Just Foreign Policy News
July 20, 2011
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II) Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) The UN said famine in Somalia has already killed tens of thousands of people, mostly children, the Washington Post reports. Famine is officially declared when acute malnutrition rates among children exceed 30 percent and when more than two people per 10,000 die every day. Some aid agencies criticized the US and other Western countries for failing to respond to the crisis quickly enough. UN officials are also concerned that US drone strikes in Somalia could impede relief efforts.
2) The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted to defund the OAS, with Republicans blasting the OAS as an enemy of freedom and democracy, The Cable reports. Ranking Democrat Howard Berman pointed out that the US has a treaty obligation to pay its dues to the OAS, and argued that the body has made a positive contribution to progress toward democracy since the 1960s. "The OAS is an enemy? We are really living in two different worlds," Berman said.
3) France’s Foreign Minister said Libyan leader Qaddafi could remain in Libya so long as he completely relinquishes power as part of a political deal, the New York Times reports. But a rebel leader rejected the idea.
4) Nearly half of Americans think the US can make major cuts in defense spending without putting the country in danger, according to Rasmussen Reports. 68% believe it is possible to significantly reduce the amount the US spends defending other countries without putting the American people at risk.
Optimism about the war in Afghanistan has slipped back to levels measured before the killing of bin Laden. Most voters want all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan within a year.
Only 49% of voters still see a need for the US to belong to NATO. 49% think America should remove its troops from Western Europe. 48% support withdrawing all troops from Japan.
A plurality oppose further military action in Libya.
5) The president’s proposed reduction of $400 billion in Pentagon spending over a decade should not be referred to as a "cut," writes William Hartung in a letter to the New York Times. It is measured relative to the Pentagon’s unrealistic plans, not against current levels of spending. In fact, the $400 billion can be accommodated while letting the current budget grow with inflation.
6) White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley conceded that Congress might not act on pending trade deals with Colombia, Panama and South Korea before the August recess, Reuters reports. Dark clouds were building for the Korea agreement in Seoul, where the main opposition party has taken another step toward blocking its ratification by listing a series of points it wants renegotiated, Reuters said.
Afghanistan
7) A report by the U.S. special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction concludes that attempts to choke off the exodus of cash through Kabul airport have been stymied, the Washington Post reports. VIPs are still allowed to leave the airport without having their cash scanned through the currency counters. U.S. agencies have "limited visibility over U.S. cash that enters the Afghan economy – leaving it vulnerable to fraud and diversion to the insurgency," SIGAR said.
Israel/Palestine
8) There are currently 23,000 Palestinians on a waiting list to leave Gaza by way of the Rafah crossing to Egypt, the New York Times reports. The export of goods has also been severely limited to a small amount of agricultural produce.
Colombia
9) A leading correspondent for the mass-circulation national newspaper El Espectador has been warned to leave Colombia if she doesn’t want to die, the Western Mail of Wales reports. The reporter, Maryluz Avedaño, helps to run the Colombian Reporters project funded by the Catholic aid agency Cafod. Cafod said efforts were underway to relocate Avedaño out of Colombia. The Colombian Journalist Federation reports that in 2010 there were 189 attacks on journalists in Colombia, including five murders and a rape.
10) The man chosen as the next president of Colombia’s Congress has three outstanding suits against him alleging influence peddling and ties to paramilitaries, says Colombia Reports, citing Caracol Radio.
El Salvador
11) An editorial by the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador promoting gay rights has sparked a right-wing backlash, the Tico Times reports. Mari Carmen Aponte’s editorial quoted Secretary of State Clinton saying, "Gay rights are human rights," and noted that El Salvador, like the US, has signed a UN declaration to eliminate violence directed against the LGBT community. "Our position remains the same," said a representative of the U.S. embassy in El Salvador. "The editorial speaks for itself."
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) U.N.: Famine in Somalia is killing tens of thousands
Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post, Wednesday, July 20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/un-famine-in-somalia-is-killing-tens-of-thousands/2011/07/20/gIQAbV3iPI_story.html
Nairobi – Famine in parts of Somalia has already killed tens of thousands of people, mostly children, the United Nations said Wednesday in an official declaration of what aid officials describe as the worst humanitarian crisis in the country in two decades.
