the Metropolitan Cathedral, which holds the tomb of Archbishop Óscar Romero, who was assassinated in 1980 and is now a national hero.

Mr. Obama had planned to visit the crypt on Wednesday, the anniversary of the assassination, but moved it up so he could return to Washington a couple of hours earlier. He will return to the United States after a conference call with his national security team about the conflict in Libya, which has overshadowed the trip to Latin America.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11082/1134044-82.stm