proposal

The End of Civil War, the Rise of Narcotrafficking and the Implementation of the Merida Initiative in Central America

Cover Page Footnote William L. Marcy, Ph.D. is the author of The Politics of Cocaine and is a lecturer at Buffalo State College and Erie Community College. This article is part of a larger book project tentatively titled Crossroads: Central America and Mexico - Civil War and Drug War 1979-2014.

This article is available in International Social Science Review: http://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/issr/vol89/iss1/1

The End of Civil War, the Rise of Narcotrafficking and the Implementation of the Merida

Initiative in Central America

In February 2007, three Salvadoran congressmen, including Congressman Eduardo

D’Aubuisson—the son of Roberto D’Aubuisson—and the founder of the Alianza Republicana

Nactionalista Party (ARENA), were murdered on a Guatemalan farm near the town of El

Jocotillo.1 At first, the killings appeared politically motivated, but later evidence indicated that

the assassins tore apart the congressmen’s car in a search for drugs and money. Two days after

the killings, authorities arrested four Guatemalan police officers for the murders, after they

confessed that they thought the congressmen were Colombian drug dealers carrying cash. Three

days after their confession, an armed commando entered the maximum-security jail where the

arrested officers were held and shot them dead.2

In the months that followed, the government prosecuted several high-ranking

Guatemalans, including a congressman, state governor and at least twelve civilians and police

officers in connection with the murders.3 The killings shocked Central America, but this type of

violence was nothing new.

El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua suffered from decades of civil war, which spilled

over into Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama. During the last quarter of the twentieth century, the

backward socioeconomic situation and the lack of reform in El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua,

and even Honduras led to an escalation of their civil wars during the 1970s and1980s. The

conflicts became a part of the Cold War, further heightening Central American tensions, as both

the United States and the Soviet Union vied for regional influence by providing military

assistance to revolutionary and counterrevolutionary forces. The death tolls were high. In El

Salvador, roughly 70,000 people lost their lives by the war’s end in 1992. Nicaragua suffered

80,000 deaths by 1991, while Guatemala lost 200,000 people between 1954 and 1996.4

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Central America’s civil wars devastated a generation, but the murders of the Salvadorian

congressmen revealed a new trend in its turbulent history. Cocaine, that lucrative but illegal

commodity, displaced ideology as the basis for Central America’s violence.

Histories about the War on Drugs in Central America have focused on individual

countries or criminal elements involved in narcotrafficking.5 However, the research has not

discussed the impact of Central America’s civil wars and how they affected regional drug

trafficking. How was Central America transformed into a hub for narcotrafficking during its civil

wars? How did the post-civil war period influence Central America’s ability to respond to

narcotrafficking? How did drug-related violence in Central America come to resemble the

violence witnessed during its civil wars?

Using newly acquired primary sources obtained through a U.S. Department of State

declassification process, traditional open-source government documents and secondary sources,

this paper attempts to show how Central America’s civil wars and its weak political institutions

left the region vulnerable to narcotrafficking syndicates and violent criminal gangs that

threatened to destabilize the region as a whole. The emerging narcotrafficking/gang problem led

to the development of radical responses and contentious international counternarcotics programs

that sowed regional instability similar to that experienced during Central America’s civil war era.

The Initial Colombian-Mexican Connection in Central America

During the 1980s, revolution in Central America facilitated the growth of regional

narcotrafficking.6 Inconclusive allegations of drug trafficking were leveled against many of the

participants, including the Contra organizations Ailanza Revlocionaria Democrática (ARDE)

and the Fuerza Democrática Nicaragüense (FDN). Allegations also targeted Honduran

protection for international trafficker Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros, the Sandinista Dirección

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General de Seguridad del Estado (DGSE), and Cuba's Dirección General de Información (DGI)

involvement with the Colombian guerrilla organization Movimiento 19 de Abril (M-19).

Authorities brought greater evidence against the Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega (1983-

1989) for his association with the Medellín cartel, which led to the U.S. invasion of Panama in

1989. While much has been written on this subject matter elsewhere, mentioning it is important,

because the Medellín cartel developed narcotrafficking ties with every interest listed above

during the height of the region's civil wars.7

As the civil wars wound down in the early 1990s, a nexus between Mexican and

Colombian drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) emerged. U.S. efforts to slow drug traffic in

the Caribbean during the late 1980s with Operation Bahamas, Turks and Caicos (OPBAT)

motivated Andean drug traffickers to shift their trafficking operations to the Pacific corridor,

towards Central America and Mexico.8 Corruption and the porous U.S. southwest border enabled

Colombian DTOs to create solid partnerships with Mexican syndicates, which the Colombians

used to smuggle cocaine and heroin into the United States.9 The Deputy Attorney General of the

PGR in charge of Mexico’s anti-narcotics police, Javier Coello Trejo, succinctly described

Mexico as a “trampoline for Colombian cocaine.”10 By 1989, 70 percent of Colombian cocaine

was moving into Mexico, often run through Central America, which was used as a storage and

transshipment point.11 For the Colombian and Mexican narcotraffickers, Central America offered

an unchecked path to elude U.S. and Andean counternarcotics efforts.

The Medellín cartel formed the initial Mexican-Colombian relationship in the late 1980s.

Honduran trafficker Ramon Matta Ballesteros arranged the first known contact between Mexican

DTOs and the Medellín cartel. Ballesteros introduced Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo (a.k.a. El

Padrino), the leader of the Guadalajara cartel and father of the Tijuana and Sinaloa cartels, to

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Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, a founding member of the Medellín cartel. In 1986, the murder of

DEA Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena led to the break-up of the Guadalajara cartel, which ended

with Felix Gallardo's arrest in 1989. From jail, Gallardo orchestrated the division of the

Guadalajara cartel among its “second generation” associates.12

During this time, trafficker Arturo Eng Guerrero helped the Medellín cartel strengthen its

ties with the Arellano Felix organization, which operated out of Tijuana.13 The initial Medellín-

Tijuana cartel operation took advantage of Mexican smuggling routes along the U.S. border. The

Colombians paid Mexican smugglers $1,000 for each kilo of cocaine they moved into the U.S.

The Medellín cartel reacquired the cocaine after it entered the country.14

By the early 1990s, pressure from Colombian authorities forced the Medellín cartel to

modify its operations. As a result, they gave Mexican syndicates more responsibility over

trafficking operations. Rather than paying Mexican DTOs to move cocaine into the United

States, the Medellín cartel provided Mexican DTOs, such as the Arellano Felix cartel, with

cocaine, and allowed them to set up their own distribution networks in the United States.15 The

1992 arrest of Javier Pardo Cardona, the Medellín cartel’s main contact with Mexican DTOs,

signaled the decline of the Medellín's influence in Mexico. However, their rivals, the Cali cartel,

had already filled the void.16

According to the Department of State, because of Colombia’s focus on the Medellín

cartel, the Calí cartel took responsibility for most of the trafficking through Mexico as early as

1990.17 The U.S. State Department also reported that the Mexican government’s use of radar and

its implementation of a shoot-down policy in 1990 caused the Cali cartel to put a moratorium on

multi-aircraft drug convoys to Mexico. They shifted their aviation operations southward from

northern Mexico into Guatemala and, sources suspect, El Salvador, in order to move the cocaine

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through Mexico by surface vehicles to the U.S.18 Working together, the Mexican and Cali cartels

moved their staging areas to southern Mexico and neighboring Central America.19

The Cali cartel differed from the flamboyant Medellín cartel, best exemplified by Pablo

Escobar. They preferred to associate with subtler Mexican traffickers who worked within the

Mexican system. The Cali cartel developed close ties with Juan García Ábrego, the leader of the

Gulf cartel.20 Abrego offered to handle all the cocaine shipments into the United States in

exchange for 50 percent of the profits.21 By 1994, the Gulf cartel was handling as much as one-

third of all cocaine shipments into the U.S. from Cali cartel suppliers.22 In Guadalajara, Mexico,

the Cali cartel established connections with the La Familia cartel, an anti-drug vigilante group in

the state of Michoacan that evolved into a DTO affiliated with the Gulf cartel.23

The Cali cartel also developed ties with Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who emerged as the

undisputed leader of the Ciudad Juarez cartel by 1993. In January 1992, Cali cartel leader

Gilberto Rodriguez-Orejuela met with Carrillo Fuentes in Guatemala, where they agreed that

Carrillo Fuentes would fly 727 jets loaded with cocaine from Colombia to Mexico. Carillo

Fuentes’ air trafficking operation earned him the nickname “Lord of the Skies.”24 The Cali cartel

preferred to work with Fuentes because he maintained tight security and compartmentalized his

organization. He influenced Mexican officials to look the other way, acting much like García

Ábrego. For example, many believe Ábrego bribed Mario Ruiz Massieu, the Mexican Deputy

Attorney General for Special Affairs, and Raul Salinas de Gortari to provide access to Mexican

President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.25

According to a convicted trafficker, the “Gulf cartel grew” with the “support of the

corrupt political system.” The Mexican police, the Policía Judicial Federal Mejicano (PJFM),

“controlled 90 percent of the drug trafficking” because the cartels “control the PJFM.”26 The

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rising power of the Mexican cartels led to increased trafficking throughout Central America.

The Rise of the Mexicans

As long as the Mexicans promised not to operate in the traditional Colombian

strongholds of New York, Miami, and the rest of the U.S. eastern seaboard, the Mexicans and

Colombians worked cooperatively.27 The dismantling of the Medellín cartel in 1993 and the Cali

cartel in 1996 gave rise to the appearance of an estimated three hundred mini-cartels in Colombia

that organized themselves into small, decentralized groups that worked together.28 As a result,

the more dominant Mexicans cartels replaced the Colombians as major international traffickers.

In 1996, Juarez cartel leader Carrillo Fuentes called for meetings across Central America

between Colombian and Mexican traffickers. In those meetings, the Mexicans told the

Colombians that they must give up their U.S. drug markets. The Colombians could transport

cocaine from the Andean region, but could carry it only as far as Mexico, where the Mexicans

paid them in cash. Carrillo Fuentes then controlled the transport and distribution of cocaine into

the United States and assumed control over U.S. markets.29 Reeling from the break-up of the

Medellín and Cali cartels, the decentralized Colombian cartels were in no position to oppose the

Mexicans and, in many respects, preferred to leave the responsibility of moving cocaine into the

United States up to them.30

As part of the Colombian cartel decentralization process, the Colombians gave

distribution rights to the Mexican cartels, so that much of the cocaine that moved through

Mexico transited through Central America.31 The Alejandro Bernal Madrigal and Armando

Valencia operation exemplifies the new trafficking arrangement and demonstrates how

decentralized Colombian cartels formed close associations with the Mexicans. Through Bernal

Madrigal and Valencia, the Colombian mini-cartels, such as the Norte de Valle cartel—an

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offshoot of the Cali cartel,—cut deals with the Juarez and Arellano-Felix cartels. Diego

Montoya, a member of the Norte de Valle cartel, organized multi-ton shipments for Bernal and

Valencia, who then shipped twenty-to-thirty metric tons of cocaine every month through Central

America to Mexico.32

Guatemala: The Step into Central America

From 1990, U.S.–Mexican drug interdiction efforts, including Mexican radar, led Andean

drug traffickers to adjust their routes to southern Mexico and Central America.33 This shift

occurred as Guatemala’s 40-year civil war continued in its remote northern highlands.

