Honduras has increased its military presence and surveillance in the Gulf of Fonseca to ensure Honduras is able to exercise its right to be in the waters of the Pacific, and to avoid the possibility of the area becoming an alternate drug route.“We have increased our team,” according to Marlon Pascua, the Honduran Secretary of Defense, who said they added an additional boat last year. “We have had some activity also against organized crime because we have identified that there is the possibility of making an alternate route for drug trafficking in the country.”
The measure has become necessary, given that Nicaragua and El Salvador have clamped down on Honduran fisherpersons in the area. For years, Honduras has been denouncing the capture of Hondurans detained by naval Nicaraguans and Salvadorans in strictly national waters. Both countries have been unwilling to recognize that Honduras has rights to the waters of the Gulf of Fonseca, and that those rights were upheld in the September 11, 1992 judgement by the International Court of Justice.
“We know that it is important to maintain a balance in the area, peace and tranquility, but above all, the coordination and understanding of the three countries is necessary to ensure that the sector of the Gulf can be exploited rationally,” emphasized the Honduran Minister of Defense.
The Minister indicated that one of the biggest problems in the area is that fish stocks are already inadequate for the number of fisherpersons who sail daily in the Gulf of Fonseca.
President Lobo and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega met in late February of this year to emphasize the importance for El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua to make a zone of peace, sustainable development, and environmental protection in the Gulf of Fonseca.
According to President Lobo, the understanding reached by the two countries are born from the depths of commitment to seek a better life for the people, and allow for one “Central America, more united and strengthened”.
“We have agreed to contact El Salvador President, Mauricio Funes, to work on a corresponding agenda that we have for the Gulf,” said Ortega.
Presidents Lobo and Ortega are currently arranging for a meeting in Honduras with the President of El Salvador to establish a trinational project in the Gulf of Fonseca.
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