Arturo Valenzuela, former undersecretary for Hemispheric Affairs of the United States.
Julio García. Madrid.
The UN have collected several reports showing the violence and the decline in law and order in Latin America and especially in countries of Central America such as Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, that claim thousands of deaths every year.
The Spanish Government collaborates at the moment with the Executive of the USA to fight against violence in that area of America, according to statements made by the former undersecretary for Hemispheric Affairs of the United States in Barack Obama’s Government, Arturo Valenzuela, who participated in a consultative meeting organized by the Agency EFE in the House of America.
Valenzuela affirmed that this “crisis of lack of safety” in Latin America requires international cooperation and he pointed out the joint work of Rajoy’s Executive along with Barack Obama’s Administration to tackle this blot. He highlighted that the answer to this violence cannot only be police and that it is necessary to establish the Rule of Law and the compliance of the legislation as means to achieve a safer and less violent society in Latin America.
“Economic interests of both countries in Central America require stable democracies”
Besides, the USA and Spain’s economic interests in Central America require a solution to the social unrest, which makes necessary to achieve more stable and more powerful democracies in that area of America, according to Valenzuela.
International cooperation in the development of youth programmes is another tool to achieve that objective and take young people out of the limits of social exclusion. In this regard, Valenzuela talked about the good results that an initiative with young people in risk of marginalization in the city of Juárez, one of the most violent cities of Mexico.
On the other hand, the Hispanic community in the USA has reached such number during the last years that there are already 58 million Spanish speakers living in this country. One of the important chapters in Barack Obama’s policy is the passing of a new Law on Immigration, that, according to what Valenzuela said, “is bogged down” in the Chamber of Representatives.
The passing of the migratory reform would mean the regularization of 11 million illegal immigrants, most of them Hispanic. It is this point the one that does not seem to convince the Republican Party to avoid going on, for the moment, with the project and wait to see what happens in the parliamentary elections this year.