Traffickers, such as the Cali cartel, shifted their air trafficking operations to Guatemala.34 By

1993, 165-to-275 tons of cocaine and heroin out of an estimated eleven hundred tons produced in

all of South America, moved through Central America annually.35 The cartels began

transshipment operations using sea, land and air routes from Guatemala.36 Traffickers

concentrated their activities in three regions: the coastal Pacific plains of southwestern

Guatemala, the river valleys and isolated jungle flatlands of the northern Petén region and the

area around Lake Izabal in eastern Guatemala. They considered Guatemala an attractive transit

location because it had hundreds of unmonitored landing strips and no radar.37

According to the U.S. Department of State, traffickers offloaded or transshipped cocaine

via ground transport, or loaded it aboard general aviation aircraft for transfer from Central

America to transshipment points in Mexico. For example, traffickers brought cocaine through

Guatemala on its way to Mexico that was often initially moved from Colombia to remote parts of

Panama. They moved the cocaine in small airplanes in order to avoid Panamanian radar stations,

and then reloaded it onto aircraft that mixed with legitimate air traffic.38 They frequently

airdropped drug cargos over land and sea, rather than risk landing in Guatemala. From

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Guatemala, traffickers shipped narcotics to Mexico using traditional air transportation, cargo

containers, tractor-trailers, automobiles and boats.39 To give perspective to Guatemala’s

increased importance, the largest seizure in Guatemalan history occurred in 1991, when

Guatemalan officials seized three-and-a-half tons of cocaine on March 6, 1991.40

The rapid expansion of opium production in Guatemala during the late 1980s enhanced

Guatemala’s attractiveness to traffickers. Growers cultivated ampola (opium poppy) in areas

along the Mexican border with intense guerrilla activity. Mexican traffickers supplied the seeds,

financing, and market for Guatemala’s opium acreage. They then smuggled the raw opium gum

to laboratories across the border where they converted it into heroin.41 Most of the opium gum

produced in Guatemala supplied Mexican heroin trafficking organizations operating in Chiapas.

According to the Mexican Attorney General’s Office, the Procurador General de la República

(PGR), were Guatemalan traffickers who sold their illicit product to Mexican traffickers, who

then resold their product to Mexican laboratory operators and financiers, due to the price

differentials between the two borders. Moreover, because planting was safer in Guatemala,

Mexican traffickers preferred to purchase cheaper Guatemalan opium. In 1990, the price for a

kilogram of opium in Guatemala was between $1,275-$1,450, compared to $6,550-$7,275 in

Mexico.42

Throughout the early 1990s, the border between Mexico and Guatemala was considered a

“sieve” because of the high concentration of weapons, guerrillas and narcotics.43 The

Guatemalan guerrilla organization Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG)

relied on weak border security along the Guatemalan-Mexican border, as they used Mexico as a

location for weapons, rest, relaxation and training. Low-level Mexican officials, who seemed

“more interested in extorting bribes…than halting the flow of illegal commodities,” assisted the

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narcotraffickers.

The U.S. Department of State expressed significant concern that Guatemala’s back roads

and illicit airfields facilitated drug activity and supplemented the Nicaraguan pipeline to the

Farabundo Martí Liberación Nacional (FMLN) guerrilla movement in El Salvador.44 When the

Guatemalan government attempted to take the initiative against trafficking, the URNG guerrillas

declared that the struggle against narcotics was a cover for U.S. counterinsurgency

intervention.45 Because of Guatemala’s poor human rights record, the U.S. stated it would not

provide assistance to its military. Nevertheless, in 1991, the United States initiated a joint U.S.-

Guatemalan interdiction effort called Operation Cadence. The U.S. offered Guatemala an

estimated $48.1 million in land, sea and air radar assets, as well as the deployment of U.S. law

enforcement agents to assist with aircraft interdiction.

Narcotrafficking Routes: The Expansion into Central America

By 1990, the effects of civil war had wrecked Central America. El Salvador reeled from

its decade-long civil war that did not end until 1992. Honduras had been converted into

militarized nation with one of the poorest populations on the earth. Hostilities in Nicaragua,

which lasted from 1981-1990, devastated the country economically and politically. Costa Rica

endured the presence of Contra and Sandinista forces along its porous border, which threatened

its status as a neutral nation. The overthrow of Manuel Noriega in December 1989 left Panama in

an unbalanced state seeking to form a new and stable democracy. The void caused by civil war

enabled narcotraffickers to flourish throughout the region.

As early as 1987, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) reported that Colombians and

Mexicans were forming operational bases for trafficking in El Salvador and Honduras.46 As

Central America’s civil wars ended, a process of “Colombianization” began, which the region

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was unprepared to address. According to the U.S. government, the Central American nations had

“neither the resources nor the institutional capability to address the new drug trafficking

modes.”47 Traffickers who avoided Central America in the past because of armed insurrections

now looked to Central America as a way to supplement their traditional transportation routes to

the United States. Peace, accompanied by NAFTA's implementation on January 1, 1994, opened

up Mexican and Central American borders.48 According to the DEA, “the entire Central

American isthmus” became “a trampoline” with a lot of “cooperation among traffickers from

different countries.”49

The Salvadorian government and the FMLN signed a peace accord on February 1, 1992.

As FMLN guerrillas and Salvadorian government soldiers laid down their arms, a wave of crime

and general lawlessness spread throughout the country. U.S. State Department sources predicted

that of the “thousands of unskilled demobilized FMLN combatants and Salvadorian soldiers,”

some would retain their arms and resort to banditry.50

While the main source of crime came from banditry along El Salvador’s roads, traffickers

such as the Perrones and the Cartel de Texis—the main conduits for Colombian cocaine through

El Salvador during the 1990s and the 2000s—used the Inter-American Highway to move cocaine

and heroin towards Guatemala and Mexico.51 El Salvador’s President, Alfredo Christiani (1989-

1994) oversaw the peace accords and expressed deep concern over the expansion of the drug

trade in his country.52 Since Mexico tracked aircraft, Salvadorian authorities believed that

traffickers were taking advantage of their lack of radar to land and offload drug-laden aircraft at

remote airstrips that once served El Salvador’s cotton fields along the Pacific coastline.

Traffickers also moved narcotics via coastal smuggling, using El Salvador as a third-party transit

route. To avoid scrutiny upon arriving in the United States, they changed the point of origin of

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shipments from Colombia and Peru, by unloading them at the port of Acajulta.53

Nicaragua became a favored spot for narcotrafficking due to its remote and sparsely

populated coastline, easy access to the Inter-American Highway and limited government

resources to combat trafficking activities.54 Struggling to resolve its civil war beginning with the

1987 Esquipulas Peace Agreement, Nicaragua could not cope with the expanding drug trade.

According to Fernando Caldera, a Nicaraguan police chief, “[D]uring the Contra War,” drug

traffickers stayed away from Nicaragua’s coast because they would run into a “well-trained army

backed by widespread radar and counterespionage in the interior.”55 However, the Nicaraguan

government of Violetta Chamorro (1990-1997), which supported United States counternarcotics

programs, was unable to provide more than vocal assistance.56 After reductions in the armed

forces in 1991, coupled with severe cuts to the police budget, Nicaragua’s anti-drug police force

consisted of no more than half a dozen full-time officers in Managua. This left the Atlantic coast

wide open to Colombian and Mexican traffickers. According to the DEA, airdrops from low-

lying aircraft to waiting speedboats frequently served as a shipment method along Nicaragua’s

vast Miskito Coast, with its numerous inlets and estuaries.57 The DEA reported that starting in

May 1990, drug trafficking had substantially increased out of Puerto Cabezas and the Bluefields

of the Miskito coast.58 In 1991, Nicaraguan Vice Minister of the Interior Dr. Jose Pallais stated:

“[N]arcotrafficking was becoming a problem for all Nicaraguans,” especially on the “Atlantic

coast where trafficking was on the increase.”59

Although Honduras did not suffer as heavily as its neighbors from the impact of civil war

during the 1980s, it was an important transit route for cocaine entering the United States and

Europe.60 In the wake of Matta Ballesteros’ SETCO operation in the mid-1980s, Colombian

DTOs continued to move cocaine through Honduras. The significant Colombian groups

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responsible for moving narcotics into Honduras included the Colombian Fuerzas Armadas

Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), Autodefensas

Unidas de Colombia (AUC), and the Norte de Valle del Cauca cartel.

By the mid-1990s, Mexican DTOs, especially the Sinaloa cartel, took over the movement

of Colombian cocaine through Honduras.61 Their predominant trafficking method was maritime

smuggling, for which the fishing fleet provided excellent cover.62 Familial ties and a minimal

government presence allowed the Bay Islands to serve as a transit center for Colombian and

Mexican cocaine shipments.63 The DTOs also smuggled narcotics out of Honduras and into

Caribbean islands, such as the Cayman Islands, where they then transported the drugs in smaller

loads to Florida.64

Costa Rica grew as a transit zone during the early 1990s. Costa Rica’s 1948 constitution

outlawed a standing army. A scarcity of resources such as ships and aircraft and the lack of a

professional police force hampered the country's narcotics control. During the Arias

administration (1986-1990), Costa Rica looked at U.S. counternarcotics security assistance with

suspicion.65 Owing to the nature of the war in Nicaragua and the ARDE presence on the border,

Arias was concerned that U.S. military aid might be perceived as violation of Costa Rican

neutrality. As a result, the Costa Rican police received only light arms to use against

sophisticated smuggling networks.66 Costa Rica's weak police force left it vulnerable to

penetration by criminal groups, narcotics traffickers from the Andean ridge and, potentially,

international terrorists who sought to take advantage of Costa Rica’s pluralist, pacifist society,

which tolerated differing ethical viewpoints.67

Following a trafficking pattern seen in other Central American nations, planes and large

“mother” ships dropped off plastic bundles of cocaine for smaller speedboats to pick up and ferry

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to the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. In one incident, fishermen found an empty barrel equipped

with a radio transmitter floating offshore with three thousand kilograms of cocaine. Costa Rican

