GIGANTE, Costa Rica - There was a ghostlike quality to Rudy Gonsior, an American former Special Forces sniper, on the morning he arrived at a jungle retreat to see if a vomit-inducing psychedelic brew could undo the damage years of combat had done to his mind. Glassy-eyed and withdrawn, he barely spoke above a whisper and was much quieter than the six other veterans who had come to dredge up painful memories of comrades fallen in battle, thoughts of suicide and the scar that taking a life leaves on the psyche. [continues 2306 words]
SAN ANTONIO, Guatemala - Surrounded by green fields of potatoes, oats and corn on his small farm, Carlos Lopez recalled the decent money he was earning before last year, cultivating a different crop he referred to simply as "the plant." The plants, ones with the bright red flowers, "are worth a lot more than these other crops," Lopez said, wearing a blue baseball hat, sitting on a plastic chair behind his two-room, mud-splattered house. "Amapola," said Lopez, speaking the Spanish word for poppy. [end]
MEXICO CITY - More than a dozen conspirators gathered at the headquarters of the Honduran National Police just after 9:30 p.m. One of them clicked open a briefcase, and bundles of American dollars were distributed among the police officers - payment for the next day's hit job. After everyone else filed out of the room, the three highest-ranking officers stayed behind to make a call. "Keep watch over the news tomorrow, sir," one of them said, according to case files gathered by Honduran investigators. "We'll do it all in the morning, good night, sir." [continues 1549 words]
LEAP Executive Director Neill Franklin, a retired major with the Maryland State Police, says that drug policy needs to focus on health first, not criminal prosecutions, during a press conference on Friday, Sept. 5, 2014. Lindsay Fendt/The Tico Times Costa Rica will become the first country in Central America to host a branch of the drug policy reform organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, the group announced at a press conference Friday morning. The announcement took place after a week of debate on drug policies in the Americas at the Fifth Latin American and First Central American Conference on Drug Policy in San Jose. [continues 671 words]
SAN JOSE President Laura Chinchilla inaugurated on Thursday a radar station on Costa Rica's Pacific coast that will be a tool in the country's fight against drug trafficking and illegal fishing. The radar, which has a range of 50 nautical miles, is located in Puerto Caldera. Chinchilla said that during her four-year term as president, which will conclude on May 8, she has made security a priority, adding that her administration had made "the greatest investments to improve the monitoring and protection of our citizens and our territory by land, sea and air." [continues 177 words]
MEXICO CITY - The U.S. government has ceased providing Honduras with radar tracking information out of concern that a new policy allowing its forces to shoot down aircraft suspected of hauling narcotics does not have enough safeguards to prevent error. A statement from the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa distributed Tuesday said other U.S.-financed counternarcotics programs would not be affected, but that Washington already has ceased sharing certain types of information and assistance with Honduras. A policy to shoot down drug-laden aircraft has come into favor and fallen out of favor in the past in Latin America, depending partly on the mood in Washington. [continues 661 words]
Costa Rica's public security minister says the inability for U.S. joint patrol vessels to dock in Costa Rica sends the wrong message to drug traffickers. United States Coast Guard and Navy vessels participating in joint drug patrols are left out to sea without permission to dock in Costa Rica after the legislature failed to take up a vote on the measure before going on break, the daily La Nacion reported on Tuesday. Public Security Minister Mario Zamora said the patrols' inability to dock weakens Costa Rica's ability to combat drug trafficking in its territory. [continues 419 words]
The Organization of American States ended its general assembly meeting Friday without including the themes of decriminalizing or legalizing drugs in its final declaration as some countries had hoped. Host country Guatemala, whose president has pressed for some form of legalization, had predicted the declaration would include a change in antidrug policy. OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza noted that "the issue of legalization is not in the declaration, but it certainly is an issue that can change. Some countries have legalized marijuana, so it is an issue that is up for discussion." Two weeks ago, the OAS released a report calling for a serious discussion on legalizing marijuana. [end]
