Central America

It was the anguish of a 9-year-old child that made Rebecca Cammisa vow to press on. When the filmmaker first met the Honduran boy named José at a detention center in southern Mexico, he was alone, scared and crying. He was one of an estimated tens of thousands of Latin American children who annually try to cross illegally into the United States, many by riding the tops of railroad freight cars, most in search of work or missing parents. For many, the journey ends badly, if not tragically.

A Guatemalan designated as one of the world's biggest drug kingpins has been convicted of cocaine importation and distribution charges. Jorge Mario Paredes-Cordova was convicted by a federal jury in Manhattan on charges he led a drug-trafficking syndicate that smuggled tons of cocaine into the country from Central America. Paredes-Cordova was captured in Honduras in May 2008 while living there under a false identity. Before that, he was designated by the U.S. as one of the most powerful and dangerous drug traffickers in the world.

President Clinton told Central American leaders Friday that U.S. assistance is shifting from short-term emergency hurricane relief to a focus on long-term construction through liberalized trade, debt relief and other measures. With four Central American presidents and one vice president standing nearby, Clinton said he will visit the region in early 1999, and he announced $17 million in additional food aid, bringing the total U.S. aid package since Hurricane Mitch to $300 million.

The Clinton administration and international donor organizations, heeding a warning from four Central American presidents that the ravages of Hurricane Mitch are endangering democracy in their countries, pledged more than $1 billion Thursday in relief and interest-free loans to the devastated region. "You are our neighbors, our friends, our partners," Undersecretary of State Stuart E. Eizenstat said during an emergency meeting of the visiting presidents and a group of donor organizations.

Ariela Amador waited all afternoon, watching hopefully as rescue helicopters landed in a field near her home. Orlando Vargas hiked 60 miles, wading through rivers. Tomas Mayorga journeyed for two days, first by bus, then on foot. All three were searching desperately for loved ones missing in the most destructive mudslide unleashed by tropical storm Mitch. Each found at least one relative alive. But about 1,000 people remain unaccounted for in the mudslide at Casitas Volcano in western Nicaragua.

Even Mother Nature seems to have conspired against Central America. Barely a few years into its postwar reconstruction following almost a decade and a half of internal strife (36 years in the case of Guatemala), Central America now faces a newer and perhaps grimmer challenge of picking up the pieces in the wake of the worst natural disaster to hit the region in its modern history.

As desperation turned to anger among tropical storm Mitch's survivors, Central American governments went on the defensive Thursday. Officials throughout the region tried to explain the delays in evacuating flooded areas during the storm and the current holdups in bringing food and medicine to survivors isolated by collapsed bridges and washed-out roads.

The reports coming from Central America are more disheartening every day. Hurricane Mitch is long gone, but its toll is not yet counted. Officials have estimated that 7,000 people died in Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Belize and that thousands more are at risk for lack of clean water, dry shelter and food.

Maria Corina Artola has never been wealthy or even financially comfortable. But Friday, she was the poorest she has ever been. Little by little over the years, she had established herself as a street vendor, earning enough to support her four children in a shack along an open sewer. That was until tropical storm Mitch washed it all away.