Interior Minister Luis Fishman Zonzinski declared that Costa Rica was “wide open to cocaine

smugglers.” He added, “[W]e have no army, no radar, no planes, no boats… [T]here’s very little

we can do to stop the growing flow.”68

Panama remained an important center for money laundering and trafficking following

Operation Just Cause, the U.S. invasion of Panama, which took place between December 1989

and January 1990. U.S. officials were convinced that drug trafficking was increasing and that

Panama had become a haven for money laundering, however, the DEA stated that Operation Just

Cause only temporarily disrupted this activity.69 Panamanian strongman General Manuel

Noriega had tightly controlled who ran drugs through Panama; in his absence, Panama became a

“free for all” for drug trafficking. As a result of Noriega’s authoritarian legacy, the Panamanian

government limited its defense and police force strength, adding to the chaotic atmosphere.70

With $6 billion in foreign debt, a 14-16 percent unemployment rate between 1990 and 1992, and

inadequate security, Panama's ability to deal with narcotrafficking looked worse than it was

under the Noriega regime.71

Panama was a major transshipment point for cocaine from the Andean region. With 135

miles of impassible, dense rainforest in the Darien Gap on the Colombian border, seventeen

hundred miles of coastline marked with coves suited for smuggling, and more than fifteen

hundred offshore islands, Panama was a smuggler's dream.72 Smugglers sent drugs to Panama

via sea and air, and then transferred them to larger ships in Panamanian waters or sent them out

of the country via ports or airports.73 In addition, by 1993, ninety-hectare coca fields started to

appear in the Darien region. Panama’s law enforcement agencies were simply unable to patrol all

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of the transshipment points around Panama.74

The Guillermo Endara government (1989-1994) wanted to work closely with the United

States, but was marred by scandal. In 1990, the Panamanian newspaper El Siglo reported that

Endara was associated with Interbanco, a bank accused of money laundering. Endara had been a

lawyer and director for Interbanco from its start in 1974. Guillermo Ronderos Durán, a

Baranquilla financier who founded the bank, had close ties to members of the Medellín and Cali

cartels, including Rodriguez Gacha, Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela and the Ochoa brothers.75 This

revelation and the imprisonment of Dagoberto Franco, the reporter who uncovered this

information, undermined U.S. support for Panama’s anti-drug programs.76

Money laundering in Panama was another major concern. For money launderers, the

instability caused by the end of Noriega’s regime had been “bad for business,” but that soon

changed following his overthrow. In 1991, bank deposits fueled by drug money reached $21

billion, compared to the low of $8.5 billion in 1989. Moreover, the total number of shell

companies in Panama used as fronts fell to eight hundred a month in 1989, but climbed to more

than thirteen hundred a month in 1991.77 According to the DEA, the use of Panama as a money

laundering center and Panama’s “inability or unwillingness” to curb those operations was the

biggest problem for international law enforcement in Panama.78

The Panamanians approached the issue of money laundering only half-heartedly, because they

feared that confronting it would destroy both the banking sector and the Colón Free Trade

Zone.79 Panama’s effort to control narcotrafficking was failing on all fronts. In 1994, the United

States did not certify Panama as cooperating with the United States or taking adequate measures

to adhere to the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotics Drugs and

Psychotropic Substances.80

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Post-Civil War Counternarcotics Policy in Central America

Some observers of U.S.-Central American relations have argued that the United States

largely ignored the region in the aftermath of its civil wars.81 However, while U.S. military

posturing decreased, the U.S. government did engage proactively with Central American

governments to develop counternarcotics programs. As one 1990 State Department cable put it:

“[A] well coordinated Central American counternarcotics strategy is desirable and worthy of

pursuit.” It added, “[T]hough we must avoid overly ambitious goals which practically cannot be

achieved, this does not mean that we should not try to get moving.”82

The regional counternarcotics programs suffered from both a lack of resources and the

Central American governments' myopic response to the need to implement a rigorous program to

stop the Colombian and Mexican traffickers who worked with home- grown contrabandistas.

According to a 1994 General Accounting Office report, “[N]one of the Central America

countries had the resources necessary to purchase sophisticated equipment and to develop well-

trained personnel to combat well-financed, creative and highly adaptable traffickers.”83 To

further illustrate this point, the State Department embassy in Panama observed in 1990 that

“Central American countries need to understand better that they’re in it with the rest of us and so

should take the problem seriously and pay more than lip service” to “just how serious the threat”

was.84

The post-war era presented hurdles to the establishment of effective counternarcotics

programs in every country. Political questions surrounding demilitarization and

professionalization ruled the debates regarding the creation of the new counternarcotics police

forces. The Salvadorian and Guatemalan peace agreements put limitations on their creation. Both

countries excluded active members of the military from counternarcotics forces in order to

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prevent the military from influencing internal security. In Nicaragua, the Sandinistas maintained

that only the Contras had been involved in drug operations. The Chamorro government

countered by stating that a counternarcotics program would remain “limited” as long as “the

Ministry of Interior staff remained populated by Sandinista personnel.”85 Moreover, the

counternarcotics program stalled with the formation of criminal bands called the Recontras.

Former Sandinista soldiers who called themselves Recompas joined them. According to the U.S.

Department of State, “[P]reoccupation with rural insurgency” prevented “government officials

from focusing on the narcotics problem.”86

U.S. budgetary constraints reduced U.S. counternarcotics aid to Costa Rica from

$272,000 in 1993, to $133,000 in 1995.87 According to the U.S. Department of State, the

“government of Costa Rica” was expected to shoulder “a greater share of the burden for its

internal security.”88 In Panama, the government hoped to achieve total demilitarization of the

public security forces by eliminating all militarized aspects of the last twenty years. The fear of

remilitarization gave rise to Panamanian reluctance to participate in any type of military effort to

counter narcotrafficking.89 By 2000, the U.S. embassy in Panama observed that heavy drug

trafficking by Colombian FARC guerrillas and drugs gangs had saturated the Panamanian

border. AUC paramilitaries clashed with the FARC in the border region and threatened to target

the Panamanian National Police (PNP) for their alleged collaboration with the FARC in the

Darien region—a relationship that dated back to the dictatorship of Omar Torrijos (1972-1981).90

Moreover, the U.S. embassy noted that Colombian gangs colonized Panama’s slums to provide

logistical bases to move drugs, people and cash to Central America and the U.S.91

Post-civil war narcotrafficking in Central America also contributed to institutional

corruption. The demobilization of Central America’s military and guerrilla forces converted

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many who participated in the civil wars into hired hands for Colombian and Mexican

narcotraffickers.92 Observers of the War on Drugs alleged that the Central American militaries

and their intelligence networks rented out their services to the cartels when they demobilized. In

1990, the Nicaraguan (Sandinista) police chief Rene Vivas claimed that the militaries in Central

America—specifically those in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala—which were protected by

the U.S., controlled narcotrafficking.93

The editor of the newspaper La Hora, Oscar Clemente Marroquin, summed up the

situation: “[W]hen the war stopped, the state apparatus kept operating the same way,” but now

“it protects organized crime.”94 In 2010, the United Nations claimed that many of the major busts

involved connections to government officials, especially in the security and justice services.95

Numerous examples exist to support the United Nations claim. In February 2002,

Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo (2000-2004) abolished the Departamento de Operaciones

Antinarcóticas (DOAN), created in 1994 to serve as Guatemala’s anti-narcotics force. Portillo’s

decision occurred after sixteen DOAN agents killed two villagers and held residents from the

village of Chocón hostage for three days while searching for narcotics being transshipped

through Chocón. Behind the scenes, claims arose that the agents were in Chocón to steal the two

tons of cocaine allegedly in the town.96 In 2006, the Panamanian government expelled Major

Oscar Herazo, the chief of police in the Santa Fe de Veraguas region of Panama, from the

national police, because of his involvement with a criminal network that stole drugs from

traffickers. Due to a lack of evidence, the Panamanian Supreme Court acquitted Herazo of his

crime.97 In 2008, El Salvador’s national police chief, Francisco Rovira, was forced to resign from

his position after an investigation revealed that two of his aides ran a security-consulting firm

that advised suspected drug traffickers and used police license plates without authorization.98

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The post-civil war integration of Central American police and military forces into

counternarcotics forces made corruption inevitable. These few examples simply demonstrate the

problem of narco-corruption and its potential to subvert Central American institutions from

within.

The Gang Nexus

Nowhere did the post-war economic and political restructuring have a greater impact than

on Central America’s youth. Young people, defined as those between fifteen and twenty-four

years old, comprised 21 percent of the total population and suffered from an unemployment rate

of over 10 percent in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama between 1995

and 2005.99 The gang problem began when displaced and uneducated youth turned to crime as a

solution to the challenges of demobilization and reconstruction.100

U.S. deportation of Central American gang members who belonged to the Mara

Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the Calle-18 (18th Street) also led to gang growth. Members of these

gangs were children of refugees from El Salvador’s civil war imprisoned in the U.S. following

the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The deportation of gang members began in 1994 and increased in

1996, with the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA).101

Upon arrival in Central America, the deportees organized youth gangs in El Salvador. They then

spread to the rest of Central America, especially to Honduras and then Guatemala, after its peace

accord in 1996.102 Within Central America, the pandillas (gangs) looked to replicate the U.S.

machismo street gang culture and lifestyle. The gangs earned notoriety for acts of violence,

assaults and robberies committed daily against innocent civilians. Many demobilized guerrillas

who had fought with the FMLN were young, which made them susceptible to joining the

Salvadorian gangs.103

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According to the National Drug Intelligence Center, “[C]ontrary to popular belief the

gangs were highly structured and modeled” like a “guerrilla organization.”104 The gang leaders

were former Special Forces members from both sides of the civil wars, which enhanced gang

discipline. Former Honduran, Nicaraguan, Guatemalan and Salvadorian soldiers and guerrillas

trained MS-13 and Calle-18 members in weapons firing, hand-to-hand combat, explosives

fabrication and leadership.105 The military background of MS-13 and Calle-18 leaders allowed

the gangs to take over urban territory and curtail police efforts to control gang activity.106

Some gang members returned to the United States after their deportation, creating a

revolving door phenomenon in which gang members started to move from north to south and

south to north.107 In the process of crossing borders, the MS-13 and Calle-18 gangs became guns

for hire and developed international connections with Mexican coyotes (smugglers of illegal

immigrants) and DTOs.108 Moreover, the MS-13 and the Calle-18 solidified their alliance with

the Mafia Mexicana (EME) prison gang. This alliance formed during the early 1990s, when the

