Five years after gunmen kidnapped and murdered his only son, Honduran businessman Ricardo Maduro is now in a position to stem his country’s rampant crime. On January 27, he was sworn in as president.
Maduro, ’69, was elected last November on an anticrime, jobs-growth platform, winning 52 percent of the vote. A former chairman of the Honduran central bank, Maduro earlier was general manager for Xerox Honduras and chief executive of Inversiones La Paz, an import-export company.
He faces an enormous challenge in a country where 40 percent of the population is illiterate and more than 35 percent are unemployed. An estimated 30,000 gang members have overwhelmed law enforcement, a situation Maduro knows from personal experience. “We are going to thoroughly reform the country and enforce its laws,” he said at his swearing-in.
Maduro already has consulted with several foreign leaders, including President Bush. During his Washington visit in mid-January, he also met with another former resident of the Farm—National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
