Origanalist
08-25-2014, 11:56 AM
Luis Barrueto | Aug 25, 2014
Having grown up in Guatemala, I’ve witnessed my country’s dramatic increase in crime due to the War on Drugs first hand. For most of my life, drug cartels used Guatemala as a natural pitstop for their smuggling routes. Unattended regions in the north provided the perfect space to refuel their vehicles and airplanes before transporting their products to major consumers in the north like the United States. This route had remained the same since the beginning of the Drug War, but recent developments over the past ten years has diverted even more narcotics and violence to my back yard, highlighting the need for reform in Mexico and the US.
In 2006, former Mexican president Felipe Calderón declared the war on cartels by shifting his country's security strategy, dubbed the Mérida Initiative, and established a major partnership with the US Department of State. From 2008 to 2014, Mexico spent $68.3 billion USD on its own security and public safety programs, plus $2.4 billion from the US. As a result, violence became cruder in Mexican territory, displacing some of the drug flows — most notably cocaine and synthetic products — to the northern part of Central America.
Central American armed forces have received $803.6 millions worth of weapons and training from the United States between 2008 and 2011 under the Central America Regional Security Initiative (CARSI). Some local efforts in Guatemala have also been pursued to capture local gang members. Combined with Plan Mérida, they have rendered an increase in extraditions of medium and high-level drug lords, most notably El Chapo Guzmán last February.
Although small successes have been made, overall these efforts have been in vain. As a result of the crackdown in the north, violence shifted from México to places with even weaker institutions of governance like Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. It is here in my backyard where most of today's territorial disputes between cartels are taking place, yet there is barely a growing recognition among political leaders that the US-led efforts to blockade drug traffic is the core of the problem that it sets out to solve.
The US could have seen this coming. During the Clinton administration, the US similarly funnelled $1.2 billion in military aid and training to Columbia for the South American country to fight its drug war. Just like Mexico a decade later, the plan did little to solve the problem but simply shifted violence elsewhere.
continued at...http://townhall.com/columnists/luisbarrueto/2014/08/25/the-war-on-drugs-is-destroying-my-country-n1882135/page/full
Having grown up in Guatemala, I’ve witnessed my country’s dramatic increase in crime due to the War on Drugs first hand. For most of my life, drug cartels used Guatemala as a natural pitstop for their smuggling routes. Unattended regions in the north provided the perfect space to refuel their vehicles and airplanes before transporting their products to major consumers in the north like the United States. This route had remained the same since the beginning of the Drug War, but recent developments over the past ten years has diverted even more narcotics and violence to my back yard, highlighting the need for reform in Mexico and the US.
In 2006, former Mexican president Felipe Calderón declared the war on cartels by shifting his country's security strategy, dubbed the Mérida Initiative, and established a major partnership with the US Department of State. From 2008 to 2014, Mexico spent $68.3 billion USD on its own security and public safety programs, plus $2.4 billion from the US. As a result, violence became cruder in Mexican territory, displacing some of the drug flows — most notably cocaine and synthetic products — to the northern part of Central America.
Central American armed forces have received $803.6 millions worth of weapons and training from the United States between 2008 and 2011 under the Central America Regional Security Initiative (CARSI). Some local efforts in Guatemala have also been pursued to capture local gang members. Combined with Plan Mérida, they have rendered an increase in extraditions of medium and high-level drug lords, most notably El Chapo Guzmán last February.
Although small successes have been made, overall these efforts have been in vain. As a result of the crackdown in the north, violence shifted from México to places with even weaker institutions of governance like Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. It is here in my backyard where most of today's territorial disputes between cartels are taking place, yet there is barely a growing recognition among political leaders that the US-led efforts to blockade drug traffic is the core of the problem that it sets out to solve.
The US could have seen this coming. During the Clinton administration, the US similarly funnelled $1.2 billion in military aid and training to Columbia for the South American country to fight its drug war. Just like Mexico a decade later, the plan did little to solve the problem but simply shifted violence elsewhere.
continued at...http://townhall.com/columnists/luisbarrueto/2014/08/25/the-war-on-drugs-is-destroying-my-country-n1882135/page/full