Central American gangs agreed to become sureños and pay homage to the Mexican Mafia in the

tregua de sur (truce of the south).109 Assisted by the Central Americans, the EME, with its close

association to Mexican DTOs, maintained control over a major portion of the U.S.-Mexican

cross-border drug trade. In 2005, Hurricane Stan diminished the Mexican government’s border

control resources. This enabled the MS-13 and Calle 18 to push into central Mexico, broadening

their network. 110

The gangs moved not only drugs, but also humans, which further extended their criminal

enterprise. The Central American gang diaspora provided a well-connected criminal network that

spread from Central America to the United States.111 The U.S. government feared that the gangs

and the cartels in association with the coyotes could move members of Hezbollah and al Qaeda

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from Central America into Mexico and then the U.S.112 While many critics doubted gang ties to

Islamic terrorism, Juan Carlos Bonilla, the director of the Honduran police, argued that through

Afghan nationals, al Qaeda had developed ties with the MS-13 in El Salvador and Honduras. He

alleged that they provided the MS-13 with paramilitary training and financial support.113

According to Attorney General John Ashcroft, a Saudi Arabian al Qaeda cell leader named

Adnan G. El Shukrijumah met with members of the MS-13 in Honduras to discuss alien

smuggling into Mexico and the United States in July 2004.114

Mexican Cartel–Central American Gang Cooperation

Gang and cartel activity along the U.S.-Mexican border was related to trafficking drugs,

people and weapons.115 Despite rivalries among the Mexican cartels (El Chapo’s Sinaloa cartel,

Osiel Cárdenas Guillén’s Gulf cartel, the Arellano Félix’s Tijuana cartel, and the Juárez cartel),

pandillas such as the MS-13 and Calle-18, as well the Aztecas (who were allied to the EME and

Nuestra Familia prison gangs), served the various cartels as guns for hire. They did so despite

their differences over territory and control over local narcotics distribution.116 However, as the

gangs’ participation in the drug trade increased, the MS-13 and Calle-18 became directly tied to

El Chapo Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel and the Zetas—an offshoot of the Gulf cartel.

A group of thirty deserters from Mexico’s Special Air Mobile Force Group (Grupo

Aeromovil de Fuerzas Especiales, GAFES) formed the Zetas, a DTO initially employed as

enforcers for the Gulf cartel. The Zetas were a powerful Mexican DTO that violently attempted

to take control over Central American trafficking networks.117 They moved into Guatemala in

2007. The Guatemalan Mendozas and Lorenzanas cartels hired the Zetas to squeeze out a rival

DTO called the Leones cartel. In 2008, the Zetas completed the destruction of the Leones.

However, rather than leave Guatemala, the Zetas took over the Leones' territory and put pressure

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on the Mendoza cartel, whose members fled to Belize.118 At the same time, the Zetas developed

links to Guatemala’s special operations unit called the Kabiles.

When the Zetas moved into El Salvador, they used the Kabiles to provide military

training for Zetas recruits, including members of the MS-13 and Calle-18.119 The Zetas initially

used the MS 13 and Calle 18 as security along the Guatemalan and Honduran borders. As the

Zetas and the mara gangs grew together, the gangs began to take payment in cocaine. Cocaine

payments became a major source of violence as the gangs fought over distribution rights.120 The

MS-13’s increasing coordination with the Zetas also led Mara leaders to formalize coordination

among clickas in El Salvador and the U.S.121 Significantly, the MS-13 developed a presence in

Nuevo Laredo where gang members from El Salvador, Dallas and North Carolina coordinated

with the Zetas.122

In addition to the Zetas, their rivals, the Sinaloa cartel, led by Joaquín “El Chapo”

Guzmán, also asserted its power in Central America, especially in Honduras, by establishing its

own heavily armed enforcer gangs, the Negros and Pelones. According to Honduran intelligence,

El Chapo went to Honduras to establish a school of assassins who would eliminate the cartel’s

rivals, including police officials. Between 2007 and 2008, El Chapo’s assassins executed various

heads of criminal organizations in Honduras.

After asserting its muscle, the Sinaloa cartel worked with an estimated twenty Honduran

criminal families, including the MS-13 gangs, to move drugs provided by Colombian FARC

guerrillas northwards.123 During the June 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis, the Honduran

military, on orders from the Supreme Court, removed President José Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009)

from office. Honduran resources were diverted to maintain order, which strengthened the hand of

traffickers such as El Chapo.124 El Chapo took advantage of the turmoil. Intimidating the

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Honduran government with the message “plata o plomo,” El Chapo coordinated the

assassination of General Julian Gonzalez, the Honduran director of the Office for Combating

Drug Trafficking, on December 8, 2009. Gonzalez alleged that the FARC was working with the

Sinaloa cartel in Honduras. Asesinos de moto killed him, firing nine bullets into his utility

vehicle.125

By 2011, the Sinaloa cartel became the most influential Mexican cartel in Honduras.

Protected by gang muscle from its base in Honduras, the Sinaloans consorted with the

Guatemalan Lorenzana cartel (many of whom were arrested by the Guatemalan government, but

operated from jail), and the Salvadorian Perrones cartel to move cocaine towards Mexico and the

United States.126

The Mano Dura

The gang nexus overwhelmed Central America’s governments. Gang aggression

manifested in school burnings, murder, and rape. Sensationalist coverage of heavily tattooed men

accused of massacring entire families, or sending anti-government messages with severed heads,

led to public support for drastic measures against the gangs.127 Guatemala, Honduras, and El

Salvador implemented strict anti-gang laws, referred to as mano dura (heavy hand) policies. The

Salvadorian government passed Decree 158, known as “the mano dura,” and Honduras passed

legislation dubbed la ley anti-mara (anti-gang law) in 2003.128 Both laws allowed for the arrest

of people who appeared to be gang members and toughened laws for their incarceration. In 2004,

the Guatemalan congress launched Plan Escoba (Clean Sweep), which enabled the police to

detain youth suspected of being in maras on the basis of their dress, hair and tattoos.129 In 2004,

Salvadorian President Tony Saca’s Super Mano Dura anti-gang reforms led to over eleven

thousand arrests. The Salvadorian maras adapted to the crackdown by directing their operations

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from prison.130

The mano dura law's critics claimed that they led to violations of habeas corpus and

extra-judicial killings, similar to those that took place during the civil war period. Opposition

party members and judges condemned the measures, claiming that their provisions violated

international human rights standards.131 When the military assisted the police in El Salvador and

Guatemala, critics also questioned the use of the army in domestic security issues.132 As a result,

the courts were slow to back the mano dura policies. The mano dura laws intensified the

violence, which led the gangs to respond by toughening their entry requirements, adopting a

more conventional look and using heavier weaponry, such as AK-47s and hand grenades, which

in turn increased the crackdown on the gangs.133

The Merida Initiative

By 2008, two-thirds of all cocaine entering the United States passed through Central

America into Mexico. The U.S. designated Panama, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala as

major illicit drug producing and drug-transit countries.134 The Mexican cartels earned roughly

$25 billion annually from the drug trade, compared to the regional GDP of $107.7 billion for

Central America as a whole. The cartels could therefore easily buy off the poorly paid police and

judges in Central America.135 With an inefficient legal system, get-tough tactics did not solve the

narcotrafficking problem. Instead, murder rates in Central America spiked between 2000 and

2009.136

The United States, Mexico and Central America responded to the crime wave by

launching a regional counternarcotics program. On October 22, 2007, the United States

announced a $1.4 billion, three-year plan to help Mexico and Central America combat drug

trafficking.137 The Mexican program, known as the Merida Initiative, put pressure on Mexico’s

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borders and provided minor assistance to Central America.

Plan Colombia’s continuation in 2008, as well as the Merida Initiative’s implementation,

pushed the narcotrafficking problem into Central America. In other words, counternarcotics

policies in Mexico and South America augmented the importance of Central American links put

in place many years before.138 In order to draw attention to the needs of Central America as a

distinct region and to strengthen the capacities of government institutions to address security

challenges, the Merida Initiative for Central America was renamed the Central America Regional

Security Initiative (CARSI) in 2010.139

The CARSI program built upon the Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana (SICA)

strategy, a 1991 Central American regional integration effort that included the coordination of

counternarcotics activities.140 CARSI’s goal was to produce a secure region where criminal

organizations no longer wielded the power to destabilize governments or threaten national and

regional security, while simultaneously preventing the entry and spread of illicit drugs, violence

and transnational threats.141 CARSI prioritized its efforts in the Northern Triangle (El Salvador,

Guatemala and Honduras), where the U.S. considered crime and violence to be most severe.142

CARSI also envisioned an integration of security efforts to include the littoral waters of the

Caribbean.143

The 2009 initiative was divided into three pillars of activity: 1) counternarcotics,

counterterrorism and border security; 2) public security and law enforcement and 3) institution

building. Of the initial funding, $16.6 million went to pillar one to pay for requests for training

on aviation, port and document security, while $34 million went to pillar two to provide support

and community prevention activities to combat gangs.144 The DEA, Immigration and Customs

Enforcement (ICE), and the Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law

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Enforcement Affairs (INL) vetted Central American unit programs that investigated money

laundering; bulk cash smuggling and narcotics, firearms and human trafficking.145 Pillar three

received $7.7 million for court management, prison management, community-policing programs

and asset-forfeiture training.146

CARSI was referred to as “Plan Colombia” for Central America, which was not meant as

a compliment. Journalists, political observers and human rights activists, including the UN,

criticized Plan Colombia for its emphasis on a military/police solution to Colombia’s narcotics

production, trafficking and guerrilla insurgencies/paramilitaries, all of which were interrelated.

Its critics faulted it for failing to address the socio-economic and political factors that drove

Colombia’s drug war.147 The enforcement aspect of the CARSI plan, like Plan Colombia, was

rebuked for militarizing the drug war in Central America, because it gave Central America’s

military and police forces the power to apply indiscriminate force to suppress narcotrafficking.

According to the U.N., “heavy-handed crackdowns” only led to more violence.148 Laura

Chinchilla, Costa Rica's former Minister of Justice and current President (2010-present), stated

that, “instead of opting for public security policies that focused on prevention and rehabilitation,”

Central America had decided instead to take a “mano dura” or “every man for himself approach:

hire private security, buy guns, etc.”149

To provide an alternative to heavy-handed crackdowns, in March 2012, Salvadorian

President Mauricio Funes (2009-2014) radically changed his country’s anti-gang approach by

negotiating a truce with the MS-13 and Calle 18 gangs. In exchange for a reduction in homicides,

the Salvadorian government transferred gang leaders to less secure prisons.150

From the beginning, the truce was tenuous. The government was reluctant to negotiate

with criminal groups and feared that the gangs were increasing their political legitimacy from

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jail. Between March 2012 and May 2013, homicides in El Salvador declined from an average of

twelve per day to five per day.151 However, as the truce continued, gang leaders claimed that

death squads such as the Sombra Negra (Black Shadow) were targeting them.152 The November

2013 discovery of a mass grave with forty-four victims killed by the MS-13 and an increase in

the murder rate between June 2013 and May 2014 to an average of 9.48 murders per day threw

cold water on the truce. President Funes declared it a failure.153 El Salvador’s attempt to develop

an alternative to heavy-handed tactics had an effect directly contrary to the government’s

intentions: criminal enfranchisement and death squads.