The famine declaration comes months after U.N. and other aid agencies began sounding the alarm about a devastating drought in the Horn of Africa, where an estimated 10 million people are in need of help. The crisis has been aggravated by civil strife, low rainfall rates not seen in half a century and sharp increases in food prices.
"Somalia is facing its worst food security crisis in the last 20 years," Mark Bowden, the top U.N. official in charge of humanitarian aid to Somalia, told reporters, adding that an infusion of $300 million is needed in the next two months to help alleviate the crisis.
For nearly two decades, Somalia has grappled with civil war and ineffective governments. Today, a weak and corrupt transitional government, backed by the United States and its allies, is in place, with little ability to address the crisis. Much of its energy is focused on preventing the capital, Mogadishu, from being overtaken by the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab militia.
[…] This time, the famine is unfolding in the southern Somali regions of Bakool and Lower Shabelle, which are largely controlled by al-Shabab. Bowden said that nearly half of Somalia’s 3.7 million people face hunger, malnutrition and other related problems. Of those, 2.8 million live in the south.
"If we don’t act now, famine will spread to all eight regions of southern Somalia within two months, due to poor harvests and infectious diseases," Bowden said. "We still do not have all the resources for food, clean water, shelter and health services to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Somalis."
Famine, said Bowden, is officially declared when acute malnutrition rates among children exceed 30 percent and when more than two people per 10,000 die every day.
Today, malnutrition rates in Somalia are the highest in the world; in some parts of the south, more than half of all children are severely malnourished. In some areas of Bakool and Lower Shabelle, six children per 10,000 under the age of 5 are dying every day, Bowden said.
On Wednesday, the United States announced it would give an additional $28 million in aid to Somalis. This year alone, it has provided more than $431 million in food and other emergency assistance to the eastern Horn of Africa, making it the region’s largest donor nation.
[…] But some aid agencies criticized the United States and other Western donors Wednesday for failing to respond to the crisis quickly enough, despite numerous calls for assistance.
"The crisis has been building for several months but the response from international donors and regional governments has been mostly slow, inadequate and complacent, " Fran Equiza, the regional director of the British aid agency Oxfam, said in a statement. "There has been a catastrophic breakdown of the world’s collective responsibility to act."
Equiza said that there was still an $800 million shortfall in funding, adding "by the time the U.N. calls it a famine, it is already a signal of large-scale loss of life."
Humanitarian funding to help Somalia has declined since 2008, U.N. officials say. The United States, once Somalia’s largest donor, has reduced humanitarian funding by 88 percent, according to a September 2010 report of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. In 2008, the United States provided $237.4 million. In 2009, it gave $99.6 million; in 2010, roughly $28 million.
So far this year, the United States has given $78 million, including the $28 million announced Wednesday, U.S. officials said.
The decline in U.S. assistance to Somalia came after the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control, concerned about the diversion of aid by Islamic militants, imposed restrictions on agencies working in al-Shabab controlled areas and froze some funding in March 2009.
U.N. officials are also concerned that Washington’s intensifying targeting of al-Shabab through drone strikes and other means could impede their access to Somalis in famine-stricken areas. "It does complicate our efforts," Bowden said. "It increases their suspicions of humanitarian organizations."
[…]
2) House panel votes to defund the OAS
Josh Rogin, Foreign Policy/The Cable, Wednesday, July 20, 2011 – 12:17 PM
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/07/20/house_panel_votes_to_defund_the_oas
The House Foreign Affairs Committee began its Wednesday markup of the State Department authorization bill by voting to end funding for the Organization of American States (OAS), with Republicans lambasting the organization as an enemy of freedom and democracy.
