Honduran President Xiomara Castro has announced her government has arrived at an agreement with the United States to extend an extradition treaty that she had previously pledged to discontinue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Castro said on Tuesday that the agreement will include \u201csafeguards\u201d for Honduras\u2019s sovereignty, after previously attacking the treaty as an example of the heavy-handed U.S. influence in Latin America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI have reached an agreement with the new United States administration so that the Extradition Treaty will continue with the necessary safeguards for the State of Honduras, guaranteeing its objective application,\u201d Castro said in a social media post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The treaty was otherwise set to expire in 10 days. But Castro\u2019s decision comes amid U.S. calls to continue the agreement, which has been used to facilitate the extradition of figures such as former President Juan Orlando Hernandez and former police chief Juan Carlos Bonilla.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hernandez, for example, was a staunch U.S. ally who came to power as a \u201claw and order\u201d figure. But in April 2022, he was extradited to the United States, where he was convicted last year of using his influence to protect powerful drug traffickers. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Xiomara Castro\u2019s government had said in August that it would allow the extradition treaty to expire, accusing the U.S. of intervening in Honduran politics and plotting a coup against her government and the armed forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Honduran president\u2019s husband, Manuel Zelaya, was himself a victim of a U.S.-supported action in 2009 in a right-wing military coup carried out with the backing of the business community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though the U.S. president at the time, Barack Obama, eventually denounced the coup as \u201cnot legal,\u201d critics say his administration did little to stop it from unfolding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A period of harsh repression followed, but Xiomara Castro, Zelaya\u2019s wife, staged an electoral comeback and became president in January 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Castro said on Tuesday that the new agreement includes guarantees for the \u201cintegrity of the armed forces\u201d in Honduras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While positioning herself as a leftist and a critic of U.S. meddling in the region, her government has had a collaborative relationship with the U.S. on questions such as law enforcement and immigration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.S. Ambassador Laura Dogu had recently criticised a meeting between Honduran officials and Venezuelan Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, whom the U.S. has accused of supporting drug trafficking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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