Obama slated for 'military focus'

A report published by the Centre for International Policy, the Latin America Working Group Education Fund and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) criticised the president's "military focus" and blasted the Democratic administration for paying "insufficient attention" to human rights.

"In 2010, 47 per cent of the United States' more than $3 billion (£2bn) in aid to Latin America is going to militaries and police forces," WOLA director Adam Isacson said.

"That's the highest proportion in a decade, and it indicates an unbalanced approach.

"Add to that a new military bases agreement signed last October with Colombia, and the main face that most of the region is seeing from the Obama administration is a military one," he added.

Fellow report author Lisa Haugaard said that the Obama administration's policy toward human rights in the western hemisphere "has been missing in action."

Ms Haugaard added that Mr Obama had demonstrated a "weak, contradictory response to the coup in Honduras, and a stand-by-our-man approach towards right-wing governments in Mexico and Colombia.

"With this approach, the Obama government is perpetuating the strategy and the tendency toward militarisation of his Republican predecessor, George W Bush, and as a result, is diminishing hopes for change," she said.

The report pointed out the "lack of any pressure being applied by Obama on Colombia, Peru and Mexico to assure respect for human rights, the Guantanamo prison on the island of Cuba still not being closed down, and a political agenda that does not include immigration reform" as "notable problems" in the first year of the president's administration.

However, the authors also offered "scant applause" for moves to cut back cash for militarised anti-drug programmes in Latin America, and the president's push for increased drug addiction treatment in the United States itself, as a part of an effort to reduce consumption and weaken the drug trade in the region.

The report concluded that the suspension of US military aid to the successor government to the coup regime in Honduras should be continued until "genuine steps" were taken to bring the perpetrators of last year's military takeover of the country to justice.