The one-hour debate over the GOP proposal to cut the entire $48.5 million annual U.S contribution to the OAS is only the beginning of what looks to be a long and contentious debate over the fiscal 2012 State Department and foreign operations authorization bill written by chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL). Democrats accused the Republicans of isolationism and retreat for their proposal, while the Republicans accused the OAS of being an ally of anti-U.S. regimes in Cuba and Venezuela. The OAS Charter was signed in 1948 at a conference led by U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall.
"Let’s not continue to fund an organization that’s bent on destroying democracy in Latin America," said Rep. Connie Mack (R-FL), the head of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere and the sponsor of the amendment. "You will support an organization that is destroying the dreams of the people of Latin America."
Other GOP members piled on, accusing the OAS of supporting Fidel Castro, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, and ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.
[…] Panel Democrats had a hard time holding back their astonishment and frustration with the GOP for forcing a vote that they argued would signal America’s retreat from multilateral engagement around the world.
"I might offer an amendment to pull out of the world, to build a moat around the United States and put a dome over the thing," said Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), sarcastically. "This is getting ridiculous."
"Here we are for a lousy $48 million willing to symbolically turn our backs on our own hemisphere… This is folly. it’s more than folly, it’s dangerous," Ackerman said. "And you’ve got the votes to do it, that’s the frightening thing. But what we should be looking at are opportunities to reach out to the world."
Ranking Democrat Howard Berman (D-CA) pointed out that the United States has a treaty obligation to pay its dues to the OAS, and argued that the body has made a positive contribution to progress toward democracy since the 1960s. "The OAS is an enemy? We are really living in two different worlds," Berman said.
[…]
3) France Says Qaddafi Can Stay in Libya if He Relinquishes Power
Steven Erlanger, New York Times, July 20, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/21/world/europe/21france.html
Paris – Foreign Minister Alain Juppé of France said on Wednesday that Libyan leader Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi could remain in Libya so long as he completely relinquishes power, as part of a larger political deal, including a cease-fire, on the future of the country. At the same time, President Nicolas Sarkozy met with rebel leaders from the Libyan port city of Misurata, who were seeking further aid and arms for their fight to oust Colonel Qaddafi.
Mr. Sarkozy was publicly noncommittal on the request, but one of the rebels, Souleiman Fortia, said later that France had been helpful "in many domains" and that France could help them get weapons from Arab countries.
Mr. Juppé said that countries leading the fight against Colonel Qaddafi were discussing options for a political settlement of the five-month war, in which the rebels, despite a significant NATO bombing campaign, have proved unable to reach the capital or oust Colonel Qaddafi.
"One of the scenarios effectively envisaged is that he stays in Libya on one condition, which I repeat – that he very clearly steps aside from Libyan political life," Mr. Juppé said on the French television channel LCI. "A cease-fire comes about by a formal and clear commitment by Qaddafi to give up his civil and military responsibilities."
In Washington, an Obama administration spokesman did not disagree with Mr. Juppé’s remarks on Colonel Qaddafi. "He needs to remove himself from power – and then it’s up to the Libyan people to decide," the spokesman, Jay Carney, told reporters when asked about the French position.
Western officials who met last Friday in Istanbul agreed that they must devise a set of negotiating principles, with the lead negotiator the United Nations special envoy for Libya, Abdel Ilah al-Khatib. They have agreed that military pressure will be maintained until Colonel Qaddafi agrees to a cease-fire and to give up all power. Then some form of national reconciliation government should be established to create a new Libyan leadership, which is supposed to be responsible for what happens next to Colonel Qaddafi.
[…] Mr. Fortia rejected the idea that Colonel Qaddafi could stay on in Libya indefinitely. "He’s being demanded by the international court, so I don’t think there’s a place for him" in Libya, Mr. Fortia said.
[…]
4) 48% Think Major Cuts In Defense Spending Won’t Put America At Risk
Rassmussen Reports, Monday, July 18, 2011
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/july_2011/48_think_major_cuts_in_defense_spending_won_t_put_america_at_risk
Nearly one-half of Americans now think the United States can make major cuts in defense spending without putting the country in danger. They believe even more strongly that there’s no risk in cutting way back on what America spends to defend other countries.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Adults feel it is possible to significantly reduce military spending without putting the American people at risk. Thirty-seven percent (37%) disagree and do not believe major defense cuts come without risk. Fifteen percent (15%) are not sure.
