Central America Increasingly Caught Up In Drug Wars

Drug violence that has plagued Mexico and Colombia for decades is moving into Central America as the U.S., as well as Mexican and Colombian governments, step up enforcement on drug cartels. The New York Times reports:

Traffickers have used Central America as a stopover point since at least the 1970s. But the aggressive crackdowns on criminal organizations in Mexico and Colombia, coupled with strides in limiting smuggling across the Caribbean, have increasingly brought the powerful syndicates here, pushing the drug scourge deeper into small Central American countries incapable of combating it.

Most of the known cocaine shipments moving north, 84 percent of them, crossed through Central America last year, according to radar tracking data from American authorities — a sharp increase from 44 percent in 2008 and only 23 percent in 2006, the year President Felipe Calderón of Mexico took office and began his assault against the drug gangs in his country.

Responding to the pressure — and opportunity — the cartels have spread out quickly. Five of Central America’s seven countries are now on the United States’ list of 20 “major illicit drug transit or major illicit drug producing countries.” Three of those, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras, were added just last year.

Perhaps the worst thing is that now governments are pouring drug fighting monies into Central American countries, which we can all see worked in Mexico and Colombia. Those that will suffer the most are people so poor already that they have no choice, and the innocent bystanders caught between the drug dealers and the police.

Follow Sara Inés Calderón on Twitter @SaraChicaD

[Image By Alex Covarrubias]

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