ANTIGUA, Guatemala - Whatever noisy hints Latin America has been making about a defiant march toward legalizing marijuana, the summit meeting of Western Hemisphere foreign ministers that ended Thursday revealed how rocky that path would be - and how many nations remained reluctant to join it. The meeting, the annual General Assembly session of the Organization of American States, followed a report by the organization that called for "flexible approaches" in drug policy and included a headline-grabbing suggestion that the legalization of marijuana be seriously discussed. [continues 836 words]
ANTIGUA, Guatemala - Latin American countries frustrated by the United States' refusal to change its drug-war strategy are pushing the U.S. government to look at alternatives to a fight that has killed tens of thousands in a region beset by drug cartels. Guatemalan Foreign Relations Secretary Fernando Carrera said the subject of drugs would top the agenda at the Organization of American States' General Assembly, which began its three-day session in Antigua on Tuesday evening. "We have already reached a consensus and agreed that our final declaration will include changes to the current anti-drug model," Carrera said. "We already have some ideas on how to change drug-fighting policies." [continues 577 words]
"No international entity is going to dictate legalization, and certainly not to the United States," a top U.S. official says. ANTIGUA, Guatemala -- Four decades after Washington launched its international "war on drugs" in Latin America (the U.S. no longer uses that term), members of the Organization of American States' General Assembly are questioning the logic behind what is increasingly viewed in the region as a failed policy. In a General Assembly meeting that started Tuesday in the colonial town of Antigua, Guatemala, OAS members will begin to explore alternatives to a strategy focused on military and law enforcement intervention to fight the trafficking of illegal drugs, mostly from South America and destined for users in the United States. [continues 729 words]
MADRID, (Reuters) Guatemalan President Otto Perez said yesterday he is feeling less alone in his drive to re-think the fight against drug-trafficking than a year ago, when he shocked fellow Central American leaders with a proposal to decriminalise narcotics. Guatemala, like its neighbour Mexico, is racked by violence from drug-trafficking cartels that ship South American cocaine to the United States. A Central American nation of 15 million people, Guatemala has one of the world's highest murder rates. [continues 614 words]
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) - Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla says her nation, Mexico and Colombia have opened talks with U.S. officials to prepare for the legalization of marijuana in some U.S. states. She said in an interview that the Central American nations worry about what the effect that legalization will have on the battle against international drug cartels. Chinchilla says the drug cartels that have become entrenched in Mexico "pose a very important menace to our country" and U.S. cooperation is needed because it is a huge consumer of those drugs. She also says "it's very hard to pretend that they are going to disappear. What is happening is that they move from one country to another." [end]
A Checkered History in Central America Complicates Efforts to Forge Closer Alliances. VILLA NUEVA, Guatemala - Lusvin Jerez has seen, firsthand, the way the U.S. has intervened in the security affairs of his obscure corner of Central America, 1,300 miles from the Texas border. He can't get enough of it. Jerez, 43, once sold home appliances in this violent, slum-dotted city on the outskirts of Guatemala City, but he grew tired of the extortion payments to gang members. So in January, he took a government job overseeing Villa Nueva's new citywide video security system, developed with U.S. dollars and expertise, one of myriad examples of Washington's involvement to help stabilize the violenceracked region. [continues 1134 words]
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - The Honduran Air Force pilot did not know what to do. It was the dead of night, and he was chasing a small, suspected drug plane at a dangerously low altitude, just a few hundred feet above the Caribbean. He fired warning shots, but instead of landing, the plane flew lower and closer to the sea. "So the pilot made a decision, thinking it was the best thing to do," said Arturo Corrales, Honduras's foreign minister, one of several officials to give the first detailed account of the episode. "He shot down the plane." [continues 2530 words]