[…] Seventy-nine percent (79%) say the United States spends too much on defending other countries. Only four percent (4%) think America doesn’t spend enough protecting its friends. Thirteen percent (13%) feel these defense expenditures are about right.
Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Americans believe it is possible to significantly reduce the amount the United States spends defending other countries without putting the American people at risk. Just 15% believe this is not possible without putting the country in harm’s way. Seventeen percent (17%) are undecided.
Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Democrats and 54% of adults not affiliated with either major party feel it is possible to make major spending cuts in defense spending without weakening national security. Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Republicans feel otherwise. But there’s little partisan disagreement that significant cutbacks in what America spends to defend other countries would not put the country at greater risk.
[…] Voter optimism about U.S. involvement in Afghanistan has slipped back to levels measured before the killing of Osama bin Laden. Most voters want all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan within a year.
[…] Only 49% of voters still see a need for the United States to belong to NATO, a Cold War creation. Just as many (49%) think America should remove its troops from Western Europe and let the Europeans defend themselves. Forty-eight percent (48%) support withdrawing all troops from Japan, but 60% believe troops should remain in South Korea.
Voters remain skeptical about U.S. military involvement in Libya, with a plurality still opposed to further military action in the north African country.
"Being the world’s policeman" is a phrase often used to suggest America is the nation chiefly responsible for peace and the establishment of democracy in the rest of the world. But just 11% of voters think that should be America’s role. Seventy-five percent (75%) agree with the late President Reagan that "the United States should not commit its forces to military action overseas unless the cause is vital to our national interest."
[…]
5) Seeking Defense Savings
William D. Hartung, Letter to the Editor, New York Times, July 19, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/opinion/l20pentagon.html
[Hartung is director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy.]
Re "The Pentagon’s Financial Drawdown," by Gordon R. England (Op-Ed, July 15): The president’s proposed reduction of $400 billion in Pentagon spending over a decade should not be referred to as a "cut." It is measured relative to the Pentagon’s unrealistic plans, not against current levels of spending. In fact, the $400 billion can be accommodated while letting the current budget grow with inflation.
An across-the-board reduction in the rate of growth of Pentagon spending will not "result in a hollowed-out force that will embolden our enemies," as Mr. England suggests. Over the last few years, United States military spending has been at post-World War II record levels, and it is almost as large as the military budgets of the rest of the world combined.
A small course correction will not significantly change this spending gap, regardless of how it is carried out.
6) U.S. trade deals could be delayed past August: Daley
Doug Palmer, Reuters, Tue Jul 19, 2011 9:21pm EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/20/us-usa-trade-daley-idUSTRE76J09F20110720
Washington – President Barack Obama will soon send free-trade pacts with Colombia, South Korea and Panama to Congress for votes, White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley said on Tuesday, but doubts are building on its passage.
Daley, who last week said it was urgent Congress pass the measures before its August recess, told reporters it was possible that work on the bills could stretch beyond that.
"I don’t know if (they will) be approved by August but we’re moving forward on them," he said after a speech at a Commerce Department conference on the Obama administration’s efforts to reform export controls on high-tech goods.
Dark clouds were also building for the FTA in Seoul, where the main opposition party has taken another step toward blocking its ratification by listing a series of points it wants renegotiated.
The Democratic Party said the Lee administration had made too many concessions to Washington in last year’s renegotiated deal, but the ruling party vowed to push the deal through parliament in August.
Thousands of farmers took to Seoul’s streets last month saying the FTA will allow the entry of cheaper foreign farm produce.
Both Daley and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk have said quick approval of the pacts is needed to ensure U.S. exporters do not lose market share to Canada and the European Union, which have pursued their own deals with the countries.
But Obama still has not formally submitted the three agreements to Congress in the face of complaints from Republicans over a White House plan to tie an extension of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, known as TAA, to the South Korea deal.
