Summit Ends With U.S. Promises
President Clinton offered promises of loan forgiveness, fairer immigration, and freer trade at his Thursday meeting with Central American leaders. He vowed "specific commitments on the part of the United States so we know we have a good road map for where we're going into the future."
That map comes in the form of a joint communiqué broadly pledging cooperation to improve human rights, tackle crime and drugs, and clean up the environment in Central America. The communiqué went through some 37 drafts and was shuffled among the eight nations on its way to the presidents' summit.
President Clinton was to underscore those themes at a joint press conference Thursday in Guatemala City. CBS News Correspondent Bill Plante reports the U.S. delegation is also braced for questions concerning the scandal back home over nuclear security leaks at the Los Alamos national laboratory.
Republicans in Washington are charging the administration with being too lax when it comes to military security, providing China with information used to build nuclear warheads. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger has suggested that the leaks came from previous Republican administrations.
Mr. Clinton was meeting Thursday with Presidents Alvaro Arzu of Guatemala, Arnoldo Aleman of Nicaragua, Carlos Flores Facusse of Honduras, Armando Calderon Sol of El Salvador, Migues Rodriguez of Costa Rica and Leonel Fernandez of the Dominican Republic, and Prime Minister Said Wilbert Musa of Belize.
Guatemala is the final stop of the president's four-day trip. He also spent time touring the devastation caused in the region by Hurricane Mitch.
Salvadoran President-elect Francisco Flores echoed the gratitude of his regional counterparts when he told Mr. Clinton his travels through Central America had served to "validate the process of peace." But some of the leaders were reportedly disappointed by the summit's results.
On trade, leaders wanted better than President Clinton offered in the Caribbean Basin Initiative he sent to Congress last week.
In the one-on-one meetings Mr. Clinton had with presidents as he stopped first in Nicaragua, then Honduras, El Salvador and now Guatemala, what most concerned his counterparts was attracting jobs and investment, said Berger.
What they face now is a gigantic economic problem caused by the hurricane, with thousands of jobs decimated and the need for new capital and investment," Berger said.
Part of President Clinton's mission on this trip has been to repair the image of an American colossus to the north that spent billions of dollars during the 1980s to finance Cold War-era battles against leftist insurgents in Central America. Mr. Clinton recalled it as a time that provoked "bitter divisions about our role in your region."
On immigration (another subject of great concern in Central America), the president had only promises that hiadministration was working to rewrite regulations that would ease the standard by which illegal immigrants are granted legal status.
Debt relief is one area where Mr. Clinton has, perhaps, the greatest hope to deliver on his promises. The $956 million emergency aid package he sent to Congress includes substantial loan forgiveness: About 90 percent for Nicaragua's debt, 67 percent for Honduras, and a two-year moratorium on debt payments by all Central American nations.