Between 2008 and 2011, the U.S. spent $361.1 million on the CARSI program. It

allocated 23 percent to Guatemala, 17 percent to El Salvador, 13 percent to Honduras, and 10

percent to Panama, while offering smaller amounts to the rest of Central America.154 The Central

American governments reproved CARSI, pointing out their countries received less aid, even

though Central America was more violent than both Mexico and Colombia. Honduran Security

Minister Óscar Álvarez called U.S. aid, “a drop in the bucket.”156

CARSI raised another concern: the root fire effect. Enforcement pressure in Mexico and

Central America caused traffickers to pop up elsewhere, such as Haiti and the Dominican

Republic, where few resources existed to cope with narcotrafficking.155 In May 2011,

Guatemalan President Álvaro Colom (2008-2012) declared Guatemala’s northern border to be in

a state of siege, fueling further criticism of CARSI.

To counter claims that the CARSI program had failed, William Brownfield, Assistant

Secretary for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, asserted that

U.S. policy was “not a ‘war’ on drugs,” and that CARSI would take “not days, weeks, and

months, but years.” Brownfield added that at the “end of the day,” CARSI’s success would be

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measured “through a variety of factors,” including: homicide, prosecution, poverty and education

rates; air and maritime tracks; gang activity and gang truces.”156 Despite the opposition, the U.S.

commitment to CARSI continued. In 2013, the United States provided $135 million for CARSI

representing a 33 percent increase over 2011 funding.157

Conclusion

Central America’s narcotrafficking problem began during its civil war period, as regional

instability and Andean-Mexican counternarcotics efforts pushed narcotraffickers into the region.

Reeling from decades of civil war, Central America was unprepared for peace. The persistence

of long-standing socio-economic problems made it impossible for Central America to counter the

Colombian and Mexican DTOs that were firmly entrenched by the time peace arrived.

The politicization of Central America’s post-war police reorganization hampered

enforcement efforts and opened the door to corruption. At the same time, the appearance of

Central American gang networks—a legacy of the civil war—strengthened the position of

Mexican narcotraffickers. As the gangs entered the “narcosphere”, they extended their influence,

as well as the influence of Mexican DTOs, from Central America to the United States.

Violence once associated with the Cold War exploded as Central America cracked down

on the gangs and Mexican DTOs. Central American counternarcotics operations began to

resemble the internal security policies employed during the civil war era. However, opposition to

the mano dura policies, or military participation in counternarcotics programs such as CARSI,

proved counterproductive, because it undermined the security efforts that countered the

subverting influence of gangs and narcotraffickers. By 2010, the violence in Central America

resembled the violence that existed there during the 1980s. Nothing had changed except that

Central America’s Cold War violence and instability had metamorphosed into the War on Drugs.

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Major questions persist. Is it too late to reverse narcotrafficking’s subverting influence in

Central America? Are get-tough measures the cause of continued instability? Would less

proscriptive policies have better results if narcotics continue to be illegal? Should

producer/transitory nations be forced to bear the burden of counternarcotics programs that they

are unprepared to undertake, or should they share an international obligation to control

narcotrafficking within their sovereign territory? Will the root-fire effect of increased

enforcement lead to the opening of new smuggling routes? Will the fight against the gangs and

cartels push them into a more dangerous alliance with Middle Eastern terrorists? Do lax

immigration and weak border security policies contribute to the expansion of narcotrafficking

networks in the U.S.?

The 2014 Central American child refugee crisis ties into the failure to respond effectively

to narcotrafficking in the post-civil war era, and it begs the final question: Are U.S. programs

such as CARSI too little, too late?

Endnotes

1 Raúl Guírrez, “Murder of Three Salvadorian Legislators and Their Driver Without Justice; El Salvador-

Guatemala: Impunity Surrounds Lawmaker’s Killings One Year On,” Noticias Financieras, IPS Latin America, February 20, 2008. ARENA controlled the National Assembly from 1981-1985 and the Salvadorian presidency from 1989 to 2009.

2 James C. McKinley Jr., “Lawlessness in Guatemala Touches Neighbor: Role of Police Drawing Scrutiny,” The New York Times, March 6, 2007, sec. A, p. 2. The police later changed their story and claimed that inmates killed the officers.

3 No author, “Capturan en Jutiapa a Montaña 3,” DeGuate.com, January 4, 2008, http://www.deguate.com/news/publish/article_7109.shtml; and “8 Sentenced in Guatemala for Murders of Salvadoran Lawmakers,” Fox News Online, December 2, 2010, http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2010/12/02/sentenced-guatemala-murders-Salvadorian-lawmakers/. Authorities accused Manuel Castillo, the Governor of Jutiapa, a Guatemalan border town, and Salvadorian Congressman Carlos Silva Pereira of conspiring to commit the crime in conjunction with Carlos Gutiérrez, a drug trafficker with the alias "Montaña 3," although observers speculated that they were not at the top of the chain.

4 Sara Miller Lana, “The Central American Peace Accord Celebrates 25 Years, But Has It Brought Peace?” The Christian Science Monitor, August 7, 2012.

5 Cynthia J. Arnson and Eric L. Olson, Organized Crime in Central America: The Northern Triangle (Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2010), 1-244; George W. Grayson and Samuel Logan, The Executioner’s Men: Los Zetas, Rogue Soldiers, Criminal Entrepreneurs and the Shadow State

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They Created (London: Transaction Publishers, 2012), 1-271; Julie Marie Bunck and Michael Ross Fowler, Bribes, Bullets, and Intimidation: Drug Trafficking and the Law in Central America (University Park Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012), 1-431; and Peter J. Meyer and Claire Ribando Seelke, Central American Regional Security Initiative: Background and Policy Issues for Congress (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service, May 7, 2013), 1-36.

6 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Crime and Development in Central America: Caught in the Crossfire (New York: United Nations Publication, May 2007), 26.

7 William L. Marcy, The Politics of Cocaine (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2010), 83-133. 8 James Sutton, “U.S. Counternarcotics Strategy in Latin America: Good Intentions and Poor Results,” The

Americas 4, no. 1, October-November 1991, 6; and Nancy Nusser and Charles Holmes, “Colombian Drug Cartels Moving Into Central America,” The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, April 28, 1991, sec. A, p. 10.

9 Office of National Drug Control Policy, Measuring the Deterrent Effect of Enforcement Operations on Drug Smuggling 1991-1999, 71. Allegations of corruption forced Coello Trejo himself to resign from his position.

10 Brook Larmer, “Colombians Take Over Coke Trade in Mexico,” The Christian Science Monitor, January 9, 1989, p. 1. Authorities learned later that Coello Trejo took millions in bribes from Mexican cartels.

11 Stephen Meiners, “Central America: An Emerging Role in the Drug Trade,” STRATFOR, March 26, 2009, http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090326_central_america_emerging_role_drug_trade; William Branigin, “Cocaine Flow Goes On; Cartel War, Seizures Have Little Effect,” The Washington Post, November 21, 1989, sec. A, p. 1; American Embassy Mexico to DEA Headquarters Washington DC, “Monthly Narrative Report January 1990,” Mexico 03560 141815Z, (February 1990), 2-5; and American Embassy Mexico to DEA Headquarters Washington DC, Drug Trafficking in Mexico – the Colombian Presence,” Mexico 12050 091950Z (May 1990), 1-4.

12 Jesús Blancornelas, El Cartel: Los Arellanos Félix: La mafia más poderosa en la historia de América Latina (Mexico D.F.: Random House Mondadori, 2002), 54.

13 Maclom Beith, “On the Trail of El Chapo,” The Australian Magazine, September 11, 2010, p. 12; and June S. Beittel, Mexico’s Drug Trafficking Organizations: Source and Scope of the Rising Violence, (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service, August 3, 2012), 9-10; Douglas Farah and Molly Moore, “Mexican Drug Traffickers Eclipse Colombian Cartels; Onetime Underlings Extend Reach Into U.S.,” The Washington Post, March 30,1997, sec. A, p. 1; and Jorge Alberto Cornejo, “Confirman la captura de El Turi, enlace de narcos en Tijuana y Medellín,” La Jornada, 3 de diciembre de 1997, http://www.jornada.unam.mx/1997/12/03/confirman.html. Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo’s organization included the Arellano Felix family of seven brothers and other DTO leaders, such as Miguel Caro Quintero (Sonora), Amado Carrillo Fuentes (Juárez Cartel) and Joaquín “el Chapo” Guzman (Sinaloa Cartel). The Arellano Felix’s Tijuana cartel rivaled the Sinaloa cartel following the death of the Juarez cartel’s leader, Amado Carillo Fuentes in 1997. The killing of Ramón, one of the Arellano Felix brothers, and the arrest of another brother, Benjamin, in 2002 weakened the Arellano Felix organization. The vacuum created within the Arellano Felix organization led to its splintering and the predominance of the Sinaloa cartel. The Sinloans formed a federation with the Beltrán Leyva organization and the remnants of the Juárez cartel (most of which had been absorbed by the Sinaloa cartel), that lasted until 2008. Juan García Ábrego led the Gulf cartel, but authorities arrested him in 1996. Osiel Cardenas Guillen replaced him and ran the Gulf cartel until his arrest in 2003. Guillen then ran the Gulf cartel from prison until 2007, when authorities extradited him to the U.S. The Gulf cartel formed a temporary alliance with the Arellano Felix cartel between 2004 and 2005 to defend against the Sinaloa and Juarez cartel merger. Guillen terminated this alliance and sent the Los Zetas, the Gulf cartel’s mercenaries, to take over Tijuana in 2005. In 2010, the cartels broke into two alliances: the Juárez, Tijuana, Los Zetas and Beltrán-Leyva cartels, against the Gulf, Sinaloa and La Familia cartels. See: Samuel Logan, “The Reality of a Mexican Cartel,” 8, http://www.samuellogan.com/.

14 Douglas Farah and Molly Moore, “Mexican Drug Traffickers,” sec. A, p. 1. 15 U.S. Department of Defense LIC698, Narcomercantilists: Assessing the Rise of Colombian Heroin

Trafficking, (Washington DC: Department of Defense, August 1992), no page number. Washington DC: The National Security Archive, Narcotics Collection, Colombia: Documents from FOIA, box 32; and Douglas Farah, “Drug Lords’ Influence Pervading Mexico; Neighbor, Last Line of Defense for U.S., Now Likened to Colombia,” The Washington Post, April 4, 1995, sec. A, p. 1. Instead of $1,000 a kilo, the Mexicans could sell cocaine for up to $15,000 a kilo.