With the passing of July, the window of opportunity for members of the public to give their opinion on decriminalization to the Special Committee on the decriminalization of marijuana passes with it. The Committee will now sort out all the information it has, and make a recommendation on whether or not G.O.B. should proceed to decriminalize marijuana. Meanwhile the public continues to make its voice heard through the other outlets available. One thing remains clear, the public is still having trouble differentiating between decriminalization and legalization. The current state of affairs begs the question "Is Belize prepared for the decriminalization of marijuana?" [continues 1421 words]
Whether marijuana is glorified by musicians, scorned by churches, revered as a religious sacrament or outlawed as a drug, the only constant about marijuana is that it is a topic of constant conflict. A prevalent problem in the marijuana debate is that policy makers and public differ in their opinions about whether or not the plant should be classified as a "drug". While Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is scientifically proven to have chemical effects consistent with that of "drug" use, marijuana is simply the dried leaves of a plant. When weighed against other substances such as cigarettes, which are processed and have a myriad of chemicals, marijuana, being an all-natural substance, at first glance doesn't seem to fit the description of a drug at all. [continues 1319 words]
The Ministry of National Security announced this week that it will be looking at a proposal to make it a misdemeanor, instead of a criminal offence, for persons to possess up to 10 grams of marijuana. Persons found with marijuana in small quantities (less than 10 grams) would be required to pay a fine, but would not be sent to jail, under the new proposal. As the law stands today, persons found with anything under 60 grams (about two ounces) - can be ordered to pay fines of up to $50,000 plus spend three years in jail. [continues 448 words]
We're an independent country, 30 years and running. So theoretically we should be able to decide our own policies and programs. Sadly, we don't always. Sad truth, we can't always - geopolitical realities, economic constraints, and so on. It is, therefore, a welcome thing when we do. The decision by the government to consider the decriminalization of marijuana is a bold and long overdue move. And while in the United States decriminalization of marijuana has been picking up steam over the last few years, and Argentina and Mexico just a few years ago approved a similar initiative, Belize, we believe, would be the first country in the Caribbean to so do. [continues 1176 words]
The Marijuana Trade Is Big Business in Belize! The empirical evidence seems to suggest that more than 30 percent of the population currently use or have used marijuana as a recreational drug. A sizable portion of that average use marijuana on a daily basis, as a stimulant, and are addicted to it. The notion of de-criminalizing marijuana use in Belize is not new. Many respected people in our community have spoken out in favour, for various compelling reasons. Among these, we have heard the arguments: [continues 329 words]
WASHINGTON - A U.S. agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration shot a man to death in Honduras during a raid on a drug smuggling operation early Saturday, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Honduras said on Sunday. The man who was killed had been reaching for his weapon, the official said, and the U.S. agent fired in self-defense. The shooting brought further attention to the growing U.S. involvement in counternarcotics operations in Central America. Commando style squads of DEA agents have been working with local security forces in several countries and have been present at several firefights in Honduras in which people died in the past 15 months. [continues 289 words]
WASHINGTON -- A commando-style squad of Drug Enforcement Administration agents accompanied Honduran counternarcotics police during two firefights with cocaine smugglers in the jungles of the Central American country this month, according to officials in both countries who were briefed on the matter. One of the fights, which occurred last week, left as many as four people dead and has sparked a backlash against the U.S. presence there. It remains unclear whether the DEA agents took part in the shooting during either incident, the first in the early hours of May 6 and the second early last Friday. [continues 545 words]
