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Thread: Latin American Drugs & links

  1. #61
    Council Member ganulv's Avatar
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    Default La Isla del Espanto.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
    El Salvador's population is a little over 6 million, while NYC's population is a little over 8 million.

    Murders in El Salvador average around 4,000/per year, while murders in NYC average around 500/per year. NYC's population is 25% greater than El Salvador's.
    The population of Puerto Rico is around 4 million and there were in the neighborhood of 1,000 murders there last year. I lived on the island for a year in the late ’90s when the rate was similar and it was pretty unnerving. I was forewarned about the crime rate beforehand but thought I knew what I was in for given that I had spent all of my youth on an Indian reservation and had just before that point spent a year in Guatemala as their civil war wound down. Neither of those experiences was comparable. Don’t know if it is still the case but when I was in PR you weren’t required to stop at traffic signals after 2200 due to the very real possibility of being carjacked and no one I knew stopped to get gas after dark unless they were running on vapors. So I don’t really want to imagine what life is like in the Central American countries right now.*

    *For all the press the drug related violence in Mexico gets the reported murder rate there doesn’t approach that of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala and is lower than Puerto Rico’s. My understanding is that it is highly localized, however.
    Last edited by ganulv; 03-27-2012 at 03:43 PM. Reason: typo fix
    If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. – Mark Twain (attributed)

  2. #62
    Council Member tequila's Avatar
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    Default

    This is a New Yorker story from 2010 about the Rodrigo Rosenberg suicide in Guatemala that is a remarkably well-written portrayal of just how out of control Guatemala has gotten.

    In 2007, a joint study by the United Nations and the World Bank ranked it as the third most murderous country. Between 2000 and 2009, the number of killings rose steadily, ultimately reaching sixty-four hundred. The murder rate was nearly four times higher than Mexico’s. In 2009, fewer civilians were reported killed in the war zone of Iraq than were shot, stabbed, or beaten to death in Guatemala.

    ...

    Criminal networks have infiltrated virtually every government and law-enforcement agency, and more than half the country is no longer believed to be under the control of any government at all. Citizens, deprived of justice, often form lynch mobs, or they resolve disputes, even trivial ones, by hiring assassins.

    Some authorities have revived the darkest counter-insurgency tactics, rounding up undesirables and executing them. Incredibly, the death rate in Guatemala is now higher than it was for much of the civil war. And there is almost absolute impunity: ninety-seven per cent of homicides remain unsolved, the killers free to kill again ...


    Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...#ixzz1qKeF8qSt

  3. #63
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    Default Latin American Countries Pursue Alternatives to US Drug War

    Latin American Countries Pursue Alternatives to US Drug War

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  4. #64
    Council Member AdamG's Avatar
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    El Salvador holds its breath after day without murders

    Scepticism in barrios, where residents say people are still disappearing despite truce between powerful gangs

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...ers-gang-truce
    A scrimmage in a Border Station
    A canter down some dark defile
    Two thousand pounds of education
    Drops to a ten-rupee jezail


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  5. #65
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    Default Lessons of Iraq Help U.S. Fight a Drug War in Honduras

    Lessons of Iraq Help U.S. Fight a Drug War in Honduras

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  6. #66
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default A pact with El Salvador gangs

    An article from 'Open Security' which covers more than El Salvador, notably Mexico and looks at the low profile, tentative success of the state talking to gangs - with the key features being better conditions for those in jail (as in Spain, Italy and the UK IIRC) and a wise retired soldier.

    It opens with:
    Talk of a pact with criminals is beyond the pale in Mexico’s presidential election campaign. But the tentative success of a deal with gang leaders in one of Central America’s most violent countries suggests the time may have come to explore a new style of negotiations aimed at reducing appalling levels of violence.

    A month later, for the first time in years, the country recorded a day without a violent death; the official hope is now that the murder rate will fall in 2012 by 50 percent. The gangs have even agreed to halt forced recruitment of young people.
    Citing Interior Minister David Munguía Payés, a retired general:
    My hope is that they [the gangs] don’t commit serious crimes, like they are committing at the moment, because in reality the gangs aren’t going to disappear in the next 15 or 20 years. You will die, I will die, and still there will be gangs here in El Salvador. At best they just won’t be as violent as they are now.
    Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/ivan-br...als-with-devil

    Brave men, maybe women too, on both sides to do this. Less violence is essential for public safety and civic life.
    davidbfpo

  7. #67
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Central America: confronting the drug gangs

    There are several threads on this problem, so I have created this thread - as the IISS Strategic Comment covers several countries. It opens with:
    Central America is the world’s latest drugs hot-spot: up to 90% of the South American cocaine bound for the US now transits the region, most of it passing through the so-called 'northern triangle' of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

    (Ends with)The countries of the northern triangle face a complicated crisis, requiring them to act on multiple fronts, improving the justice system and governance as well as security forces. Ultimately, they cannot effectively confront one of the most severe security crises in the world with one of the lowest rates of state revenue. The recent tax reforms in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are likely to have more impact on fiscal deficits than on security. Insufficient external help and deep institutional fragilities mean that more ambitious tax reforms offer these countries the best chance to improve security.
    Link:http://www.iiss.org/publications/str...he-drug-gangs/

    Curiously the new Mexican President has mooted legalisation, see Post 342:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...t=5370&page=18
    davidbfpo

  8. #68
    Council Member AdamG's Avatar
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    The Duffleblog weighs in
    http://www.duffelblog.com/2012/06/is...-war-on-drugs/

    This new offensive, emerging just as the United States military winds down its conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and is moving to confront emerging threats, also showcases the nation’s new way of war: small-footprint missions with limited numbers of troops, partnerships with foreign military and police forces that take the lead in security operations, and narrowly defined goals, whether aimed at insurgents, terrorists or criminal groups that threaten American interests.