16 The Washington Post Foreign Service, “Mexico Arrests Reputed Cocaine Cartel Kingpin,” The Washington Post, May 24, 1992, sec. A, p. 49; Douglas Farah, “Cali Drug Cartel Avoids Crackdown,” The Washington Post, October 5, 1989, sec. E, p. 1; Ron Chepesiuk, Drug Lords: The Rise and Fall of the Cali Cartel

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(London: Milo Books, 2005), 62-64; and Gustavo Veloza, La Guerra Entre los Carteles del Narcotráfico, (Bogotá: G.S. Editores, 1988), 82. The Cali cartel had a cooperative agreement with the Medellin cartel until 1988, when both cartels warred over access to territory in the United States. The Cali cartel controlled the New York City market and the Medellín cartel controlled the Florida market. California was up for grabs between them.

17 Secretary of State Washington DC to American Embassy Mexico, “Levitsky Meeting with Cordoba,” State 395391 220627Z/22 38 (November 1990), 3.

18 American Embassy Mexico to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Weekly Narcotics Round-up: Nov 5- 9, 1990,” Mexico 30664 100003Z (November 1990), 2; Joint Staff Washington DC to RUCWAAA/FBIS, Reston, Virginia, “Police Shot Down Plane carrying 670 Kg of Cocaine,” Department of Justice, Washington DC FL0401221990 042227Z (January 1990), 2; National Security Archive, Digital National Security Archive, Mexico- U.S. Counternarcotics Policy 1969-2013 Collection.

19 United States General Accounting Office, Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Information, Justice, Transportation, and Agriculture, Committee on Government Operations House of Representatives, Drug Control: Interdiction Efforts in Central America Have Had Little Impact on the Flow of Drugs (Washington DC: General Accounting Office, August 1994), 2.

20 June S. Beittel, Mexico’s Drug Trafficking, 14. 21 Insight Crime, “Gulf Cartel,” Insight Crime (no date), http://www.insightcrime.com/groups-mexico/gulf-

cartel (accessed January 23, 2013). 22 Barry P. Bosworth, Susan M. Collins and Nora Claudia Lustig, eds., Coming Together? Mexico-United

States Relations (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1997), 210. 23 American Embassy Mexico to Secretary of State Washington DC, “MFJP Seizes Major Shipment of Cali

Cocaine and Arrests Two Traffickers,” Mexico 07061 201550Z, (March 1990), 2. The La Familia cartel specialized in methamphetamine production and trafficking marijuana, cocaine and heroin. Amado Carrillo Fuentes’ uncle was Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, considered responsible for the 1985 murder of DEA agent Enrique Kiki Camarena.

24 Douglas Farah and Molly Moore, “Mexican Drug Traffickers,” sec. A, p. 1. 25 Tim Golden, “The Mexican Connection Grows,” sec. A, p. 1; No author, “The Mexican Connection

Drugs: President Ernesto Zedillo Needs to Act Swiftly if Mexico is to Avoid Becoming a Narco-Democracy Like Colombia,” The Globe and Mail, December 18, 1995, Economic Section, no page number; and Carlos Marin, “Testimonios Ante la Justicia Norteamericana: Los Salinas, los Ruiz Massieu, y Colosio, en el Narco,” Proceso, no. 1059, 15 Febrero 1997, http://www.proceso.com.mx/?page_id=174511. The assassination of Massieu’s brother, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the General Secretary of the PRI, would forever tarnish the Salinas presidency when the investigation into the assassination discovered that Raul Salinas was the mastermind of the assassination and had close ties to the Gulf cartel.

26 American Embassy Mexico to DEA Field Division Los Angeles, “Summary of Significant News Release Mexico,” Mexico 12953 201605Z (June 1995), 3-4.

27 Douglas Farah and Molly Moore, “Mexican Drug Traffickers Eclipse,” sec. A, p. 1. 28 Ann W. O’Niell, “Colombia Drug Kingpins Face Trial in Miami,” South Florida Sun Sentinel,

November 24, 2004, http://www.cocaine.org/colombia/cali.html. 29 Linda Diebel, “Cocaine Trade Goes Low-Key: Narco-kings Eschew Flashy Hollywood-Style of

Predecessors, but are Just as Dangerous,” Toronto Star, June 6, 1998, sec. A, p. 9. 30 David Robbins, Heavy Traffic: 30 Years of Headlines and Major Ops From the Case Files of the DEA,

(New York: Chamberlain Brothers, 2005), 185-8; and United States Attorney Office Eastern District of New York, “Colombian Trafficker with Links to Mexican and Colombian Cartels Extradited from Mexico to the United States,” United States Department of Justice, June, 2010, http://www.justice.gov/usao/nye/pr/2010/2010jun17.html, accessed February 7, 2013.

31 American Embassy Mexico to DEA Headquarters Washington DC, “Summary of Significant News Releases Mexico,” Mexico 03146 082002Z (February 1994), 3; and Linda Diebel, “Cocaine Trade Goes Low-Key: Narco-Kings Eschew Flashy Hollywood-Style," sec. A, p. 9.

32 U.S. Department of Justice, “United States Announces RICO Charges Against Leadership of Colombia's Most Powerful Cocaine Cartel,” Washington DC: U.S. Department of Justice, May 6, 2004, 1. Carillo Fuentes died following a botched plastic surgery operation in 1997. No author, “17 Members of 'Los Chachos' were arrested in Tamaulipas, Mexico,” Narcotic News, September 27, 2004, http://narcoticnews.com/2004-09-27-17-Members-of- Los-Chachos-were-arrested-in-Tamaulipas-Mexico.php.

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33 James Sutton, “U.S. Counternarcotics Strategy in Latin America: Good Intentions and Poor Results,” The

Americas 4, no. 1 (October-November 1991), 6; and Nancy Nusser and Charles Holmes, “Colombian Drug Cartels Moving Into Central America,” The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, April 28, 1991, sec. A, p. 10.

34 American Embassy Guatemala to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Weekly Narcotics Roundup: Nov. 5-9, 1990,” Mexico 30664 100003Z, (November 1990), 2.

35 Douglas Farah and Tod Robberson, “Drug Traffickers Build a New Central American Route to the U.S.” The Washington Post, March 28, 1993, sec. A, p. 1.

36 Ibid. 37 United States General Accounting Office, Drug Control: Interdiction, 14. 38 American Embassy Mexico to DEA Headquarters Washington DC, “Drug Trafficking Through

Southeastern Mexico,” Mexico 13075 032150Z (June 1993), 1-4. Planes flew at thirty thousand feet along with commercial aircraft. When they reached their predetermined drop zones, they dove to one thousand feet, dropped their loads and then returned to thirty thousand feet.

39 United States General Accounting Office, Drug Control: Interdiction, 14. 40 American Embassy Mexico to DEA Headquarters Washington DC, “Drug Trafficking in Mexico,”

Mexico 10460 032111Z (May 1991), 3-4. 41 American Embassy Guatemala to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: Across the Mexican

Border: Guns, Drugs, and Guerrillas,” Guatemala 02162 212358Z (February 1990), 3. 42 American Embassy Mexico to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Opium Poppy Cultivation Along the

Mexican-Guatemalan Border in Chiapas,” Mexico 08852 051820Z (April 1990), 2-3. 43 American Embassy Guatemala, “Subject: Across the Mexican Border,” 1. 44 American Embassy Guatemala to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: The Guatemala-Mexican

Border and Support for Guerrillas and Drug Traffickers,” Guatemala 08886 191715Z (July 1990), 2. 45 American Embassy Guatemala to Secretary of State Washington DC, “URNG Public Declaration Claims

Anti Drug Operations are Cover for U.S. Military Intervention in Guatemala,” Guatemala 09465 092237Z (August 1989), 1-2.

46 American Embassy San Salvador to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Annual Narcotics Status Report (ANSR) for 1986,” San Salvador 04089 302240Z (March 1987), 2.

47 United States General Accounting Office, Drug Control: Interdiction, 5-6. 48 United States General Accounting Office, The War on Drugs: Narcotics Control in Panama

(Washington DC: General Accounting Office, July 1991), 1; and James R. Richards, Transnational Criminal Organizations, Cybercrime and Money Laundering: A Handbook for Law Enforcement Officers, Auditors and

Financial Investigators (London: CRC Press, 1999), 49; American Embassy Guatemala to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject International Narcotics Control Strategy Report for Guatemala –1996/1997,” Guatemala 00378 221546Z (January 1997), 2; American Embassy San Salvador to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: 1997/1998 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report,” San Salvador 04990 052115Z (December 1997), 2; and Douglas Farah and Tod Robberson, “U.S. Style Gangs Build Free Trade in Crime,” The Washington Post, August 28, 1995, sec. A, p. 1.

49 David R. Dye, “Nicaraguan Cocaine Bust Reveals New Cartel Route,” The Christian Science Monitor, January 26, 1994, sec. "The World," p. 1.

50 American Embassy San Salvador to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Monthly Status Report – February 1992,” San Salvador 02475 042010Z (March 1992), 1-2.

51 No author, “Perrones Cartel,” Insight Crime, no date, http://www.insightcrime.org/groups-el- salvador/perrones; and no author, “Texis Cartel,” Insight Crime, no date, http://www.insightcrime.org/groups-el- salvador/texis-cartel. The Perrones started as a contraband-running organization that became involved in narcotics in the 1990s. The Cartel de Texis was another contraband organization that had close ties to people within the government, since it owned many legitimate enterprises.

52 Alfredo Chrisitani, “El Salvador: Chrisitiani on Cooperation Against Drug Trafficking, Use of Army Against Crime,” Radio YSKL, San Salvador – "BBC Summary of World Broadcasts," February 11, 1993.

53 United States General Accounting Office, Drug Control: Interdiction, 22. Inter-American Highway smugglers in El Salvador were quite ingenious. In one instance, traffickers hollowed out pallets of dry-wall sheets and filled the middle of the pallets with cocaine.

54 United States General Accounting Office, Drug Control: Interdiction, 23. 55 Dye, “Nicaraguan,” sec. "The World," p. 1.

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56 American Embassy Managua to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: Narcotics Control

Strategy: Nicaragua,” Managua 02535 041451Z (May 1990), 1. 57 United States General Accounting Office, Drug Control: Interdiction, 23. 58 American Embassy Panama to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: {redaction} On Arms and

Drug Trafficking in Nicaragua,” Panama 10035 252203Z (October 1991), 1. 59 American Embassy Managua to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: Details Regarding

Nicaraguan Seizure of Large Cocaine Shipment,” Managua 03492 072324Z (June 1990), 1. 60 United States General Accounting Office, Drug Control: Interdiction Efforts, 17. 61 James Bosworth, “Honduras: Organized Crime Gaining Amid Political Crisis: Working Paper Series on

Crime in Central America,” Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for International Scholars (December 2010), 11-2.