Work on resolving the issue has taken second stage to intense negotiations between the White House and Congress on a deal to raise the U.S. government’s $14.3 trillion debt limit by August 2 and avoid a U.S. credit default.
[…]
Afghanistan
7) At Kabul airport, exodus of U.S. aid goes on
Jason Ukman, Washington Post, 09:00 AM ET, 07/20/2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/at-kabul-airport-exodus-of-us-aid-goes-on/2011/07/19/gIQAzPVdPI_blog.html
Kabul’s international airport has long been seen as a virtual black hole for foreign currency, the perfect venue through which travelers can smuggle out hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid that was intended for development projects.
More than a year after The Washington Post first disclosed American concerns about the airport, a report released Wednesday by the U.S. special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction concludes that attempts to choke off the exodus of cash have been plagued by a hard-to-fathom set of obstacles.
[…] Meantime, VIPs are still allowed to leave the airport without having their cash scanned through the currency counters – one of the main points of concern for U.S. officials, who believe some businessmen are carrying bagfuls of illicit cash to the Persian Gulf and elsewhere.
Since 2002, Congress has appropriated more than $70 billion to implement security and development assistance projects in Afghanistan. There are growing concerns that much of that money is lost through waste, fraud and other abuses.
The airport represents only one of many potential loopholes when it comes to safeguarding U.S. cash, according to the new audit from the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, known as SIGAR.
The report found that U.S. agencies also are not fully coordinating their efforts to track American cash as it enters Afghanistan. The Afghan government has been reluctant to prosecute some financial crimes. And contractors are allowed to use unlicensed "hawala" money-transfer systems to pay subcontractors.
U.S. agencies have "limited visibility over U.S. cash that enters the Afghan economy – leaving it vulnerable to fraud and diversion to the insurgency," SIGAR said in a statement.
The report also noted that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has banned U.S. advisers from working at Afghanistan’s central bank. In a statement attached to the report, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul wrote: "Treasury currently has no plans to re-engage at the Central Bank as the working conditions there for advisors have become hostile."
Israel/Palestine
8) Protest Yacht, Bound for Gaza, Is Diverted by Israeli Forces
Isabel Kershner, New York Times, July 19, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/world/middleeast/20flotilla.html
Jerusalem – Israeli naval forces boarded a French yacht off the Gaza coast on Tuesday as the yacht tried to breach the Israeli maritime blockade of the Palestinian enclave. The forces met no resistance, Israeli military officials said, and steered the boat toward the Israeli port of Ashdod.
The yacht is a remnant of an international flotilla that had planned to challenge the blockade last month but was mostly thwarted.
The flotilla organizers had wanted to mark a year since the last flotilla, whose attempt to reach Gaza ended in bloodshed, and to highlight the restrictions on the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza. Israel says that its blockade is essential to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza, which is run by Hamas, the Islamic militant group. The naval blockade was formally imposed in early 2009 during Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.
In May 2010, Israeli naval commandos met with tough resistance when they boarded a large Turkish passenger vessel trying to breach the blockade, and fatally shot nine activists on the ship. The episode led to intense international pressure on Israel to ease its restrictions on Gaza.
The amount and variety of goods allowed in to the enclave over land crossings has increased significantly, and Egypt recently reopened the Rafah passenger crossing on its border with Gaza. But the capacity of the crossing is limited; there are currently 23,000 Palestinians on a waiting list to leave Gaza by way of Rafah, according to Gisha, an Israeli advocacy group that focuses on freedom of movement for Palestinians. The export of goods has also been severely limited to a small amount of agricultural produce.
[…]
Colombia
9) Journalist warned to get out of Colombia – or die
Martin Shipton, Western Mail (Wales), Jul 20 2011
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2011/07/20/journalist-warned-to-get-out-of-colombia-or-die-91466-29086088/
A Colombian journalist who visited Wales two years ago to talk about the threats facing reporters in the Latin American country has been advised to leave her homeland after receiving credible death threats.
