Hailing a new era of peace in Central America, President Clinton assured the region's leaders there won't be mass deportations of immigrants who sought refuge in America during U.S.-backed conflicts.
The United States will delay until Oct. 1 implementing provisions of a new welfare law that could have forced the return of tens of thousands of Central Americans, officials said. The provisions were to have taken effect April 1. Clinton suggested that even after October, there will not be wholesale deportations.Clinton's assurances defused a contentious issue at a summit with regional leaders.
"This is truly a new day for Central America," he said, acknowledging criticism that the United States had paid too little attention to the region once it was no longer a Cold War battleground.
On Friday, in an unusual joint appearance with first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright reasserted U.S. commitment to women's rights and human rights in general.
"We are here today to show that human rights are central to American foreign policy, and as we consider generally our relationships with countries, their human rights records are something that are very important to us," Albright said Thursday.
The secretary of state, accompanying the president on a tour of the region, made an unusual break from the president's agenda to accompany Hillary Clinton to the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights.
"The presence of the U.S. secretary of state at a meeting such as this sends a strong signal," Hillary Clinton told the gathering of rights activists from several Central American nations.
Both also emphasized that women's rights were essential to that policy.
"It really is important to end impunity for those who abuse women," Albright said. "Some people say that such abuse is cultural. I think we all know that it's criminal."
A series of women told the U.S. representatives of progress, and some setbacks, in efforts to promote women's rights in a region whose nations are all at peace and have elected governments for the first time in generations.
Sonia Cansino of El Salvador said women there pushed through a law forcing politicians to prove they had paid up their child support before running for office.
In Guatemala, the nation's highest court recently used international law to throw out national laws that treated women who cheated on their spouses more harshly than men who did the same, said Guatemalan attorney Maria Eugenia Mijangos.
The institute was founded in 1980 by the Inter-American Court of Justice, linked to the Organization of American States. Now independent, it conducts classes in human rights, elections and democratic practice for groups ranging from independent activists to military officers.