| | |  Editorials | Issues | November 2009 
Central American Disorder — a Threat to Mexico's Security
 Sylvia Longmire - mexidata.info
go to original
November 24, 2009
 |  | A solid understanding of problems and crises going on around Mexico is necessary in any attempt to come up with potential solutions and strategies for the Mexican government. |  | | |
The everyday realities of Mexico’s drug war are grisly and overwhelming. On a daily basis, both Mexican media outlets and U.S. news sources report the latest mass murders that have resulted from turf wars between Mexican cartels and internal organizational discord.
Security in Mexico is perceived as mostly an internal problem. But Mexico is not an isolated country, and the ongoing turmoil in neighboring countries is having both a direct and indirect impact on Mexico’s security situation.
Honduras. The biggest news out of Honduras in recent months has been the ouster of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, the debate over whether or not his ouster constituted a military coup, and international negotiations over a resolution to the political crisis. But nefarious activities in Honduras have not ceased, and have likely flourished in the shadows of the Zelaya drama.
Honduras is one of the most popular waypoints for drug trafficking in Central America. According to Associated Press reports, pseudoephedrine smuggling increased in the Central American country last year after Mexico banned importation and domestic use of the chemical. Police have said more aircraft carrying drugs from South America have landed in Honduras since Zelaya’s ouster, and Honduran security forces have been unable to stop the planes without the help of U.S. helicopters and radar technology.
Last month, the interim government headed by Roberto Micheletti sent a message of protest to the United Nations and the Organization of American States regarding the frequent landing of Venezuela-flagged aircraft carrying illicit drugs. Micheletti also complained about the lack of U.S. cooperation with Honduran authorities in drug interdiction operations.
Some observers are optimistic that upcoming elections, scheduled for 29 November, will bring some sense of normalcy to events in Honduras. However, drugs bound for Mexico and points beyond are still making their way into Honduras, and more easily as of late. As long as the political drama continues, drug trafficking operations that impact Mexico’s own drug war will continue mostly unabated.
Guatemala. This neighbor of Mexico is no stranger to political instability, criminal activity and violence. Sadly, Guatemala has become a hub for human trafficking in Central America. According to the U.S. Embassy there, it is a source, transit, and destination country for Guatemalans and Central Americans trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor.
In the Mexican border area, Guatemalan children are exploited for forced labor and begging. Both Guatemalan men and women are exploited for labor in agriculture. Border areas with Mexico and Belize remain a top concern due to the heavy flow of undocumented migrants, many of whom fall victim to traffickers. Guatemala is also a destination country for victims from El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, who are subject to commercial sexual exploitation, and a transit point for Central Americans trafficked to Mexico and the United States.
In addition to the human trafficking crisis, Guatemala has also become an ideal spot for some cartel enforcers to train and recruit. In March 2009, Guatemalan security forces discovered a camp where Mexican drug traffickers trained dozens of gunmen. Los Zetas, formerly enforcers for Mexico's Gulf cartel and now a cartel in their own right, were running the camp.
Two Zetas commanders and 37 recruits fled the camp before the police and army arrived, leaving behind 500 grenades, six rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Guatemalan authorities also found an illegal airstrip, an obstacle course, and equipment for practicing shooting at moving targets, according to Reuters' reports.
El Salvador. Both Honduras and El Salvador have been focal points for gang violence in Central America, with the latter being best known today for its most violent export – Mara Salvatrucha gang members. The Mara Salvatrucha is also known as MS-13.
The “world’s most dangerous gang,” as it's been called by the FBI, is an intricate part of Mexico’s drug war. Gang members act as ad-hoc enforcers for some cartels, both in Mexico and the U.S. Some law enforcement reports indicate MS-13 members have been hired to carry out hits on U.S. soil, as have members of other U.S.-based Latino gangs. MS-13 members are also distributors of drugs smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico.
Nicaragua. President Daniel Ortega has made headlines recently with his successful bid to change the country’s laws to allow him to run for reelection in 2011. Ortega is already a controversial figure, having headed the Marxist Sandinista movement in the 1980s, and now using very shady maneuvers to garner Supreme Court approval for his reelection ambitions.
So far, Nicaragua has come nowhere close to achieving the political drama of Honduras, but the potential is there. And Mexico’s cartels are already there, waiting to take advantage of any instability that might work in their favor.
According to the Latin America Herald Tribune, Nicaraguan authorities seized an arsenal of military weaponry in mid-November in the province of Matagalpa that belonged to a cell of Mexico's Sinaloa Federation. The National Police said that several houses in different parts of Managua were being raided because they were suspected of being arms warehouses.
It’s easy to become shortsighted when analyzing the factors contributing to violence in Mexico because most of them do appear to come from within—cartel rivalries, endemic corruption, and limited government resources to fight it. But it’s crucial to realize that the drug war is not happening in a vacuum. A solid understanding of problems and crises going on around Mexico is therefore necessary in any attempt to come up with potential solutions and strategies for the Mexican government.
Sylvia Longmire is a former Air Force officer and Special Agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, where she specialized in counterintelligence, counterespionage, and force protection analysis. After being medically retired in 2005, Ms. Longmire worked for almost four years as a Senior Intelligence Analyst for the California State Terrorism Threat Assessment Center, providing daily situational awareness to senior state government officials on southwest border violence and significant events in Latin America. She received her Master’s degree from the University of South Florida in Latin American and Caribbean Studies, with a focus on the Cuban and Guatemalan revolutions. Ms. Longmire is currently an independent consultant and freelance writer. Her website is Mexico's Drug War; she is a regular contributor to Examiner.com; and her email address is spooky926(at)gmail.com. |
|
| |
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us