In 2009 Maryluz Avedaño came to the headquarters of Media Wales in Cardiff to raise awareness about the decades-long conflict in Colombia which has resulted in thousands of deaths.
As well as being a leading correspondent for the mass-circulation national newspaper El Espectador, Ms Avedaño helps to run the Colombian Reporters project funded by the Catholic aid agency Cafod. It helps to train journalists to report the nation’s armed conflict objectively and avoid stereotypes.
Now Ms Avedaño has been warned to get out of Colombia or face death.
Barbara Davies of Cafod, who accompanied her on her trip to Wales two years ago, said: "Efforts are being made to relocate Maryluz to another Latin American country, Spain or the United States. She is currently under police protection in her home city of Medellín, where she has lived all her life.
"She has been advised by the United Nations Human Rights office in Medellín that the threats to her life are so serious that she should leave Colombia as soon as possible."
[…] The Colombian Journalist Federation reports that in 2010 there were 189 attacks on journalists in Colombia, including five murders and a rape.
[…]
10) Colombia Congress president-elect accused of paramilitary ties
Matt Snyder, Colombia Reports, Tuesday, 19 July 2011 10:12
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/17738-future-president-of-colombian-congress-has-three-corruption-suits-against-him.html
The man chosen as the next president of Colombia’s Congress has three outstanding suits against him alleging influence peddling and ties to paramilitaries, Caracol Radio reported Tuesday.
Senator Juan Manuel Corzo, who has been picked by President Juan Manuel Santos to serve as the next president of Congress, currently has three suits leveled against him in Colombia’s constitutional court.
The suits charge that Corzo abused his position by delivering notaries in exchange for votes for ex-President Alvaro Uribe, that he engaged in influence peddling in his appointment of political opponents to the environmental board (CAR) of the department of Norte de Santander, and that he has ties to paramilitaries as alleged in testimony given by a former member of Colombia’s largest paramilitary group, the AUC.
Corzo dismissed the charges against him, saying that they had been fabricated to "generate bad information."
Corzo also supervised the creation of congressional boards and committees and worked with the controversial Party for National Integration (PIN) to determine its influence. Caracol Radio reported that although the PIN only has 22 members it has curiously cast 26 votes in the past, a discrepancy that may be due to Corzo.
Many members of the PIN have been linked to paramilitary activity.
El Salvador
11) U.S. ambassador fuels gay rights debate in El Salvador
Will Ferguson, Tico Times, Monday, July 18, 2011
http://www.ticotimes.net/Current-Edition/News-Briefs/U.S.-ambassador-fuels-gay-rights-debate-in-El-Salvador_Monday-July-18-2011
An editorial by the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, promoting gay rights, has set off a debate between pro-family activists and gay rights groups in El Salvador.
U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, Mari Carmen Aponte published a letter in the La Prensa Grafica newspaper on June 28, strongly supporting the rights of lesbians, bisexuals, gays and transgenders in El Salvador. The article received strong backlash from conservative Salvadorans.
"We have seen some arguments back and forth between different groups in the country after the article’s publication, however our position remains the same," said Robert McInturff, a representative from the U.S. embassy in El Salvador. "The editorial speaks for itself."
Almost two dozen pro-family organizations in El Salvador responded with their own editorial, accusing Aponte of trying to force an agenda that doesn’t mix with the country’s Christian beliefs. The groups also sent a letter of protest to the U.S. senate, asking for Aponte to be removed from her position.
Aponte was appointed to her current position by U.S. President Barack Obama in 2010 during a congressional recess. She drew heavily from Obama’s agenda in her editorial and quoted U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying, "Gay rights are human rights" in the editorial. In addition, she called for an end to discrimination against members of the gay community in the workplace.
Her letter references a United Nations declaration from March 2010 to eliminate violence directed against the LGBT community. During a meeting of the UN Council of Human Rights, 83 countries including the United States and El Salvador signed a declaration to eliminate violence directed against the LGBT community. In May of 2010, El Salvadorian president Mauricio Funes signed decree 56, which prohibits the Salvadorian government from discriminating against people based on their sexual preference.
[…]
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