WASHINGTON - A commando-style squad of Drug Enforcement Administration agents accompanied the Honduran counternarcotics police during two firefights with cocaine smugglers in the jungles of the Central American country this month, according to officials in both countries who were briefed on the matter. One of the fights, which occurred last week, left as many as four people dead and has set off a backlash against the American presence there. It remains unclear whether the D.E.A. agents took part in the shooting during either episode, the first in the early hours of May 6 and the second early last Friday. In an initial account of the second episode, the Honduran government told local reporters that two drug traffickers had been killed and a large shipment of cocaine seized; he did not mention any American involvement. Several American officials said the D.E.A. agents did not return fire during the encounter. [continues 1086 words]
Three Central American Leaders Fail to Agree on Changing Their Laws, Possibly Including Legalization. A conclave of Central American presidents meeting in Guatemala to discuss a major overhaul of their drug laws - including legalization or decriminalization - failed to arrive at a consensus Saturday and agreed to meet again soon in Honduras. Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina had invited five counterparts to discuss what he described as growing frustration with Washington's anti-drug policy, which many in the region say is exacting too high a price in crime and corruption. [continues 557 words]
TULTITLAN, Mexico - After giving up trying to find a job in his native Honduras, metalworker Maynor Gutierrez decided to try to get to the USA. He never made it past a shelter for illegal immigrants in Mexico. Poverty, crime and corruption have overwhelmed Honduras, a fledgling democracy engulfed in political chaos and designated the murder capital of Latin America. Little has improved under President Porfirio Lobo, who took over after his predecessor was removed on charges of subverting democracy. The turmoil has prompted many Hondurans to flee north. [continues 737 words]
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) -- Guatemala's first president with a military background in 25 years said Tuesday the drug war can't be won with arms alone, and pledged that his administration will focus on fighting hunger, which he called a security problem. In an interview with The Associated Press one day after he promised to propose legalizing drugs in Guatemala, President Otto Perez Molina said the Central American country isn't following U.S. orders, despite American opposition to legalization. "We are not doing what the United States says, we are doing what we have to do," said Perez, who was elected on promises of an "iron-fist" approach to rampant crime and surprised observers by proposing drug legalization. [continues 152 words]
Los Zetas Extend Brutal Reign South, As U.S. To Offer More Antidrug Aid SANTA ELENA, Guatemala-El Peten province, a vast stretch of wilderness in northern Guatemala known for its rainforests and stunning Mayan pyramids at Tikal, is fast becoming a stronghold for a notoriously bloodthirsty Mexican cartel. Last month, soldiers entered a cattle ranch in El Peten to find the remains of a brutal human slaughter: Twenty-seven bodies strewn across the property and a pile of heads thrown over a fence. On a wall was a message written in blood and signed "Z200," a moniker authorities say belongs to a local wing of Mexico's Los Zetas. [continues 1140 words]
The Rot Spreads Drug-Trafficking Gangs Find a Promising New Home in Some of the Poorest and Most Vulnerable Countries in the Americas BATTLEFIELDS aside, the countries known as "the northern triangle" of the Central American isthmus form what is now the most violent region on earth. El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, along with Jamaica and Venezuela, suffer the world's highest murder rates (see map). The first two are bloodier now than they were during their civil wars in the 1980s. [continues 804 words]
Government Says Northern Province Has Become Overrun By Mexican Drug-Trafficking Organization The Guatemalan government declared a state of siege Sunday in a province it said has become overrun by a Mexican drug-trafficking group, the latest sign that Mexico's powerful cartels have extended their reach into foreign lands. The operation, which the government said would last at least a month, targets the northern province of Alta Verapaz, which officials described as a safe haven for Mexico's Los Zetas cartel. [continues 516 words]
