By Mica Rosenberg

GUATEMALA CITY, July 18 (Reuters) - The United States pledged $1 million on Wednesday to help Central American governments draft a regional strategy to fight violent youth street gangs and drug trafficking.

Thomas Shannon, U.S. assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, made the cash pledge while in Guatemala to sign an agreement with the Central American Integration System (SICA) to improve intelligence sharing and policing.

He said Washington may add to that sum in the future.

"We can improve collaboration in the fight against organized crime, especially against gangs, drug traffickers and illegal arms dealers," Shannon told a news conference, flanked by Guatemalan President Oscar Berger and Vice President Eduardo Stein.

"We are going to designate $1 million to programs that are in development through SICA," he said. "We will return to the U.S. and ask the Congress how we can give more technical support to this process."

The U.S. drug enforcement agency says as much as 75 percent of Colombian cocaine passes through Central America on its way to the United States, with powerful cartels battling for control of Guatemala's lawless jungles and porous border with Mexico.

Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras are also overrun with violent youth street gangs, known as 'maras' that trace their origins back to Salvadoran immigrants on the streets of Los Angeles in the 1980s and 1990s.

Gang killings have pushed up murder rates in Guatemala, with close to 6,000 people killed in the country of 12 million last year, one of the highest rates in Latin America.

"No country can confront these transnational threats on their own," Shannon said, speaking to reporters in Spanish.

AlertNet news is provided by