Central American nations need urgent international help to confront the increasingly dangerous presence of Mexican and Colombian drug cartels, the head of a U.N.-backed commission investigating organized crime in Guatemala said Tuesday.
“Latin America has no time,” U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Carlos Castresana warned. “This is a situation of emergency.”
Mexican drug cartels are increasingly using Central American nations to move drugs, and are dealing directly with Colombian cartels to obtain cocaine, which is also produced in Peru and Bolivia.
Guatemala faces the worst problem in Central America, Castresana said.
The country, with a lightly populated, 590-mile (950-kilometer) border with Mexico, has become an important transit point for cocaine headed to the United States.
Countries which suffered from armed conflict like Guatemala, which was engulfed in civil war from 1960 to 1996, have weak institutions and need international help to confront and prosecute drug traffickers, Castresana said.
“If they are left alone, clearly they are unable to do the job by themselves,” he said.
Honduras and El Salvador are in a similar situation because they have organized crime and dangerous juvenile gangs, he added.
via UN: Latin America needs help vs. drug traffickers – Americas AP – MiamiHerald.com.
Filed under: Crime, Guatemala, Las Americas, Mexico | Tagged: Crime, Drugs, gangs, Latin America, latino, U.N.
En Guatemala ser criminal……
… PAGA. Ser criminal paga muy bien.
Y no paga lo suficiente para “sobrevivir”, paga muchísimo más. Paga proporcionalmente tan bien o mejor que tener un negocio propio y seguramente paga muchísimo más que ser catedrático en u…
Troops on the border would strangle the market. Then we could deal with the internal problem.