GUATEMALA CITY =AD For a 17-day period that ended last month, Guatemala seemed to be falling under the direct control of suspected mobsters. A lawyer leading a posse of unsavory characters became the attorney general and started dismantling the state's legal apparatus. Central America's most populous country teetered on the edge of "going narco." A rugged coffee-growing nation of 13.5 million people, some 40 percent of them disenfranchised Mayan Indians, Guatemala has largely been off the world's radar screen. But as U.S. anti-narcotics aid poured into Mexico and Colombia, bad guys flooded the region in between. [continues 1264 words]
Under Pressure at Home, Traffickers Find Fertile Ground for Expansion in the Neighboring Nation. Twice before, the anti-drug agents had gotten a tip about a load of cocaine at the hulking industrial park on this dreary stretch of highway half an hour outside Guatemala City. Twice before, a U.S. official said, they had found nothing. On their third visit, they found a firing squad. Gunmen unleashed a furious barrage of bullets and at least one grenade, in some cases finishing the job point-blank. When the shooting stopped that day in April, five of the 10 Guatemalan agents lay dead and a sixth was wounded. [continues 1512 words]
BLUEFIELDS, Nicaragua - At first glance, this coastal town looks like any other rum-soaked, Rastafarian-packed, hammock-infested Caribbean city. But Bluefields has a secret: Most people here don't have to work because every week - sometimes, every day - sacks of floating cocaine between 75 and 100 pounds each drift in from the sea. The economy of this town of 50,000 is addicted to cocaine. While local authorities have no official figures, former Mayor Moises Arana says when the drugs float in, "everyone is happy, the stores are happy, the bars are happy, everyone has money. I remember one month when (Bluefields) bought 28,000 cases of beer." [continues 1284 words]
"Lawyers are also allowed too much leeway to play with the system and if the price is right, find loopholes to get some very guilty criminals back on the street." Belize is a pretty good country. Two indications of this are, firstly, the fact that, unlike other Third World countries, we don't live with the threat of the military coming out of their barracks to take over government, and secondly, our various ethnicities have healthy working relationships. As an indication of the second point, we would consider the heinous, brutal rape and murder of Kings Park housewife, Sandra Ruiz, and the crazy assault on one of her children. This took place on Sunday night, August 10. There was never any sense that there was the potential for ethnic hostility here, although the victims were Latinos, and there was the likelihood that the criminal was black. [continues 780 words]
PANAMA CITY, Panama - The anniversary of the 1989 U.S. invasion was declared a day of "national mourning" by Panama's legislature on Thursday, and it established a commission to determine how many people were killed when U.S. troops stormed the capital. The measure was unanimously approved as Panama commemorated the 18th anniversary of the day thousands of troops landed to arrest dictator Manuel Noriega on drug charges. "This is a recognition of those who fell on Dec. 20 as a result of the cruel and unjust invasion by the most powerful army in the world," said Rep. Cesar Pardo of the governing Democratic Revolutionary Party, which holds a majority in the legislature. [continues 248 words]
GUATEMALA CITY -- It is election time in Guatemala and that means rallies and banners -- and body bags. In the campaigning leading up to elections on Sept. 9, the authorities have reported 61 violent attacks on candidates and political activists. The death toll is 26, including seven national congressmen and numerous other office seekers. The flurry of bullets, and the occasional machete attack, make this the bloodiest campaign season in the history of a country with a long tradition of political violence, including 36 years of civil war that ended in 1996. But what makes the bloodletting different this time is that it has been attributed to narcotics traffickers and their allies intent on infiltrating Guatemala's political system. [continues 1374 words]
Costa Rica is Showing Progress in its War on Drugs, but Concerns Exist That the Country is Used as an Exchange Center for Major Drug Trade SAN JOSE, Costa Rica -- Known abroad mostly for its political stability, pristine beaches and eco-tourism, this country without an army has suddenly found itself in the middle of the war on drugs. During President Oscar Arias' 14 months in office, Costa Rican and U.S. authorities have set seizure records in increasingly spectacular drug busts -- nearly 50 tons of cocaine, compared with 2003, when seizures didn't reach one ton. [continues 535 words]
