Mexico is more than a honeymoon site

Bill and I spent a week in Mexico for our honeymoon. Like most American tourists, we reveled in Mexico's rich history, lively culture, warm people and great food. (And like many Mexicans, we also honeymooned with our parents.)

We were particularly excited about returning to Mexico last week, this time for an official state visit that also took us to summits of Central American leaders in Costa Rica and Caribbean leaders in Barbados. Each stop reminded us how much this vast region has changed in the last two decades and how its future is inextricably tied to our own.

We are connected to our Latin American neighbors by both geography and history: The United States now claims the fifth largest Hispanic population in the world. But we are also bound together by technology, trade and the forces of global economic integration. And we share many of the same concerns, from drugs, crime and environmental decay to strengthening democracy throughout the region.

For decades, Central America was torn apart by civil wars, bloody coups, repression and poverty. With the historic signing of the peace accords in Guatemala in December 1996, the region is finally free of war and conflict. Democracy now exists in every country in Central America. Political and economic reforms are leading to new hope for lasting peace and increasing prosperity from the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean.

From the moment I landed in Merida on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula to the day we left Bridgetown, Barbados, eight days later, I could see that many men and women are responsible for brightening the prospects for our hemisphere's future. The people of Merida welcomed me with a program of music and folkloric dance staged before one of the oldest churches in Mexico. Choruses sang in Spanish and Mayan, the language of the ancient culture that produced great pyramids like those I visited the next day at Uxmal.

I met with several hundred women from across the country, many direct descendants of the Mayans, Aztecs and other indigenous people of MesoAmerica. Thanks to small loans they have received through microcredit projects, they have been able to earn a living for themselves and their families selling goods as varied as ceramics, honey, coffee, hammocks and clothing.

These women, who might otherwise have been left on the outskirts of opportunity, have discovered their potential to take control of their lives and their futures, not through a handout but through their own hard work. At the same time, they are helping preserve their indigenous heritage, giving people the world over a chance to enjoy the products they create and becoming better integrated into the society and economy of Mexico.

I saw the same tremendous entrepreneurial spirit in Costa Rica at a forum sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the InterAmerican Development Bank. One woman had started a thriving business in rare orchids; another makes clothing for children; and one man described how he and his father used small loans to become organic farmers.

Most memorable, however, was an Indian woman from Guatemala who proudly told a large crowd that she had started out selling mangoes on the street when she was 12. With microloans, she expanded her line of goods and now employs others. Her profits enabled her to send her children to school including a son to the University of North Carolina.

Economic participation, which microenterprise ensures for countless poor men and women around the world, is a human right essential to the success of any democracy. But so too are all human rights, which have often been violated in Latin America, sometimes with the encouragement or indifference of my own country. To highlight the U.S. commitment to human rights, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and I visited the institute for Human Rights in Costa Rica, which has dedicated itself to ensuring political and legal rights.

Throughout the region, men and women have risked -- and lost -- their lives to fight for freedom and social justice. Fortunately, their work and sacrifice contributed to Central America's movement away from the repressive regimes and human rights abuses of years past. Still, the transition to democracy remains incomplete -- particularly when it comes to the rights of women. Seated around a simple table at the institute, women from Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador reported about the obstacles the face, ranging from violence in and out of their homes to a lack of laws protecting them.

From Central America, we traveled to the Caribbean, a region from which many Americans trace their roots -- and to which many Americans return for vacations. Countries there have been particularly hard hit by changes in the global economy. At a regional microenterprise forum, I announced a grant that, as part of the President's initiative to help the region, will expand Caribbean microcredit projects.

Luckily, the trip was not all business and meetings. Bill and I were able to spend one wonderful day relaxing on Barbados, which reminded us of our honeymoon. We slept, read, sunned and swam. He graduated from crutches to cane. And we came back refreshed and more convinced of the importance of strengthening our ties with our friends and neighbors in this hemisphere.

-- Creators Syndicate