    The effort draws on hard lessons learned from a decade of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq, where troops were moved from giant bases to outposts scattered across remote, hostile areas so they could face off against insurgents.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/wo...anted=all&_r=0


    And just for reference sake, from 2010

    http://www.talkingdrugs.org/us-speci...king-in-mexico
    Last edited by AdamG; 10-04-2012 at 03:49 PM.
    A scrimmage in a Border Station
    A canter down some dark defile
    Two thousand pounds of education
    Drops to a ten-rupee jezail


    http://i.imgur.com/IPT1uLH.jpg

  9. #69
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    Default US Military Expands its Drug War in Latin America

    US Military Expands its Drug War in Latin America

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  10. #70
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    Default President Peña Nieto and Mexico’s Ongoing War on Drugs

    President Peña Nieto and Mexico’s Ongoing War on Drugs

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  11. #71
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    Default Drug Traffickers Threaten Central America's Democratic Gains

    Drug Traffickers Threaten Central America's Democratic Gains

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  12. #72
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    Default Mexican Cartel Smuggling Cocaine into Hong Kong Amid Booming Demand for Drugs

    Mexican Cartel Smuggling Cocaine into Hong Kong Amid Booming Demand for Drugs

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  13. #73
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    Default Head of Southern Command Says He Lacks Resources to Fight Drug Trafficking

    Head of Southern Command Says He Lacks Resources to Fight Drug Trafficking

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  14. #74
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    Default Gangs & Drug Trafficking in Central America Conference

    Gangs & Drug Trafficking in Central America Conference

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  15. #75
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default The gang challenge in El-Salvador worse than you can imagine

    Nothing on gangs in the region since 2012?Slightly taken aback here, so hat tip to WoTR for a long article (for them):http://warontherocks.com/2015/12/the...-can-imagine/?
    davidbfpo

  16. #76
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Crime, violence and political gridlock in El Salvador. Business as usual

    More of a backgrounder and the need for a plan to escape. It ends with:
    The future of El Salvador depends not on new studies, strategies and funds. It depends on the ability to lay the foundations for a national accord that secures long-term commitments across the political spectrum for a plan that addresses the structural causes of violence, repairs the broken state apparatus and creates real opportunities for the country’s youth. Now, more than ever, Salvadoran society needs to shed its legacy as Latin America’s most socially and politically divided and begin to lay these foundations.
    Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/democr...-salvador-busi
    davidbfpo

  17. #77
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    Default Review of Gangster Warlords: Drug Dollars, Killing Fields, and The New Politics of La

    Review of Gangster Warlords: Drug Dollars, Killing Fields, and The New Politics of Latin America

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  18. #78
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    If headlines solved difficult problems then the Mexican President's UN speech is a good example. The BBC report assembles other opinions too. Here is a fact:
    Mexico has had more people disappear than Argentina and Chile together during their whole military regimes...We've had more Mexicans die in the drugs war than the US has had in Afghanistan and Iraq together. It's unreal. There's no way you can justify that kind of human cost.
    Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-36109104

    Open Democracy chimes into the debate:http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=...c&e=c883a819dc

    A change in direction as the US Presidential Election looms is hardly encouraging or those who advocate change.
    davidbfpo

  19. #79
    Council Member AdamG's Avatar
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    Latin America is a hotbed of Islamic terrorism where groups like ISIS and Hezbollah operate freely and raise large sums of money to finance terrorist activities in other countries, mainly the United States, according to a new report released by Spain’s Defense Ministry. “Latin America represents an important region for Islamic radicalism because conditions enable the free, almost undetectable, movement of their members throughout the region,” the defense document states.
    Governments in the region consider Islamic terrorism to be a foreign problem, the report says, and intelligence agencies are ill equipped to handle the threat they represent. “The ignorance involving the threat of jihadist terrorism in Latin America has been such that some governments have refused to cooperate with U.S. authorities and other intelligence services,” the disturbing assessment reveals. The report was released this month by the division of Spain’s Defense agency known as Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos (IEEE), Spanish Institute of Strategic Studies. The document, authored by a counterterrorism expert, is titled “El radicalismo islámico en América Latina. De Hezbolá al Daesh (Estado Islámico),” Islamic Radicalism in Latin America, from Hezbollah to ISIS.
    The Lebanese group Hezbollah is identified as having the largest fundraising operations in the region, though others, such as ISIS, are also prominent. The terrorist organizations have teamed up with established drug trafficking conglomerates to raise and launder large quantities of cash. The report identifies a group called El clan Barakat in Paraguay and Joumaa in Colombia as two examples of drug trafficking enterprises that have long worked with Islamic jihadists to launder money. Spain’s military experts refer to the relationships as a “marriage of convenience” between Latin American organized crime and Muslim terrorists with different objectives and interests. “Each takes advantage of the benefits that the relationship provides,” the report states.
    http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/20...ca-attack-u-s/
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 12-30-2016 at 01:51 PM. Reason: Was in the Mexico thread and moved here, plus the next two posts.
    A scrimmage in a Border Station
    A canter down some dark defile
    Two thousand pounds of education
    Drops to a ten-rupee jezail


    http://i.imgur.com/IPT1uLH.jpg

  20. #80
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    AdamG,

    There have been similar allegations before, IIRC not from official sources and SWJ articles. There is an area on the tri-border area of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay that often is the focal point. See:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=1073
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 12-29-2016 at 11:03 PM.
    davidbfpo

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