Tuesday, 17 March 2015

Honduran VP building Lebanese ties


BEIRUT: The Vice President of Honduras Ricardo Alvarez encouraged Lebanese businessmen and tourists to consider his home country a prime destination for investment or travel, during an interview with The Daily Star. “Right now [Honduras is] on the right track,” said Alvarez, who visited Beirut last week. “Honduras is a destination of many possibilities in many senses.”


Honduras is best known for having the highest homicide rate in the world. Its second-largest city San Pedro Sula is considered the world’s most dangerous city outside of a war zone, but Alvarez said the situation was improving.


“[My government] has been in power for one year. Since we’ve come into power, security has been our main purpose as a government,” Alvarez explained. “In only one year, we’ve moved from 86 deaths per 100,000 in Honduras to 68 ... we have a 17 percent decrease in one year because we’re doing the right thing.”


The vice president arrived last Tuesday and subsequently met with Prime Minister Tammam Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.


His trip marks the first time a high-ranking official from Honduras has visited Lebanon. Alvarez came to the country on a mission to improve relations between the two countries and encourage more investment.


“President [Juan Orlando] Hernandez ... sends a message of our interest in starting better relations,” Alvarez said. “Even though the political, diplomatic ties are [important], we’re more focused on the commercial relations.”


However, Honduras is no stranger to the Middle East. Like many Latin American countries, Honduras has a significant number of third-generation Arabs that migrated to that region a century ago. The vast majority of those migrants are of Palestinian descent, including the former President Carlos Roberto Flores.


Alvarez stressed that the Arab descendants have lost their connection with the Middle East, but noted that they are very successful in the Honduran private sector.


“I have to tell you that the people in Honduras that [have] Middle East[ern] roots are probably the people that are doing the best business in Honduras,” Alvarez said.


Last Friday, the vice president attended a gala dinner with dozens of Lebanon’s business leaders and politicians to discuss the possibility of investing in Honduras.


Despite improvements, the security situation in the country may ward off many potential investors. The root of Honduras’ problem, according to Alvarez, is that the country was once, “the bridge for South America to take drugs to the United States.”


“For many years, for many decades, drug lords took possession of many places in Honduras. Obviously that brought a lot of criminality.”


Alvarez said that his government, which was elected in 2013, is making headway to improve the security situation.


They’ve implemented strict security measures such as militarizing the police force and improving coordination between the judiciary, attorney general and the police, Alvarez said.


He also boasted that Honduras has new laws which permit wiretapping and extradition.


Furthermore, Alvarez highlighted a law unique to Honduras that gives them the permission to shoot down any plane violating their airspace without permission. Alvarez explained that this prevents smugglers from flying drugs over Honduras to America.


These new measures have given him cautious hope for the future.


“I don’t know if it sounds OK but when a person has cancer, they receive the chemotherapy, and they have good and bad moments, but at the end their chemotherapy is going to work and we’re going to save the country,” he said.



No comments:

Post a Comment