62 American Embassy Tegucigalpa to American Embassy Rome, “1996 Narcotics Workplan for Honduras,” Tegucigalpa 02009 262228Z (April 1996), 1.

63 United States General Accounting Office, Drug Control: Interdiction Efforts, 17. 64 David Adams, “Drug Running Pirates Tarnish Caribbean Paradise,” The London Times, February 5,

1994, "Overseas" section, no page number. 65 American Embassy San Jose to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: Costa Rican National

Security and Security Assistance (Mission Reporting Plan Submission),” San Jose 06589 130459Z (June 1987), 3. 66 American Embassy San Jose to Secretary of State Washington DC “Subject: FY1993 Security Assistance

Reporting Requirements,” San Jose 05437 212120Z (May 1991), 3. 67 American Embassy San Jose to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: FY 1996 Request for

Promoting Peace Regional Peace and Security – Costa Rica,” San Jose 05136 292224Z (July 1994), 2-3. 68 David Clark Scott, “With Few Weapons Costa Rica’s War on Drugs Goes Badly,” The Christian Science

Monitor, September 4, 1991, p. 11. 69 United States General Accounting Office, The War on Drugs: Narcotics Control in Panama

(Washington DC: General Accounting Office, July 1991), 1.United States General Accounting Office, Drug Control: Interdiction Efforts, 24.

70 Joseph B. Treaster, “Cocaine is Again Surging Out of Panama,” The New York Times, August 13, 1991, sec. A, p. 1.

71 American Embassy Panama to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: Panama One Year After,” Panama 10665 271539Z (November 1990), 2; and the World Bank Indicators, “Indicators: Panama Unemployment Total Percentage of the Labor Force,” Washington DC, The World Bank, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS?page=4; and American Embassy Panama to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: FY 95 Panama Budget Submission,” Panama 03448 232305Z (April 1993), 2.

72 Joseph B. Treaster, “Cocaine is Again Surging Out of Panama,” sec. A, p. 1. 73 American Embassy Panama to Secretary of State Washington DC, “1994 International Narcotics Control

Strategy Report for Panama,” Panama 07995 191505Z (December 1994), 17. 74 United States General Accounting Office, The War on Drugs, 3. 75 James S. Henry, “Panama: Dirty Business as Usual; Noriega is Gone, But the Drug Traffic and

Corruption Live On,” The Washington Post, July 28, 1991, sec. C, p. 1. 76 American Embassy Panama, “Subject: Panama One Year After,” 4. 77 James S. Henry, “Panama: Dirty Business,” sec. C, p. 1. 78 United States General Accounting Office, Drug Control: Interdiction Efforts, 24. 79 American Embassy Panama to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: Proposal: Regional

Counternarcotics Strategy for Panama, Mexico, and Central America,” Panama 05361 082123Z, (June 1992), 2. 80 United States General Accounting Office, Drug Control: Interdiction Efforts, 25. 81 Mark B. Rosenberg and Luis G. Solis, The United States and Central America: Geopolitical Realities

and Regional Fragility (New York: Routledge, 2007), 38. 82 American Embassy Panama to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: Central American

Counternarcotics Strategy,” Panama 11409 181444Z (December 1990), 2-3. 83 United States General Accounting Office, Drug Control: Interdiction Efforts, 7. 84 American Embassy Panama, “Subject: Central American Counternarcotics,” 2-3. 85 Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 2002 Country Reports on Human Rights and Labor:

Guatemala, U.S. Department of State, March 31, 2003, http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002/18333.htm; American Embassy San Salvador to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: GOES Anti-Narcotics Unit –

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Uncertain Institutional Future,” San Salvador 11859 140007Z (November 1992), 4; and American Embassy San Salvador to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: FMLN Accuses ESAF of Engaging in a Shell Game,” San Salvador 11285 282121Z, (October 1992), 1.

86 American Embassy Managua to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: FY 92 Narcotics Control Budget,” Managua 02388 201417Z (March 1992), 1.

87 American Embassy San Jose to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: FY 1996 Request for Promoting Peace,” San Jose 05136 292224Z (July 1994), 2; United States General Accounting Office, Drug Control: Interdiction Efforts, 8; and Just the Facts, “Grant U.S. Aid Listed By Country, Counternarcotics Programs, All Grant Aid-All Types Central America 1996-2000,” Foundation Open Society Institute, http://justf.org/All_Grants_Country?year1=1996&year2=2013&funding=Counter- Narcotics+Programs&subregion=Central+America&x=46&y=8.

88 American Embassy San Jose to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: Costa Rican Request for Military Academy Ties,” San Jose 00120 062252Z (January 1995), 2.

89 American Embassy Panama, “Subject: Proposal: Regional Counternarcotics Strategy for Panama,” 1. 90 American Embassy Panama to Secretary of Defense Washington DC, “Panama Facing Colombian Spill-

Over Troubles,” Panama 04324 271956Z (October 1989), 4. 91 American Embassy Panama to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Colombian Narcoguerrillas,” Panama

002849 212152Z, (July 2000), 3. 92 Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the Committee on International Relations, “The Illicit

Drug Transit Zone in Central America,” 109th Congress, 1st session, November 9, 2005, 4. 93 American Embassy Managua to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Police Chief Accuses U.S. of

Protecting Military Drug Traffickers,” Managua 07414 270033Z (October 1990), 1. 94 James C. McKinley Jr. “Lawlessness in Guatemala Touches Neighbor: Role of Police Drawing

Scrutiny,” The New York Times, March 6, 2007, sec. A, p. 2. 95 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Crime and Development in Central America, 45. 96 Rob Fischer, “Tracing an Invisible Line: How Guatemalan Security Forces Have Taken Over the Drug

Trade,” Mesoamerica, vol. 25 no. 1, January 2006, 1-2. 97 Don Winner, “Police Major in Veraguas Arrested for Drug Charges,” Panama Guide, February 18, 2007,

http://www.panama-guide.com/article.php/20070218063919937. 98 No Author, “El Salvador’s Police Chief Resigns Over Corruption Claims,” Reuters, August 24, 2008,

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-08-24/el-salvadors-police-chief-resigns-over-corruption/486578. 99 International Labor Organization, Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, 2007 Labor

Overview, Latin America and the Caribbean (Geneva Switzerland: International Labor Organization), http://www.oit.org.pe; and Peter J. Meyer and Claire Ribando Seelke, Central American Regional Security Initiative: 20. Guatemala had no estimates, but many believed that youth comprised 45 percent of the unemployed.

100 Hal Brands, Crime, Violence and the Crisis in Guatemala: A Case Study in the Erosion of the State, (Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania: Strategic Studies Institute, May 2010), 25.

101 Thomas Bruneau, Lucia Dammert, and Elizabeth Skinner, Maras: Gang Violence and Security in Central America (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011), 93; and Mary Helen Johnson, “National Policies and the Rise of Transnational Gangs,” Washington DC: Migration Policy Institute, (April 2006), http://www.migrationinformation.org/USfocus/display.cfm?ID=394.

102 Thelma Mejía, “Central America: Soaring Violent Crime Threatens Democracy,” Inter Press Service News Agency, Tegucigalpa, September 22, 2008, 2.

103 American Embassy Tegucigalpa to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: A Permanent Tattoo: The Systematic Failure to Squelch the Proliferation of Gangs in Honduras,” Tegucigalpa 001843 192253Z (August 2004), 1.

104 American Embassy San Salvador to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: El Salvador: Gangs Threaten Mission’s Goals,” San Salvador 002232 041830Z (August 2004), 1.

105 Organization of American States, Pandillas Delictivas, 030210 (Washington DC: Organization of American States, January 28, 2012), http://scm.oas.org/pdfs/2010/CP23778S.pdf.

106 American Embassy San Salvador, “Subject: El Salvador: Gangs,” 12. 107 USAID, Central American and Mexican Gang Assessment: Annex 4: Southern and Northern Borders of

Mexico Profile (Washington DC: USAID Bureau for Latin American and Caribbean Affairs Office of Regional Sustainable Development, April 2006), 19.

108 Thelma Mejía, “Central America: Soaring Violent Crime,” 2; and Hal Brands, Crime, Violence, 26.

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109 USAID, Central American and Mexican Gang Assessment, 7. 110American Embassy Mexico to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Mexico’s Southern Border: Border

Security Equals National Security – Sound Familiar?” Mexico 007191 302111Z, (November 2005), 5. 111 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Crime and Development in Central America, 45-6. 112 Hiltha Prabhakar, “Organized Retail Crime Goes Global,” Financial Times, December 8, 2011,

http://www.ftpress.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1768313&seqNum=5; and American Embassy Belmopan to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Drug Trafficking, Money Laundering, Possible Terrorist Ties,” Belmopan 000192 042156Z (April 2008), 1.

113 Organization of American States, Pandillas Delictivas, 030210 Washington DC; Organization of American States, January 28, 2012, http://scm.oas.org/pdfs/2010/CP23778S.pdf, accessed April 13, 2013.

114 The Washington Times, “Al Qaeda Seeks Ties to Local Gangs,” The Washington Times, September 28, 2008, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/sep/28/20040928-123346-3928r/.

115 USAID, Central American and Mexican Gang Assessment, 7; and American Embassy Mexico to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: Evaluation of the Second International Forum of Citizen Participation and Crime, Drugs and Gang Prevention Tracker # 20697,” Mexico 005489 152025Z, (July 2004), 2.

116 Organization of American States, Pandillas Delictivas, http://scm.oas.org/pdfs/2010/CP23778S.pdf. One argument postulates that gang members and drug dealers represented different interests because a distinction existed among pandilleros (street gang members), banderos (members of organized crime groups) and transeros (drug traffickers). Relations among these groupings varied. See: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Crime and Development in Central America, 45-6.

117 Douglas Farah, Central American Gangs, 14; Colleen W. Cook, Mexico Drug Cartels, Report RL34215 (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service, February 25, 2008), 10; Wikileaks Document Release, February 2, 2009, http://wikileaks.org/wiki/CRS-RL34215; and American Consul Nuevo Laredo to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: 2004 Starts With a Flurry in the Desert,” Nuevo Laredo 3761AA 292113Z (June 2004), 4. Thirty lieutenants and sub-lieutenants from GAFES founded the group. The Zetas initially operated “as a private army under the orders of Osiel Cárdenas’ Gulf cartel,” like a “paramilitary” organization.

