Central America and the island nations of the Caribbean primarily play a support role in the international drug industry, serving as transit points and money laundering sites. While the impact of such activities on these small national economies is probably considerable, few relevant statistics have been compiled.
According to U.S. officials, “Central America’s position as a land bridge between South America and Mexico, together with its thousands of miles of coastline, several container-handling ports, and limited law enforcement capability, makes the entire region a natural conduit and transhipment area for illict drugs bound for Mexico and the United States.”[1]
The amount of cocaine shipped through Central America has reportedly increased by some 300% since 1993; journalist Ana Arana recently wrote that “the opportunities for profit and power” that this provides “have been rapidly exploited by many of the same groups that fought the civil wars of the 1980s.” Guatemalan journalist Edgar Celada noted in 1997 that the growing Central American role in the international drug trade had become “an obstacle for democratization and demilitarization” in the region.[2]
Arana says that the “cocaine trade has created a dangerous synergy between political terror and drug trafficking, and especially in Guatemala—the region’s largest country—the line between criminal and political violence has begun to blur.” According to the State Department, “Guatemala is the preferred country in Central America for shipment of cocaine to the United States.”
Guatemala and Panama are the only two Central American countries Washington has currently branded as “major drug-transit countries;” according to the State Department, “Guatemala is the preferred country in Central America for shipment of cocaine to the United States,” but Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Belize are also on key land and/or sea transit routes. Several large cocaine shipments were seized off the Belize coast in 2001, and the State Department reports that a highway across the Belize/Mexico border has become an important cocaine transhipment route since “Colombian drug cartels have established partnerships with the Mexican drug cartels.”
Panama is still—as it was in 1989, when the United States invaded, ostensibly to capture Panamanian dictator and accused drug trafficker Manuel Noriega—a prime regional money laundering center, as well as a key participant in the hemispheric contraband trade.[3] Money laundered in Honduras is reported to stem from “auto theft, kidnappings, bank fraud, smuggling, prostitution and corruption,” as well as drugs; while the State Department says that the dollarization of the Salvadoran economy in January 2001 “increased the risk of money laundering” there.
Among the Caribbean nations, Jamaica is singled out as a money launderer, as “the foremost producer and exporter of marijuana in the Caribbean” and as “a major transit country for cocaine.” The Dominican Republic, says the State Department, is also “a major transshipment point for narcotics moving from South America into Puerto Rico and the United States.” According to the DEA, Dominicans dominate the retail level drug trade in much of the United States.[4] The State Department says currency exchanges in the D.R. play a key role in laundering drug funds generated in the United States.
U.S. officials consider some nations in Central America and the Caribbean “vulnerable” to money laundering because of their large and well-developed financial sectors: These include Aruba, the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, and El Salvador. Other countries are said to be attractive to money launderers because of underdeveloped financial sectors plagued by corruption or poor supervision. Haiti and Nicaragua are among these.[5]
With the exception of tiny amounts of coca reportedly produced in Panama, and a miniscule Guatemalan opium poppy crop, the only drug crop grown in Central America and the Caribbean is marijuana. Jamaica is the only major exporter to the U.S. market, though most countries in the region produce at least some pot for local consumption. The United States zealously presses for eradication of these crops: In Costa Rica, the U.S. military has participated in joint eradication under the rubric “Operation Central Skies,” even though U.S. officials admit that there is no evidence that any Costa Rican marijuana is exported.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration continues to search for some evidence it can use to link Cuba to drug trafficking, arguing that Cuba’s geographic position makes it “a logical candidate” to become a major transit country. Though U.S. officials admit they have so far found no such evidence, President Bush has promised that his drug controllers will “continue to keep Cuba under careful observation.”[6]
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JoAnn Kawell is the editor of the NACLA Report
NOTES
1. President George Bush’s November 2, 2001 letter to Congress naming countries involved in the drug trade. http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/global/drugs/011110201.htm
The State Department reports referred to here are those in INCSR 2001.
2. Ana Arana, “The New Battle for Central America,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2001. Edgar Celada Q., “Narcotráfico: obstáculo para la democratización y la desmilitarización en Centroamérica,” paper presented at the conference “Centroamérica: gobernabilidad y narcotráfico,” November, 1997. http://www.tni.org/drogas/folleto4/indice4.htm
3. See also Herasto Reyes, “Panamá: de paraíso de lavado, a sede del Centro Multilateral Antidrogas,” presented at the November, 1997 conference.
4. DEA, “Drug Trafficking in the United States.”
5. On the drug trade in Haiti: Charles Arthur,“Raising the Stakes: Haiti Between Mayhem and Decertification,” NACLA Report, Vol. XXXV, No. 1 July/August 2001 Available online at http://www.nacla.org/art_display.php?art=453
6. President’s letter, see note 1.
