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REGION: HONDURAN WITHDRAWAL FROM PARLACEN LOOMS.

Article Excerpt
Honduras has threatened to withdraw from Parlacen, the Central American Parliament, picking the scab from the regional sore. Outgoing President of Guatemala Alfonso Portillo made a similar threat three years ago, when he was still years away from becoming an ex-officio member of the widely scorned body (see NotiCen, 2000-08-10). The latest functionary to label the regional legislature dysfunctional was Honduran Attorney General Sergio Zavala.

Zavala told reporters that the government of Honduras had the political will to retire from the institution and from the Corte Centroamericana de Justicia (CCJ) as well. "It is painful to pay so much money to be a member of these regional institutions." Each of the six member countries pays a reported US$1.7 million annually to support them, and gets precious little in return, according to the attorney general. Member countries are not obligated to comply with any act or decision of Parlacen.

Even the threatened departure of one of its member states fails to rattle implacable supporters of the institution: "These commentaries bother us insofar as they affect Central American integration, but this doesn't mean that the organization...

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