The article discusses the murky interrelationships between the Mexican cartels and other regional gangs, methods they use to smuggle both drugs and people, the entry of Guatemala's military into trying to combat cartel and gang activities and possible American responses and aid to the Central American countries fighting gangs withing their borders.
For the article's Hot Stratfor Babe I looked towards Central American actresses and, after a highly scientific method of elimination, I selected the Nicaraguan born Barbara Carrera for the honor.
Ms Carrera was the duaghter of a Nicaraguan woman and an American employed at the U.S. embassy. She moved to the states at the age of 10, and began modeling when she was a teen. She then began acting, and had a successful career in both movies and on TV. She is best known for her works as Bond girl/villain in Never Say Never Again and on the TV show Dallas.
During her acting career Babara Carrera also branched into painting. She has had some success as a painter. You can see examples of her artwork at her site Barbara Carrera Art.
Of course, from my perspective, and no doubt yours as well, the high point of her career came when she starred in Lone Wolf McQuade opposite the one and only Chuck Norris. As a bonus, after the article I've embedded a trailer to that cinematic masterpiece. It mainly features Chuck punching, shooting, and blowing things up, but Ms Carrera does briefly appear in it a few times.
The Mexican Drug Cartel Threat in Central America
By Karen Hooper, November 17, 2011
Guatemalan President-elect Otto Perez Molina told Mexican newspaper El Universal on Nov. 9 that he plans to engage drug cartels in a “full frontal assault” when he takes office in 2012. The former general said he will use Guatemala’s elite military forces, known as Los Kaibiles, to take on the drug cartels in a strategy similar to that of the Mexican government; he has asked for U.S. assistance in this struggle.
The statements signal a shifting political landscape in already violent Central America. The region is experiencing increasing levels of crime and the prospect of heightened competition from Mexican drug cartels in its territory. The institutional weakness and security vulnerabilities of Guatemala and other Central American states mean that combating these trends will require significant help, most likely from the United States.
From Sideshow to Center Stage
Central America has seen a remarkable rise in its importance as a transshipment point for cocaine and other contraband bound for the United States. Meanwhile, Mexican organized crime has expanded its activities in Mexico and Central America to include the smuggling of humans and substances such as precursor chemicals used for manufacturing methamphetamine. Substantial evidence also suggests that Central American, and particularly Guatemalan, military armaments including M60 machine guns and 40 mm grenades have wound up being used in Mexico’s drug conflict.
From the 1970s to the 1990s, Colombian cartels transited directly to Miami. After U.S. military aerial and radar surveillance in the Caribbean effectively shut down those routes, Mexico became the last stop on the drug supply chain before the United States, greatly empowering Mexico’s cartels. A subsequent Mexican government crackdown put pressure on Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) to diversify their transit routes to avoid increased enforcement at Mexico’s airstrips and ports. Central America consequently has become an increasingly significant middleman for South American suppliers and Mexican buyers of contraband.
The methods and routes for moving illicit goods through Central America are diverse and constantly in flux. There is no direct land connection between the coca-growing countries of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. A region of swampy jungle terrain along the Panamanian-Colombian known as the Darien Gap has made road construction prohibitively expensive and thus barred all but the most intrepid of overland travelers. Instead, aircraft or watercraft must be used to transport South American goods north, which can then be offloaded in Central America and driven north into Mexico. Once past the Darien Gap, the Pan American Highway becomes a critical transportation corridor. Honduras, for example, reportedly has become a major destination for planes from Venezuela laden with cocaine. Once offloaded, the cocaine is moved across the loosely guarded Honduran-Guatemalan border and then moved through Guatemala to Mexico, often through the largely unpopulated Peten department.
Though precise measurements of the black market are notoriously difficult to obtain, these shifts in Central America have been well-documented — and the impact on the region has been stark. While drug trafficking occurs in all Central American countries to some extent, most violence associated with the trade occurs in the historically tumultuous “Northern Triangle” of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. No longer receiving the global attention they did when the United States became involved in their Cold War-era civil wars, these countries remain poverty stricken, plagued by local gangs and highly unstable.
The violence has worsened as the drug traffic has increased. El Salvador saw its homicide rate increase by 6 percent to 66 per 100,000 inhabitants between 2005 and 2010. At the same time, Guatemala’s homicide rate increased 13 percent, to 50 per 100,000 inhabitants. Meanwhile Honduras saw a rise of 108 percent, to 77 per 100,000 inhabitants. These are some of the highest homicide rates in the world.
In comparison, the drug war in Mexico caused murder rates to spike 64 percent, from 11 to 18 deaths per 100,000 between 2005 and 2010. Conservative estimates put the number of dead from gang and military violence in Mexico at 50,000. These numbers are slightly misleading, as Mexican violence is concentrated in scattered pockets where most drug trafficking and competition among drug traffickers occurs. Even so, they demonstrate the disproportionate impact organized criminal groups have had on the societies of the three Northern Triangle countries.
Guatemala’s Outsized Role
Increased involvement by Mexican cartels in Central America inevitably has affected the region’s politico-economic structures, a process most visible in Guatemala. Its territory spans Central America, making it one of several choke points on the supply chain of illicit goods coming north from El Salvador and Honduras bound for Mexico.
Guatemala has a complex and competitive set of criminal organizations, many of which are organized around tight-knit family units. These family organizations have included the politically and economically powerful Lorenzana and Mendoza families. First rising to prominence in trade and agriculture, these families control significant businesses in Guatemala and transportation routes for shipping both legal and illicit goods. Though notorious, these families are far from alone in Guatemala’s criminal organizations. Major drug traffickers like the well-known Mario Ponce and Walther Overdick also have strong criminal enterprises, with Ponce reportedly managing his operations from a Honduran jail.
The relationship of these criminal organizations to Mexican drug cartels is murky at best. The Sinaloa and Los Zetas cartels are both known to have relationships with Guatemalan organized criminal groups, but the lines of communication and their exact agreements are unclear. [continued after the jump]