PANAMA CITY -- Call them "the not ready for prime time traffickers." That's how Panamanian and U.S. authorities are describing alleged functionaries of a Mexican drug cartel that lost a $270-million load of cocaine in a colossal bust off Panama's Pacific coast last month. In interviews here, officials were practically shaking their heads over the carelessness and inattention to detail by the Sinaloa-based cartel during the two months that a pair of alleged lieutenants spent in Panama City arranging the Colombia-to-Mexico shipment. [continues 1155 words]
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Coast Guard has seized 43,000 pounds of cocaine hidden in two containers aboard a ship off the coast of Panama, the largest-ever American seizure of the drug at sea, officials said Wednesday. The Coast Guard cutters Hamilton and Sherman, based in California, intercepted the Panamanian-flagged Gatun Sunday about 20 miles southwest of Isla de Coiba after a patrol aircraft spotted the vessel the previous day, the Coast Guard said. Fourteen Panamanian and Mexican crewmembers were arrested and will be charged by U.S. and Panamanian authorities, officials said. "This record-breaking seizure denied the Mexican drug lords $300 million in drug revenue," Drug Enforcement Agency administrator Karen P. Tandy said. [end]
PANAMA CITY, Panama - Panamanian police seized a boat off the nation's Pacific coast carrying 21.4 tons of cocaine in one of the biggest maritime cocaine busts anywhere on record, officials said Monday. National police working with agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency seized the boat on Sunday near the island of Coiba, said a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. Police arrested 12 men on the boat, including Mexicans and Panamanians, and another two suspects in Panama City in connection with the drugs, the official said. The boat, which was sailing under a Panamanian flag, was being transported to Panama City on Monday, he said. [end]
PANAMA CITY, Panama -- Panamanian police seized a boat off the nation's Pacific coast carrying 19.4 metric tons of cocaine in one of the biggest maritime cocaine busts anywhere on record, officials said Monday. National police working with agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency seized the boat on Sunday near the island of Coiba, said a police official who asked his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak on the record. Police arrested 12 men on the boat, including Mexicans and Panamanians, and another two suspects in Panama City in connection with the drugs, the official said. [continues 225 words]
GUATEMALA CITY -- The distinguished guests from El Salvador entered this capital city with one set of police officers as bodyguards, and another set of police officers waiting to ambush them. As they drove along mountain roads, Eduardo D'Aubuisson and his fellow legislators were entering a trap set by rogue Guatemalan officers hired by drug traffickers, officials said. The police bandits believed the Salvadorans were using their diplomatic immunity to work for rival traffickers. The final, violent hours of D'Aubuisson's life, and the equally disturbing events of the days that followed, seem plucked from the plot of the Oscar-winning movie "The Departed," where trust is illusory and crosses and double-crosses are bloody. But that is reality in today's Central America, a region of weak institutions, where crime bosses control police death squads and organized crime is said to be more powerful than the state. [continues 924 words]
Murder Of Politicians By Police Just Latest Indication Of Challenge Guatemala City (AP) - Guatemala knows it is losing the battle against drug trafficking - its police, military and justice system are beholden to traffickers who use the country as a way station for Colombian drug shipments to the U.S. In a case that has laid bare the extent of corruption in the Central American nation, FBI agents are trying to help discover who ordered the murders of three Salvadoran politicians and the Guatemalan police officers who said they were told to kill them. [continues 741 words]
Guatemala knows it is losing the battle against drug trafficking - its police, military and justice system are beholden to traffickers who use the country as a way station for Colombian drug shipments to the U.S. In a case that has laid bare the extent of corruption in the Central American nation, FBI agents are trying to help discover who ordered the murders of three Salvadoran politicians and the Guatemalan police officers who said they were told to kill them. The killings and apparent cover-up has exposed the seemingly insurmountable challenges President Oscar Berger faces as he tries to regain control of a defiant and even criminal police force. [continues 707 words]