118 Etiquetas: Noticias, “Ejecutan Juan José León Ardon Supuesto Narco,” Narcos Chapines, March 26, 2008, http://narcoschapines.blogspot.com/2008/03/ejecutan-juan-jose-leon-ardon-supuesto.html; K. Mennem, ”Guatemala and the Drug War,” U.S. Open Borders, January 24, 2012, http://usopenborders.com/2012/01/guatemala-the-drug-war/; and Julie López, “The Decline of Guatemala’s Drug Dynasty,” Plaza Publica, December 7, 2011, http://www.plazapublica.com.gt/content/decline-guatemalas-drug- dynasty.The Leones were considered “tumbadores,” or bandits who stole shipments from other organizations. See: No author, “Guatemala Drug Trafficking and Violence,” Latin America Report Number 39, International Crisis Group, October 11, 2011, 4.

119 Tim Johnson, “Drug Gangs Muscle into New Territory: Central America,” McClatchy Washington Bureau, April 21, 2011 (no page number).

120 George W. Grayson and Samuel Logan, The Executioner’s Men, (London: Transaction Publishers, 2012), 163-166. Mara is the Salvadorian slang for the word for gang: pandilla.

121 Douglas Farah, “Transnational Criminal Threats in El Salvador: New Trends and Lessons from Colombia,” September 7, 2011, http://www.strategycenter.net.

122 American Consul Nuevo Laredo to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: 2004 Starts With a Flurry in the Desert,” Nuevo Laredo 3761AA 292113Z (June 2004), 5. Clicka refers to a gang sub-group.

123 “La Barbie formó escuela de sicarios en Honduras,” January 9, 2010, La Presna.hn/Internacionales, Honduras, http://archivo.laprensa.hn/Internacionales/Ediciones/2010/09/01/Noticias/La-Barbie-formo-escuela-de- sicarios-en-Honduras; and no author, “Cártel de Sinaloa ordenó muerte de zar antidrogas,” El Siglo de Torreón, June 16, 2010, Editora de la Laguna, Av. Matamoros 1056 Pte., Col. Centro, Torreón Coah., México, C.P. 27000, http://www.elsiglodetorreon.com.mx/noticia/532610.cartel-de-sinaloa-ordeno-muerte-de-zar-antidrogas.html.

124 United Nations, Transnational Organized Crime in Central America and the Caribbean, (Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2012), 19.

125 Mariano Castillo, “Anti-Drug Chief Killed in Honduras” CNN, December 8, 2009, http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/12/08/honduras.drug.chief.slain/index.html. Plata o plomo is translated as "money," or "the bullet." Asesinos de moto is translated as "assassins by motorcycle." Gonzalez also alleged that Venezuela had helped the FARC smuggle narcotics into Honduras and President Manuel Zelaya was under investigation for his possible involvement in cocaine smuggling.

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126 José Meléndez, “Honduras presa de la violencia y del narco,” El Universial (Mexico), March 18, 2012,

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/836559.html; and Elizabeth Romero, “Acecho narco en el limite,” La Prensa (Nicaragua), December 5, 2013, http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2013/12/05/reportajes-especiales/173060-acecho- narco-limite; Press Center, “Treasury Designates Lorenzana Family Members and Businesses Allied with the Sinaloa Cartel,” U.S. Department of Treasury, November 14, 2012, http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press- releases/Pages/tg1767.aspx; and Julie López, "Guatemala: la cambiante cara del narco,” Plaza Pública (July 18, 2013), http://www.plazapublica.com.gt/content/guatemala-la-cambiante-cara-del-narco.

127 American Embassy Tegucigalpa, “Subject: A Permanent Tattoo,” 1. United States Congress, House Foreign Affairs Committee Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Violence in Central America, No. 110----78, 110th Congress, 1st session, 40. Testimony of Lainie Reisman.

128 Sonja Wolf, “Mano Dura: Gang Suppression in El Salvador,” Oxford Research Group: Sustainable Security, (March 2011), http://sustainablesecurity.org/2011/03/01/mano-dura-gang-suppression-in-el-salvador/; and American Embassy Tegucigalpa, “Subject: A Permanent Tattoo,” 4.

129 USAID, Central American and Mexican Gang Assessment, 79. 130 American Embassy San Salvador to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Subject: El Salvador Updated

Assessment of Central American Security Requirements,” San Salvador 002402 132134Z (December 2007), 5. Saca was President of El Salvador from 2004-2009.

131 Claire M. Ribando Seelke, Gangs in Central America (Washington DC: Congressional Research Service, March 27, 2008), 9.

132 American Embassy San Salvador to ACLA Collective, “Subject: More on Salvadorian Gangs,” San Salvador 01849 102117Z, (March 1995), 3. In 2003, authorities jailed some 2,582 Guatemalan maras.

133American Embassy Guatemala to Secretary of State Washington DC, “Security Profile Questionnaire Spring 2009,” Guatemala 000384 221849Z (April 2009), 3; and Sonja Wolf, “Mano Dura,” available from: http://sustainablesecurity.org/2011/03/01/mano-dura-gang-suppression-in-el-salvador/.

134 Thelma Mejía, “Central America: Soaring Violent Crime Threatens Democracy,” Inter Press Service News Agency, Tegucigalpa (September 22, 2008), 2.

135 United States Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics Matters, 2009 International Control Strategy Report Vol. I., (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, March 2009), http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2009/vol1/html/62108.htm.

136 United Nations, Transnational Organized Crime, 15. 137 Bureau of Public Affairs, “The Central America Regional Security Initiative: A Shared Partnership,”

United States Department of State, (August 5, 2010), http://www.state.gov/r/pa/scp/fs/2010/145747.htm. 138 United Nations, Transnational Organized Crime in Central America, 18. 139 United States Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on the

Western Hemisphere, “Central America and the Merida Initiative,” 110th Congress, 2nd Session, May 8, 2008, 9; and William R. Brownfield, “Remarks at the Council of Americas,” Washington DC, Carnegie Endowment, March 22, 2013, http://www.state.gov/j/inl/rls/rm/2013/207231.htm, and Secretary of State Washington DC to American Embassy Guatemala, “Central America Regional Security Initiative CARSI – The New Name for Merida Central America,” State 028360 231801Z (March 2010), 2.

140 United States Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Border, Maritime, and Global Counterterrorism, “The Merida Initiative: Examining United States Efforts to Combat Transnational Criminal Organizations,” 110th Congress, 2nd Session, June 5, 2008, 8.

141 Colleen W. Cook, Mexico Drug Cartels, Report RL34215, http://wikileaks.org/wiki/CRS-RL34215. 142 U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related

Programs of the House Appropriations Committee, “Security Challenges to Latin America,” 112th Congress, 2nd Session, March 29, 2012, http://www.state.gov/j/inl/rls/rm/187097.htm, statement by William Brownfield.

143 Bureau of Public Affairs, “The Central America Regional Security Initiative,” http://www.state.gov/r/pa/scp/fs/2010/145747.htm.

144 Colleen W. Cook, Mexico Drug Cartels, Report RL34215, http://wikileaks.org/wiki/CRS-RL34215. 145 Peter J. Meyer and Claire Ribando Seelke, Central American Regional Security Initiative, 26. 146 Claire Ribando Seelke, “Background for a Hearing on Central America and the Merida Initiative,”

Washington DC, Congressional Research Service, May 1, 2008, 7. 147 U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, “Plan Colombia: Fact Sheet,”

Washington DC, U.S. Department of State, March 14, 2001, http://2001-2009.state.gov/p/wha/rls/fs/2001/1042.htm;

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Marcy: End of Civil War & Rise of Narcotrafficking

Published by Nighthawks Open Institutional Repository, 2014

and Uri Friedman, “A Brief History of Plan Colombia,” Foreign Policy, October 28, 2011, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/27/plan_colombia_a_brief_history.

148 United Nations News Service, “Development in Central America Stymied by Crime and Drugs, UN Warns,” New York, United Nations, May 23, 2007, 1.

149 Thelma Mejía, “Central America: Soaring Violent Crime,” 2. 150 Peter J. Meyer and Claire Ribando Seelke, “Central American Regional Security Initiative: Background

and Policy Issues for Congress,” Washington DC, Congressional Research Service, May 7, 2013, 14. Gang leaders also pledged not to recruit children into their ranks forcibly and to turn in weapons.

151 Ibid., 14; James Bargent, “MS-13 Use of Guns in Guatemala Shows Modus Operandi,” Washington DC: Insight Crime, May 8, 2013, http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/ms-13-used-just-32-guns-to-kill-over-200- people-in-guatemala; and San Salvador, La Prensa Libre, May 8, 2013. http://www.prensalibre.com/noticias/justicia/Pandilla-uso-armas-homicidios_0_915508466.html, accessed May 13, 2013.

152 USAID, Central American and Mexican Gang Assessment (Washington DC: USAID Bureau for Latin American and Caribbean Affairs Office of Regional Sustainable Development, April 2006), 20; and Roberto Valencia, “La Sombra Negra,” El Faro.net (San Salvador), April 26, 2014, http://www.salanegra.elfaro.net/es/201404/bitacora/15308/; and Maguerite Cawley, “El Salvador’s Gangs Call on New Government to Revive Truce,” Insight Crime, June 6, 2014, http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/el- salvador-gangs-call-on-new-government-to-revive-truce. The Sombra Negra was an organization of rogue police and military personnel that existed between 1989 and 1995. It allegedly reappeared during the truce as a vigilante organization to eliminate gang leadership.

153 Lorena Baires, “El Salvador: Macabro hallazgo de fosa común,” Infosur Hoy, December 31, 2013, http://infosurhoy.com/es/articles/saii/features/main/2013/12/31/feature-01?change_locale=true; and Carlos Martínez y José Luis Sanz, “Gobierno dismantela la treuga y los homicido alcanzan 30 en un día,” El Faro, May 24, 2014, http://www.salanegra.elfaro.net/es/201405/cronicas/15432/.

154 Peter J. Meyer and Claire Ribando Seelke, Central American Regional Security Initiative, 23. Costa Rica received 6 percent, and Belize and Nicaragua combined received only 4 percent. An additional 23.1 percent was committed to regional programs for multiple countries.

155 United States Congress, House of Representatives, “Central America and the Merida Initiative,” 9. The term “root fire” is more accurate than the commonly used term, “balloon effect.” When someone squeezes a balloon, it pops and all of the air escapes. It does not imply a spread to anywhere else. However, a fire can be doused in one location, but then spread elsewhere due to a root fire. As a consequence, the term root fire more accurately depicts what happens with drug trafficking as a result of enforcement efforts.

156 William R. Brownfield, “Remarks at the Council of Americas,” http://www.state.gov/j/inl/rls/rm/2013/207231.htm.

157 Office of the Press Secretary, “Fact Sheet: United States Support for Central American Citizen Security,” The White House, May 4, 2013. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/04/fact-sheet- united-states-support-central-american-citizen-security.

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International Social Science Review, Vol. 89 [2014], Iss. 1, Art. 1

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