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - Tipped off by three plastic pipes mysteriously skimming the ocean's surface, authorities seized a homemade submarine packed with 3 tons of cocaine off Costa Rica's Pacific coast. Four men traveled inside the 50-foot wood and fiberglass craft, breathing through the pipes. The craft sailed along at about 7 mph, only six feet beneath the surface, Security Minister Fernando Berrocal said. The submarine was seen Friday 103 miles off the coast near Cabo Blanco National Park on the Nicoya peninsula. [continues 228 words]
THE sight of three PVC pipes skimming the ocean's surface off the Pacific coast tipped off authorities in Costa Rica, who have seized a home-made submarine packed with three tons of cocaine. Four men were arrested after they were found travelling inside the 49ft wood and fibreglass craft, breathing through the pipes. The submarine was spotted oon Friday 103 miles off Costa Rica's coast near Cabo Blanco National Park on the Nicoya peninsula, said Security Minister Fernando Berrocal. It moved at about 7mph and was about 6ft below the surface. [continues 223 words]
A Corozal policeman is recovering from a gunshot wound he received during a police raid on a marijuana plantation. Police constable #515 Joseph Gilharry, was shot in the left shoulder during an anti-drug operation conducted on the Consejo road on Friday last. He was part of a team patrolling the area around 5A.M. when they discovered the marijuana field. While the police were preparing to secure the area, people who resented their presence began to take potshots at them. Gilharry was injured. The Corozal Police returned fire, but withdrew in order to help their fallen colleague. Gilharry was taken to the Corozal hospital and subsequently transferred to the Northern Regional in Orange Walk Town. He remains in a serious but stable condition. The shooters escaped undetected, but the marijuana field was secured and eventually torched. [end]
PAVON, Guatemala - Smack dab in the middle of this tiny country was a barbed-wire-ringed, upside-down place of about a dozen or so acres where wrong was right. The Independent Republic of Pavon, as Guatemalans came to call it, was, in reality, a prison. But there were no guards controlling it. Every last person on the troubled piece of real estate about a half-hour outside the capital, Guatemala City, was an outlaw -- from the ruling elite to the grunts who carried out their orders. Those who dared cross the most notorious convicts were sent off to a grim punishment chamber nicknamed the North Pole. [continues 779 words]
EL SACRIFICIO, Guatemala - Huddled together aboard two vintage tanks, 40 soldiers plow through dense jungle on a four-hour journey into a little-known battlefield of the drug war. Their mission, here in Guatemala's wild north: to blow up dozens of clandestine airstrips used by planes laden with Colombian cocaine. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that 70 percent of the cocaine that ends up in the United States passes through Central America. Guatemala's sparsely inhabited Peten region is the last stop before the drugs cross into Mexico on their way north. It is here that Guatemalan drug-trafficking organizations serve as a link between their Mexican and Colombian counterparts, unloading and splitting up tons of cocaine into smaller shipments that can be transported more easily over land. [continues 588 words]
Addiction Is Threat To Kuna Independence ACHUTUPO . After keeping the world at bay for five centuries, the Kuna Indians on Panama's unspoiled Caribbean coast now confront an insidious intruder: cocaine traffickers. The fiercely independent tribe inhabits Kuna Yala, a semiautonomous area that includes a coastal strip and the San Blas islands. The region is known mainly to foreign eco-tourists who can afford to reach its isolated white sand beaches. The Kuna have fought off incursions by Spanish conquistadors, rubber growers, gold miners and, most recently, tourism promoters who ply them with a steady stream of resort proposals. But they jealously protect their sovereignty, won after a bloody uprising in 1925. Today, the tribe permits no outside ownership of its land. [continues 538 words]
The Story Seemed A Bit Fishy. When the USS Ford stopped a 40-foot boat in international waters north of Panama this month, the master of the boat allegedly said he had 300 pounds of fish on board. Then he changed his story, saying he had tossed all the fish, according to the Coast Guard, which had crew members aboard the Navy frigate. As the Navy and Coast Guard investigated, however, they couldn't even find fishing poles or line aboard. Removing a hidden compartment, they said they found the boat's true cargo, about a ton of cocaine, estimated to be worth about $66 million. [continues 129 words]
Inside Central America
